ST. LOUIS MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com)—
There are signs all over St. Louis kids are "fed up" with all the voilence they're seeing. A simple message children left at a murder scene last summer, has blossomed into an anti-violence ad campaign. Whether you're sitting behind the wheel or sitting at a bus stop, you'll get the message: "Stop All The Violence". St. Louis Police Detective, Dana Isom, said children in the police department's GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training) program came up with the signs now featured in the campaign.13 city police officers are teaching hundreds of students, grades 4-8, to steer clear of gangs and violence through the program.
The ad campaign started when students in the program wanted to take action after the murder of 19 year old Terry Mims, of Ferguson, June 22, 2008, near Northwest Middle School in the 5700 block of Riverview in North St. Louis.
Mims and his two cousins were walking back to their grandmother's house after playing basketball. Mims' cousin, Justin, said accused gunman, Marquise Atkins, 19, demanded the gold chain Terry Mims was wearing around his neck.
"My cousin took the chain off no problem and gave it to him," said Justin Mims. "Then another guy walked up ... punched my cousin, my cousin took off running then they started shooting him...as we were running, I turned around, I heard the third shot, I remember seeing my cousin just fall."
He said they did not know Atkins and his accomplices.
"The kids decided that nobody talks about it. Everybody's afraid to say 'stop all the violence'," Isom said. "They thought it was just so simple to say 'let's just stop it. Let's just not do it anymore'. So they thought that if they said it enough and they put up enough signs about it other people might say, 'hey, yeah, that's a good idea, let me join in'."
They started humbly with the now, weather-worn sign that still marks the shooting scene.
They've just graduated to Metro transit; "Stop All The Violence" messages have become billboards "on" and "in" buses and trains.
Terry Mims' said they looked forward to watching the signs pass them by.
"Yeah, it will mean a lot," said Justin Mims. "It is worthwhile."
"That sign will probably bring back all the good memories we had and keep my head up," said Mims cousin, Barry Willis, who was witnessed the shooting. "That's what me, Justin and Terry did. Everytime it was hot outside we'd go play basketball. That was our favorite thing to do, especially when we around each other, just have fun, playing basketball. It ain't the same without him."
Isom said the program was working; take one recent graduate who made it clear how much he hated police when he started the 12 week program.
He wrote Isom a letter after he graduated.
"He said the he wanted to be a police officer," Isom said. "The kids are tired. They are tired. They're tired of living like this. They're tired of being in the middle of it. They're tired of seeing their friends die. You can go into a classroom and there's not one kid in there who doesn't know somebody who was either killed, shot, or in jail, and they're tired of it."
A U.S. Justice Department grant covers the cost of the "Great" program, including the ad campaign.
Atkins is about to go on trial for murder.
