Salinas Peace and Unity Rally calls for end to violence
A march and rally held in Salinas on Saturday has the community calling for an end to the violence.
Families who have lost love ones to violence spoke out, sharing stories and heartbreak, but also finding strength in knowing they are fighting to make a change.
The father of 38-year-old Yvonne Flores is among the many calling for change. Yvonne was shot and killed less than two months ago in Salinas while she was at a memorial for another family member who had just passed away.
She and her cousin Anthony Gomez were both killed in the shooting. Her father says together everyone has to strive for peace, “There’s power in unity, that’s why we’re here today. We’re united. This city belongs to us, this city does not belong to the enemy it belongs to us.”
High schoolers in attendance today say they see violence all around them. “I hear gunshots like everyday, police and sirens and it’s crazy that young people are dying out hear just for wearing a color,” says Joshua who is a Junior at Alisal High School.
Isaiah, who also attends school in Salinas says it’s gotten to the point you can’t even make eye contact with some people “even if you look at someone wrong or breathe wrong in their direction they’re going to take it offensive and want to handle some business, as they would say.”
They also tell KION the pressure to do drugs and join gangs is very prominent, but want their peers to know there are other alternatives, “you can’t win this World by spreading hate and fighting hate against hate. You got to fight hate with love and spread God’s love and in order to change someone’s own dark lifestyle you gotta love them no matter how bad the issue is,” says Joshua.
One of the organizers of Saturday’s rally, Manuel Aguilar, says the only way to stop the bloodshed is working together, “the violence is getting out of hand obviously and we what we want to do is let people know that there’s thing that we can do that don’t have to be violent. And one of the things that we can do is get together as we are now as a community and show people that hey listen, we are a community still and Salinas is not going to go down with violence. We’re going to rise it up and make it happen.”
