Rich Negrin: My Day Begins and Ends With Gun Violence

Richard Negrin | Photo courtesy of the Managing Director’s Flickr

Richard Negrin, Philadelphia’s managing director, gets the question over and over again: “What’s your typical day like?”

A few weeks ago, he decided to pick a random day in advance, document his experiences rigorously throughout the 24-hour period (with the help of an intern, of course), and then write about them on his blog. When someone asked him the question in the future, he could point them to his essay. He settled on June 17th as the date.

His day, he said, ended up being a horrifyingly perfect “snapshot of what it’s like to be a big-city managing director” — as well as just “what it’s like to be an American.”

That’s because it began and ended with gun violence.

At 7 a.m., Negrin woke up, read the paper, checked his email. He looked at notifications from the police department: They said two shootings took place while he was sleeping. Then he got ready to go to a Philadelphia middle school, where he was planning to speak about gun violence. Here’s how he described that talk:

9 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Arrive at John B. Stetson Middle School. Speak at the opening of a 5th grade class’ memorial garden project for loved ones impacted by gun violence. (Collectively, the class had over 80 loved ones impacted by gun violence.) Speak about the tragedy of gun violence, share my personal experience, hear the class’ experiences with it, and discuss the need for both legislative and cultural changes throughout our country. Share stories, spend time with 5th graders, teachers, and PhillyRising staff.

Did you read that? Negrin said the students in one middle school class had a combined total of over 80 loved ones impacted by gun violence.

Negrin himself has been impacted by gun violence, too. Actually, that’s an imperfect description. It makes it sound like he was passively affected, when he actually experienced what must be one of the worst things that can happen to a person. When he was just 13 years old, he watched his father get gunned down.

It makes you wonder: What is it like for Negrin to be barraged with the consequences of gun violence day in and day out as managing director, after having the childhood that he had?

But back to June 17th. From 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Negrin’s day was jam-packed with meetings, meetings and more meetings. Plus speeches, speeches and more speeches. Somewhere in between, he ate soup at his desk for lunch.

Then at 10 p.m., he first found out what we all know by now: Nine people had been shot and killed at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He watched the news until the wee hours of the morning, and then tried to fall asleep, fruitlessly.

Here’s how he described having his day bookended by violence:

My day began and ended with gun violence. This is an issue which has personally touched my life with the death of my father, and an issue which has impacted me so profoundly as Deputy Mayor and Managing Director. One of the difficult aspects of this job is the repeated exposure to complex problems in our city and feeling an overwhelming responsibility to fix them. Whether it’s the violence in our neighborhoods, our children too often caught in the crossfire, open season on our police officers or the widespread proliferation of guns, we need to do something about the gun violence in our society. The shooting in Charleston was a horrific attack and one that could have just as easily happened in any city or town in America.  It was an act of terror. Earlier that morning, I was with 5th graders in Philadelphia as they told me about their personal experiences with gun violence. Many of their families, too, have been terrorized by gun violence. It was gut-wrenching. Now, at the end of my day, Charleston was gut-wrenching. Gun violence continues to be a blood stain on our society.

While this busy day gives a snapshot of what it’s like to be a big-city Managing Director, it also gives an accurate snapshot of what it’s like to be an American. Whether it’s the mass shootings at our churches, schools, malls, movie theatres or the violence in our neighborhoods, we are constantly surrounded, overwhelmed, and terrorized by gun violence. This cannot be the status quo. This cannot be our “Day in the Life” any longer.

A lot of attention has been paid to the fact that, under Mayor Michael Nutter, the number of homicides in Philadelphia has dropped precipitously. And rightly so. In 2007, the year before he took office, there were 398 murders. In 2014, there were 248.

That drop is dramatic, awe-inspiring and promising. But 248 people were killed last year, many by guns. That’s still an incredible number of human beings to lose. The topic of gun violence was absent in the Democratic mayoral primary earlier this year. Negrin’s essay underlines how much of a missed opportunity that was.

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