[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11584]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                RISING VIOLENCE IN OUR URBAN COMMUNITIES

  (Mr. VEASEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. VEASEY. Madam Speaker, I recently stood with my colleagues of the 
Congressional Black Caucus to call for a National Emergency Summit on 
Urban Violence. In light of the verdict in Florida, the Trayvon Martin 
verdict, I wanted to talk about the violence that has recently happened 
in my district and why we need to do something about mental illness.
  We had an incident where a man killed his pregnant girlfriend, the 
mother, and her 10-year-old brother, and then went into a neighboring 
police station and asked for the police to shoot him.
  We had another incident, a young Somali boy, only 5 years old. The 
people that lived in the apartment complex loved to see this little boy 
ride his bicycle around. A 13-year-old got into a disagreement with him 
and beat him in the head until he died, and he left him in a backyard.
  Then we had another recent drive-by shooting in my district where the 
assailant said he shot the wrong guy, and the wrong guy was an innocent 
12-year-old boy.
  We need to do something about mental illness and about violence that 
is gripping this country. It is clear that there are many people who 
due to mental illness do not have the ability to calmly and rationally 
resolve their differences with others. Instead, they turn to violence.
  Let's do something about the rising violence in our urban 
communities.

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