When Gun Violence Becomes Personal

The Norwood News, in partnership with WFUV radio and BronxNet Television, presents a five-part series on the impact gun violence has had on Bronx neighborhoods and the people who live in them. 

Shootings across the Bronx have increased so far this year, with 156 reported cases where a gun went off versus 148 shootings at the same time last year, according to NYPD statistics. The alarm on gun violence has sounded, and advocates have heard it, working toward the common goal of reducing gun violence. Some have never met, yet their lives have been changed by the ring of bullets and the damage it’s wrought upon their families.
The message is clear from these advocates: Enough.

Lorraine Padilla
Lorraine Padilla, a Bronx activist, works to make a safer community, especially for children. Padilla has been no stranger to gun violence, recalling family, friends, and neighborhood kids who’ve died from it.

Her push for state legislation came in 2013 when her three-year-old grandson was shot in front of Vidalia Park in West Farms. The bullet grazed his stomach, piercing his elbow. He survived, but six years later the family still feels the trauma.

“If you shoot that gun and someone under 12 gets hurt or maimed, you should be punished,” said Padilla, who has been advocating for “Luisito’s Law,” which would sentence those found to have shot a child under age 10 from five to 25 years in prison. “You need to go to prison. And it’ll send a message to all these other knuckleheads out there just shooting a gun because they think it’s cute.”

The allure of guns has surrounded Padilla, who was born in Spanish Harlem and joined a gang at the age of 10. By age 13, she held a gun for the first time, a small-size Derringer that belonged to her mother’s friend.

Her life has since veered away from gang culture. In 1992, she started working as a social worker, becoming a kind of calling. “There was no other place for me to go but becoming a social worker because it’s all about helping the fellow man, woman.”

Nathalie Arzu
Nathalie Arzu’s brother, Jose Webster, was shot and killed on Sept. 15, 2011, 10 days after his 16th birthday, and four blocks away from their Morris Park home. Arzu said her brother was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was walking home after a date with his girlfriend.

Two men shot Jose 15 times.

Arzu was attending college when her 10-year-old brother called with the news.  “When he was taken away, it felt like I took a hit because as the older sister it’s like you had one job,” Arzu said. “And I couldn’t do that job, because someone decided to take him away from me.”     

Arzu withdrew from college and came home to care for her family, falling into a deep, months-long depression until she finally had enough. Months after her brother died, she was walking outside one day after someone had just gotten shot.

“And I remember someone vividly saying, ‘This is the community we live in. This is just what it is.’ And that’s the moment I realized no it’s not. We shouldn’t have to accept this as our norm, we shouldn’t have to accept this as what we have to deal with,” Arzu, now 27, said.

Arzu returned to school and worked toward becoming a community activist. She works as a domestic violence coordinator addressing how gun violence affects the home. Through Everytown Against Gun Violence and Mothers Demand Action, Arzu works with people who have been directly affected by gun violence. “I don’t want anyone else in my shoes,” Arzu, who actively works toward making the community safer, said. “I don’t want people to wait until they’re personally impacted to say this is wrong, we should do something, we should change something. So I advocate and I share my story.”

Darnell Macon
Darnell Macon spent 16 years behind bars for alleged gun fights before he took to the Bronx streets to relate to kids who could possibly face the same fate he did.                                                        

Macon grew up in Baychester and was familiar with the streets. From a young age, he banded together with the neighborhood boys and they became like family to him.                                                  

Macon was 15 the first time he held a gun. It was the first time he shot one as well. “I shot it in the air and I couldn’t believe the feeling,” Macon said. “From there I just took off with it.”                                     

It was a year later when he said he got his own gun. Macon was 23 years old when he was sentenced to 18 years at a prison in upstate New York. He was accused in two cases that involved shootings, but maintains innocence on one. “When I first got incarcerated, I couldn’t believe it. I thought this couldn’t happen to me,” he said.

Macon had a three-year-old son at the time he was sent to an upstate New York prison and he was emotionally wrought over the news of not being able to see his son grow up. He recalled sitting in the visiting room watching a girl with her father, who couldn’t read a book to her. “He didn’t know how to read.” Macon said. “When I saw that, I was like I cannot be put in that position when my son asks me to read a book or something to him. So, that’s when I really started educating myself and turning everything around.”

Macon eventually started learning the electrical trade, briefly working in the industry after his release. Now he works with Court Innovation’s Save Our Streets as an outreach worker, something he finds more meaningful. “I love it because it’s redemption for me. I shed blood in these streets, I poisoned peoples’ family from selling drugs and hurt people,” Macon said. “I owe these streets my time and my dedication and I owe the youth that because I see me in a lot of them.”