Throughout the summer of 2021, one thing has remained very important while making waves throughout the city. South Seattle’s relationship to gun violence. Since I could remember, Rainer Beach has chronically made headlines for the shootings sporadically occurring in the neighborhood & this summer would be no different with several shootings happening very close to community healing space events.

In response to a very close encounter with a shooting on Rainier & Rose, community healing space workers committed to learning from medical experts on how to heal community members hurt through crossfire in gunshot wound training sessions. young folks and adults had the opportunity of hearing from medic trainers from the Chinatown-International District, JM Wong and colleague Iris Carrera sound understanding Washington state’s ‘Good Samaritan’ laws, scene safety and consent when interacting with gunshot victims, how to communicate with first responders & lastly small group activities that replicated skits on how to treat bleeds and seizures with provided care kits to help up victims. 

In embarking on this journey towards finding solutions to Rainier Beach’s gun violence issues, we started first by being able to work through the trauma in healing circles and then in strategic planning sessions to protect ourselves in midst of possible future shooting incidents. Since after our gunshot wound trainings, Rainier Beach Action Coalition is one of very few organizations in the country versed in crime prevention & civilian first response. YATTA Rising in particular is looking to push this even further by supporting JM in building a civilian first response network throughout the city with other BIPOC led organizations in the hopes to build creative solutions to first response problems across disenfranchised Seattle communities.