NEW ORLEANS — If you stand close enough, you can make out the names and numbers in small font on the beige plasterboard outside St. Anna’s Episcopal Church.
5/25/07 Montrell Faulkin 22 Shot
3/02/10 Kris Rink 24 Shot
9/19/12 Garold Lewis 25 Shot
There are so many names, dozens and dozens, that the display runs out of room with 2012 and resumes inside the church with more panels listing yet more names of people killed in gun violence in New Orleans. Among the victims — mostly black, mostly young, mostly male — is Deidra Smoot-Hall’s baby boy:
6/21/15 Kenneth Hall Jr. 27 Shot.
On the local nightly news, her son’s death was a blip, another name on the seemingly never-ending list of people killed with a firearm.
“I know he’s not coming back,” Smoot-Hall said. “But I refuse to allow him to become just another number. He was a victim of violence. Brutal gun violence.”