Mayor Announces $250K Gun Buyback Fund
UPDATED: 4:44 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined religious and community leaders at a West Side church Monday afternoon to promote a new gun buyback effort.
The city has announced a new $250,000 fund to enable churches and community groups – with the help of police – to organize their own gun buyback events. It's part of a renewed effort to get guns off the streets. Those who turn in a gun would receive a $100 gift card.
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Emanuel says churches and community groups came to him and asked for help.
"We're going to try everything we can to bring a level of security and safety throughout the city of Chicago so that our families and our children have the opportunity to grow up free from violence," he said.
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says yes, there are people who doubt that gun buybacks really do get guns away from gang members.
"We get the parents and grandparents, we get the older brothers turning in the guns, so they're actually taking the guns away from the kids who would be using them and giving them to us and in that case, you just can't deny taking an assault rifle away from a gang banger is a good idea," McCarthy said. "Research can say whatever it wants, I can show you the examples."
The mayor met with church leaders at Greater Open Door Baptist Church in Lawndale, but residents in the surrounding community were skeptical the program would be effective.
"Pastors could probably say one thing, but it's up to the people that's shooting and killing, doing that; it's up to them to stop theyself," Lawndale resident Devonta Perry said.
Perry said the offer of money might convince some people to turn over their guns, "but the money that they get … for turning the guns in, they can use that money to go buy some more, you feel what I'm saying?"
The city has hosted gun buybacks at churches in the past, but the new program would allow churches and community organizations to host them on their own. Police officers would help staff the events and handle the guns.
The timing of the announcement is coincidental, but comes on the heels of a weekend gun tragedy in which a 6-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his 3-year-old brother with a loaded revolver their father kept on top of a refrigerator.
Their father, 25-year-old Michael Santiago, has been charged with felony child endangerment. His father, Israel LaSalle, said his son never envisioned this kind of accident.
"He didn't think they were going to be able to get up there, you know, on top of the freezer," he said.
Michael Santiago has told police he is a former gang member who kept the gun to protect his family.
