After violent weekend in Dallas, community meeting hopes to tackle gun violence crisis

DALLAS - Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn King Arnold is holding a community engagement meeting to talk about answers to gun violence.

The Thursday night meeting in Oak Cliff comes after an extremely violent weekend in Dallas.

Twelve people were shot in two separate incidents over the weekend. Two people lost their lives.

• Woman killed, 8 injured after South Dallas party
• 1 killed, 2 injured at east Oak Cliff apartment complex

[REPORTER: "What is happening in our streets?"]

"Gun violence, for one thing," said Mar Butler, CEO and founder of TREE Leadership. "We have to understand that it is an epidemic that can completely get out of control because it is a quick answer to a long overlapping problem: unaddressed solutions. It's the easiest answer to anger. Lack of conflict resolution. And when we don't have any other options in resolving conflict, we turn to the gun because it's the easiest. It’s easily accessible. It's easy to use."

Butler, who was a leader in the streets, is now leading another way through his non-profit, TREE Leadership, trying to keep 12 to 25-year-olds from the streets.

[REPORTER: "Can we change what's happening in our streets every day?"]

"Yes, we can if we change our perspective on our approach," Butler said.

The Paul Laurence Dunbar Library was the place for a meeting to talk about answers to gun violence.

"And so that's part of our project, Dallas 365 Safe," Arnold explained. "It's about rolling out a conversation around partnership and engagement."

The deputy mayor pro tem spoke with Victor Alvelais, a ‘violence interrupter’ with Dallas CRED. 

"I grew up in this community," he said. "I went to Oliver Wendell Holmes. It's now being rebuilt."

Alvelais says the kind of investment made in property must be made in people.

"It may seem like there's nothing here, but there's a lot of potential here. As the sign over there says, the future is now the future is now. And this is what we want this community to see and understand," he said. "Like where we're standing was once a very infamous housing project. It added to the problems, but they tore this down and replaced it with a library. That is symbolic. That right there has a lot of meaning behind it."

Arnold argues changing the narrative must be a collaborative effort. 

"And we want people not to give up hope because there are folks who still believe if I can see it, I can go after it," he said. "But the bottom line is we have to show it to them. Because so many times we hear the rhetoric about what we want, but how do we get there?"

Arnold's message to all stake holders is that law enforcement agencies, non-profits and social justice groups need to show up and start to work together.