Campaign hopes to end gunfire on 4th of July

MIAMI (WSVN) -- "No more stray bullets" is the rally cry lawmakers and family members who have lost loved ones to random gunfire made ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.

They gathered just before noon Monday in the Liberty City neighborhood in the hopes that  their message gets through in time so no one else gets killed.

City of Miami and Miami-Dade County officials teamed up to introduce a campaign featuring local musician Pit Bull targeted at discouraging the aimless shooting of firearms, particularly as a form of celebration. "I'm sure that the people that are firing these guns up in the air aren't doing it looking to hurt anyone," said City of Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito, "but the bottom line is, that at the end of the day, that's exactly what happens."

"One bullet kills the party" will appear on bus benches, posters and billboards throughout Miami-Dade County.

The unveiling ceremony was held at Sherdavia Jenkins Park, named after a girl who died by a stray bullet outside her Liberty City home in 2006 when she was 9 years old. "This is the ideal place to hold a new beginning; a beginning for our people to get the word that 'No more stray bullets' is not playing," said District 5 Commissioner Audrey Edmonson. "We want those guns put down."

"A young baby lost here life because of a stray bullet," said District 5 City of Miami Commissioner Rev. Richard Dunne. "If that does not grab the heart of this community, I don't know what will. Stray bullets are dangerous."

Like Jenkins, other youngsters have been hit by stray bullets. Eleven-year-old Joshua Arroliga died New Year's Eve 2008 after a neighbor fired his gun, and, on the first day of this year, a 6-year-old Italian boy was also shot after a bullet missed his heart by centimeters while on vacation in Miami with his family.

It is these all too familiar scenarios that community leaders never want to see happen again.

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