‘I’ve Never Heard of a Church Stopping Gun Violence’ A conversation with Eliayni Torres and Helen Ri

‘I’ve Never Heard of a Church Stopping Gun Violence’ A conversation with Eliayni Torres and Helen Rieke

Eliayni Torres is a sophomore at St. Catharine Academy in the Bronx, NY. She lost a friend to gang-related gun violence last year and largely speaks to that experience in the interview below. She spoke with us alongside her guidance counselor, Helen Rieke.

How have you been directly affected by gun violence?

ELIAYNI: I didn’t know how to feel at one point. It was just like too much going on at the moment. It was so rare and I remember, I was in ELA class and everybody is posting it around and I just thought, “Oh that’s not true. I’m not going to believe it.”

Thursday I come into school and I find out that it’s true. So automatically, I broke down. My eyes were really baggy. I was very pale. And I remember Ms. Rieke coming into my first period class asking for me and I just remember breaking down.

And I was glad she was there because I could express my feelings with her and I can continue expressing them with her.

And it was just too much at the moment. I didn’t really know how to react to it.

It was very weird. I never broke down in class. That was not my type of movement. So me actually breaking down in class made me feel safe. I could speak to somebody. She might not relate to it but I could speak to somebody instead of holding it in and keeping so much anger to myself.

HELEN: And this was in your neighborhood?

ELIAYNI: Yeah, up the block from my house. You could literally hear the gunshots as well. It was four or five gun shots and I heard it from afar. It was crazy. I didn’t think it was going to be one of my friends.

Everybody was posting it on the Citizen app so everybody was reporting it. And the app was telling us that a 14-year-old had passed away but nobody had seen his face.

It was November 30 of 2022. When it hit a year, I was very sad, but I was also like, “okay I have to move on in life as well.”

I can’t always keep holding on to something and I just have to better myself from that. He made me realize who to trust and who not to trust and when to go outside and when not to go outside and just to always be safe.

Can you share what happened and tell us about him?

ELIAYNI: So his name was Prince Shabbaz and he was 14 years old.

His brother was gang affiliated. I would say that. And his little brother really wouldn’t be in the mix of that. His brother would always play video games. He was a loving person. I could personally say that my friend was never a bad person, he never wanted to harm nobody.

He was coming out of a building with his older brother and another gang person tried to shoot at his older brother and ended up shooting Prince. So it happened in a moment and all of his other friends saw him pass away. So it was tragic because his friends were seeing him bleed out. That was very scary.

So it affected me a lot because this was a person that I would talk to daily. And not only did it affect me a lot, it affected his family a lot because he was the youngest. Imagine losing your youngest child. It was just so rare so his family did not understand what was going on. Everybody was lost at the time.

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ELIAYNI: I feel like it affected me at one point. But I had to, not give it up, but move on and be a better person and do things that will make him happy and move on in life. And I know his family is still hurting but I know they are probably doing the same thing that I’m doing: moving on and finding better things in life to do than just sitting there crying. Because sitting there crying isn’t going to bring them back. It still affects me on certain days, but not like when it happened.

Has it changed how you act on a daily basis? Is there anything you do differently?

ELIAYNI: To be honest, it affects me but then it doesn’t because we live in a messed-up world where gun violence is everywhere.

You don’t even have to be in a gang or anything. They’ll just shoot you automatically. They shoot up schools for no reason.

And it’s just unacceptable. Put the gun down. There’s no point of using it if you’re not in a bad predicament or don’t need it for self-defense.

My mom always told me how to be street smart. You got to move smart in the street. If you see somebody that’s moving, you got to learn how to be calm and not interact with those people.

You have to have a good mouth when you’re in the street. You have to hold your tongue. So that’s why it really hasn’t affected me when I’m in school or outside of school because I know I’m not going to go ahead and pick up a gun and harm somebody.

What would you want people to know about how this has affected the lives of young people?

ELIAYNI: I feel things [lockdown drills] are helpful because some people don’t take it seriously. I take it seriously, because my life depends on it. The bullet doesn’t have to go through me.

Anything can happen. People broke into our school and imagine if we were inside. They broke glass and everything. So it’s just like having a lockdown. You always have to be prepared for that.

I feel like we should do that more. We do it, but just not on a daily basis. I feel like we should learn how to hide because it is a scary world. It’s an all girl school, there’s mainly men around this area. I’m not saying all men are dangerous, but there’s some men that are dangerous, and some women, too. We have to keep each other safe and it depends on the teachers lives as well.

We’re in school. They’re basically our guardians.

I just feel like lockdowns are really important, even if you’re working in a store. There are a lot of gun shootings at the mall as well.

HELEN: You feel like you’re more aware. She’s more smart to things that are going on.

ELIAYNI: You just have to be really street smart.

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Could you speak to how you support one another with the threat of violence?

HELEN: Whatever my students need, they know when they come to my office as their counselor, this is their safe space. So there they can voice whatever they need, and when they’re anxious, especially it is very anxiety provoking, these world events.

Because of social media, because of all stuff that’s going on this world, teenagers know more than we do. They know more than we do. And all of that knowledge has caused a lot more stress. And we see it. We see it daily.

So, when the girls can come in and just have a conversation just to feel like someone’s listening to them. It is really important for me, my role here, and this is what I try to do to give them a safe space to talk. We can’t solve the world problems. We try as much as we can but we do live in a scary world.

And these girls have to live in an area where they have to be street smart. They have to know their surroundings. They can’t look down when they’re in the bus. It’s harder, I think, than when we went to school.

ELIAYNI: Our generation is the most dangerous generation out there. Our time is terrible. Now, everybody is dying. Say I’m gang-affiliated and she’s from a different side. I’m going to approach her and I’m going to want to kill her. That’s how it is now. I always say this: my people die, yes. But me arguing with you isn’t going to get them back. You can talk bad about them all you want, but at the end of the day I’m not going to argue because I can’t do anything about it. They’re gone.

I hear you saying that you are really aware how that cycle can keep going and that you’re refusing to participate.

ELIAYNI: I know people who are gang-affiliated and I love them from afar. They won’t drag me into it. I don’t really get the point of being in a gang.

I was raised like that. My mom always told me not to react. You react when you have to react. But when it comes to people saying, “This is why your people are dead.” I can’t do anything about it. I really can’t. I could probably get mad and argue a little bit but there is really no point. There’s no point of nobody arguing. And it’s just like I said, you’re not going to get them back.

Where do you find hope? How do you keep going and find the good?

ELIAYNI: I believe in God and I read the Bible. If I feel low, that’s where I go. I’ll read the Bible. If I feel like I’m falling apart, I’ll read the Bible. Sometimes I bring my Bible to school when I feel anxious or low. And I’ll go to [Ms. Rieke]. I have hope in her and I have hope in my Bible.

Photo © Maria Lysenko, Unsplash

How would you say it has affected you over the last year?

HELEN: And I have hope in these kids. They come and they grow and for [Eliayni] especially, her goal when it first happened was: what do you want to do to make his memory? What do you think he would want you to do? And for her, it was to keep going, graduate high school, make a better life for herself.

Get out of the situation and have a better life.

I think that is that hope. Our girls are moving and they are going to become something in this life and hopefully make changes. We never know where they’re going to end up but it’s always that hope. She’s moving forward. She’s working towards a goal. And that is always hopeful for me. They’re going somewhere, these girls.

What would you like to see faith leaders and the Church doing differently?

ELIAYNI: I’ve never heard about a church stopping gun violence. But they should work on it more because there are kids losing their lives, not just gang-affiliated. There are kids losing their lives. It doesn’t matter what age you are. There are people falling apart because their kid is gone. So the church should work on it.

Non-Violence

Everything is in God’s hands, I always say, and everything comes out in the light, but I think they should work on it because everything works in God’s hands. They could speak about it and protest. I would be glad to protest gun violence. I told my sister about it and she did protest. Me coming to you and telling you my story about gun violence is a good thing. I want people to hear this and I want churches to have a better impact too.

HELEN: I agree. I think more should be said. More should be done.

ELIAYNI: Actions speak louder than words. That’s what I personally think. Action. Speaking isn’t doing enough. I already have to move smart, so churches should really do it. Any community should really do it, to be honest.

I know I’m not the only one that has experienced gun violence. So that’s why I said protesting is also good. I know for a fact that other girls in this school have experienced gun violence, but they just don’t talk about it. Even if they haven’t experienced gun violence, I feel like they should stand up because they don’t know if their friends are going through it, or their family members are really going through it. So you’ve got to use your voice when it comes to this type of stuff.

“Humor is the finest instrument we have to bring people together . . .”

Many of us have seen the sculpture: a cocked 45-caliber revolver with the barrel tied in a knot. Today, there are many replicas of this sculpture, titled Non-Violence, all over the world. But the one depicted here is one of three originals, now located outside the United Nations building in New York City.

Artist Carl Frederk Reutersward made the sculpture in 1980 after the death of John Lennon. Intended to honor Lennon’s vision of a peaceful world, it was originally located at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, across the street from where Lennon lived. In 1988, however, the government of Luxembourg bought the statue and donated it to the UN. In a statement made during its move, Reutersward explained the significance of the sculpture, saying, “Humor is the finest instrument we have to bring people together. While making my peace symbol, I thought of the importance of introducing a touch of humor, just to make my ‘weapon’ symbolically ridiculous and completely out of order.”

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