WASHINGTON — According to D.C. Police, 131 people have been murdered in the District this year. On Tuesday, the department announced its plan to try and cut the murder rate down, add more overtime hours and increase community engagement.
Police said the murder rate is 11 percent higher than it was this time last year.
One day after that announcement was made, Moms Demand Action rallied together to let D.C. officials know enough is enough.
The large group talked about ideas that they think could work, the current state of the city’s violence, and wrote letters to their local leadership asking them to make eliminating gun violence a top priority.
For 16-year-old Brianna Johnson, she said this is personal.
"Every time I hear gunshots I always text, my family, my friends to make sure everybody okay because it could be anybody, literally, you can talk to one person right now later on they’re not there," Johnson said.
Johnson said every day she goes on social media and sees one posts saying 'rest in peace.'
"It hurts for me to even say rest in peace in front of my first love’s name, his name was Javonte Brown and he died this summer," Johnson said. "To put rest in peace in front of his name was really hard."
Dozens of people wrote down their personal encounters with gun violence, showcasing how violence touches an entire community.
Angelina Howard has also been personally touched.
"You can’t go outside because you never know what's gonna happen," Howard said.
Beyond worrying about her living family, she lost her brother 16 years ago and said the wounds are still fresh.
"I still have nightmares about yesterday, and it just, it doesn't go away. It doesn't go away,” Howard said.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser talked with the Moms Demand Action group and said she’s glad people are getting involved.
"It's not enough for just the police to talk about it or just the people in this building to talk about it," Bowser said. "We all have to be outraged and do everything that we can to remove illegal guns and make sure our laws are being executed to the fullest extent."
Bowser said they’re working to implement trauma services.
"We’ve proposed for this budget to have our trauma services available throughout the city and create those centers or right, and communities that are most affected by violence," Bowser said.
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As for what’s next, Johnson said she feels hopeful for what to come.
"Having everybody today it really feel like we could do something we could change the gun violence and we can make the gun rate go down, instead of it going up," Johnson said.