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Grieving mother a voice against violence
Tuesday, July 17, 2001 By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The call to end violence in Pittsburgh was elevated a notch yesterday by a mother who knows all too well the pain of losing a son to mayhem in the streets.
Adrienne Young buried her son, Javon Thompson, on Christmas Eve 1995. Thompson was a promising Carnegie Mellon University art student who was killed when a young man burst into a home he was visiting and shot three people. His murder not only left behind his mom, but also a daughter who was born a month after his burial.
After the peak of gang- and drug-related violence a decade ago, people are still on the run, said Young.
"There's still a river of our children's blood in the streets," she said. "We can't continue to live like we've been living."
Young, whose anti-violence efforts are supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, held a news conference with the civil rights group last night as a reminder that the grass-roots organization Tree of Hope is there to help families of victims.
With the aid of other community groups, Young started Tree of Hope five years ago in response to her son's death. Now, she hopes to move it into other communities to identify neighborhood trouble spots, develop positive activities for youths and train community leaders to work with police and other agencies to stem violence.
Cathy Moore Sigmund, a licensed psychologist who spoke at the news conference, said the impact of violence is more than physical.
"The focus is usually on the sensational, the death," said Sigmund. "But the violence stains the hearts and emotions of families of victims and breeds a cycle of violence."
It's a cycle of pain that Tree of Hope, based at the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp. on Penn Avenue, hopes to cease.
From its offices, the group coordinates a crisis response program that provides counseling for children, bereavement assistance, law enforcement assistance, interfaith spiritual referrals and other services. With support from volunteers and funding from drug confiscation proceeds, the group also provides a hot line: 412-886-1212. An answering machine will be on 24 hours a day.
"For the children that are left behind," said Young, "the nightmare begins after a [loved one] is buried. They're born into brokenness and fragmentation that can affect their lives forever."
Deborah Friedman of the Center for Violence and Injury Control at Allegheny General Hospital said there have been 369 homicides in Allegheny County since 1997 that left 738 children behind.
"Those are the ones that need some help," she said.
In addition to the hot line, Tree of Hope will help launch monitoring groups in collaboration with police and religious organizations to report on criminal activity.
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