TAMPA, Fla. — Though it’s been over a year, LaMaria Smith said the nightmare feels like it was yesterday.
“Life is supposed to be about family, fun, love, not going to a graveyard to see your kid,” said Smith.
Smith’s daughter, 21-year-old Savannah Mathis, was shot and killed while driving near Julian B. Lane Park in Dec. 2021. The thriving nursing student’s life was gone from senseless gun violence.
“When I walk into her room, I’m still telling myself she’s just out of town. She’ll be back,” said Smith.
It’s a persistent problem impacting communities far and wide. Smith weighed in on the President’s recent action on gun violence.
“I truly appreciate it. I really do. As a parent of a child dying to senseless gun violence, it lets me know that somebody actually cares what we’re going through,” said Smith.
“In 2022, we saw over 300 shootings in both Tampa and Hillsborough County combined, that included non-fatal and fatal shootings,” said Freddy Barton, the Executive Director of Safe and Sound Hillsborough, the violence prevention collaborative of Hillsborough County.
Barton said last year, Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners issued a grant award of $200,000 so they could launch a gun violence prevention initiative.
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“The second part of that component is creating a community response team that if a shooting happens in any part of the county, we’re going to deploy volunteers to go work with those families who are going through that moment of crisis,” said Barton. “We’re actually at the facility that houses our youth gun offender program that we keep those kids who are committing these offenses using guns or weapons for six months and hope to turn them around and then monitor them for another six months.”
The organization even has a short film on gun violence premiering Monday evening at the Tampa Theatre, followed by a community conversation.
“It didn’t happen overnight. It’s not going to be solved overnight, but we have to be strapped in for the long-haul,” said Barton.
Until there’s an end to the violence, families continue to pray for peace.
“I pray, but it’ll take a village,” said Smith.
