“I’m tired of seeing other moms who are so sad and so angry. I’m tired of being that mom.”

Alicia Dass lost her son Conner to gun violence in Seattle a little over a year ago, but the loss still burdens her. Now, she wants to make sure no other mothers are forced to live with that burden.

She and many other community members held a meeting last week with the African American Community Advisory Council and the East Precinct Advisory Council to highlight the issue of gun violence. In the week since that meeting, shootings have only gotten worse.

Several more people have now been shot and killed over the past week as this year continues to spiral downward in a wave of gun violence. Each of those lives represents another family torn apart, another life stolen from friends, and another mother left in mourning.

Why? Why is this happening here and now?

“People shoot you in the daytime because they know they’re not going to jail, let’s be real,” said Reverend Harriett Walden, co-founder of Mothers for Police Accountability. Victoria Beach, SPD African American Community Advisory Chair agreed: “The people that are committing crimes and the shootings, they know there aren’t enough police to respond. It’s a free for all.”

Beach also wondered when city councilmembers will meet them on the streets to restore confidence of constituents and share a plan to end the violence.

“How many times have we been here? It doesn’t change. They have haven’t come out and they won’t come out.”

After one of the most violent weeks in recent memory, former City of Seattle Safety Advisor Scott Lindsay also noted the absence of Seattle city councilmembers.

“The silence is deafening.”