Territory’s First Summit on Gun Violence Prevention to be Held on St. Thomas

The USVI’s first Summit on Gun Violence Prevention, scheduled for July 4 and 5, aims to holistically tackle the territory’s staggeringly high gun violence rates through discussions between community leaders, faith leaders, and Virgin Islands residents. ‌The summit’s host, Pastor Gilford Monrose, is St. Thomas native now based in Brooklyn, New York. He told the Consortium that his personal experience with gun violence in both St. Thomas and the mainland is what moved him to work in community-driven gun violence prevention. “I've always had the awareness of how do we save generations of young black boys, and so I started this work many years ago when a young man was shot and killed on the same block of the street in which I pastored in Brooklyn,” Mr. Monrose said. More than three years ago, Mr. Monrose worked with the USVI Department of Health to draft the bill that ultimately led to the creation of the Virgin Islands Office of Gun Violence Prevention. He sees the summit— which the pas...