The city of Dallas has registered 222 homicides in 2020 through Sunday — more than all of 2019 and the most in any year in over a decade. When attention moves to the next violent crime, the families of victims are left to cope.
The city of Dallas has registered 222 homicides in 2020 through Sunday -- more than all of 2019 and the most in any year in over a decade.
In recent weeks, a flurry of homicides seemed to constantly shift the spotlight from one violent scene to the next. But for the families of the victims, even after the headlines move on, they are, in many respects, left behind.
“Empathy is when you have been there and you know exactly how it felt and it is just terrible,” said Jaylon Miller, who was shot five times in January.
Miller was fortunate to survive – avoiding becoming the city’s fourth homicide of 2020. But his one-year-old nephew, Rory Norman was also hit and died in the same unexplained shooting.
“So many stories get pushed away, they get lost in the abyss – there is so many other things, COVID, the presidential election but we still remember Rory every day,” Miller said.
Miller said he hoped by bringing attention to the growing number of families impacted by gun violence this year that the push for change will accelerate. And perhaps more than just finding the person responsible for the shooting of both he and his nephew, Miller said he hoped people will come together to combat the violence that has consumed Dallas.
“If we all come together and come to one mind and say, 'Hey, we are all human, we can all understand each other,' then I think that would really decrease the violence,” Miller said.
