A new Philly police unit aims to solve thousands of nonfatal shootings. But who will help survivors? | Helen Ubiñas

It had been a little while since the support group for paralyzed gunshot survivors had gotten together. So, it was good to receive a Zoom invite from Victoria Wylie, the group’s facilitator, for the first of a series of reconvened virtual meetings last month.

There was a mix-up with the start time, so during the call, Wylie and I were able to catch up and take stock of a group that started in 2019. Those first meetings three years ago were inspired by a conversation I’d had with Jalil Frazier, who was paralyzed during an armed robbery in a North Philadelphia barbershop in 2018. He was using his body to shield three children from gunfire when he was struck by a bullet.

When Frazier confided that he found the most comfort by connecting with other paralyzed survivors, I promised that if a group like this didn’t exist, I’d help him start one.

But it was Wylie, the founder of a nonprofit named for a brother lost to gun violence in 2008, who made it a reality — which was no small feat given the lack of outside support or any other additional resources.

“It was working with this group, where I really realized what a heavy load they were carrying,” Wylie said. “It is our responsibility to try to help them.”

A lot has changed since the group’s inception — COVID-19 forced the meetings once held at the Carousel House recreation center in Fairmount Park to go virtual, and participants have come and gone as their needs changed. For a while, one member led his own series of meetings. At times, the future of the group has been in question. It still is.

But one thing has remained constant — the needs of victims, who are left to navigate life-changing injuries, emotional trauma, and steep financial burdens mostly on their own.

Precise figures on the number of paralyzed survivors remain ridiculously elusive, but a recent estimate by the city’s health department indicated that as many as 1 in 7 shooting victims ends up paralyzed in some way. I thought of these survivors and thousands of others — more than 1,800 people were shot and survived last year alone — when a new police unit dedicated to investigating nonfatal shootings was announced last month. It was one of the recommendations in the nearly 200-page gun violence report the city released in early February.

With nearly 8 in 10 shootings over the last five years unsolved, a unit dedicated to solving more of these shootings, and potentially deterring more violence, is long overdue.

But so is helping these victims in meaningful, measurable ways.

After a 2018 Inquirer investigation about the lifelong burdens shouldered by survivors and their families, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans drafted legislation to address the plight of disabled survivors of gun violence and help their growing ranks find desperately needed resources. But they’ve now introduced the Resources for Victims of Gun Violence Act twice. And twice it has stalled. It was referred to a subcommittee in the spring of 2021.

In the meantime, survivors are still struggling.

Still dragging themselves up and down stairs as they scramble for the resources to install stairlifts and other features to make their homes accessible for people with disabilities.

Still left to turn to GoFundMe or any number of public fund-raising platforms to plea for help for their most basic needs.

Still left to seek help and fellowship in a group that has yet to receive the kind of support from the individuals and institutions who profess to serve victims.

It’s time to pass the Resources for Victims of Gun Violence Act.

It’s time to demand that individuals and institutions stop merely lauding the efforts of support groups like this one, and finally offer them tangible resources.

It’s time we stop saying we need to help victims of gun violence, and actually help them.

When survivors in the group described struggling with the lingering trauma of their injuries, it was their fellow survivors in the room who talked them through it — and helped them navigate the scavenger hunt for services — because they had all been there.

Because most still are. On any given week, I hear from multiple survivors, trauma doctors, and gun prevention activists who’ve referred other survivors to the group.

During the virtual meeting in February, Oronde McClain was making his first visit. McClain, 32, was 10 when he was shot in the head. During his recovery, McClain had to relearn how to walk, but all these years later, the right side of his body remains partially paralyzed.

Despite being in touch with survivors in his work as an antiviolence activist, he never expected to see Charles Horton on the call.

Years ago, McClain’s grandmother, who worked in City Hall with Horton, asked him to speak to her grandson after he was shot. He hadn’t seen Horton in years, but he remembered how much it meant to receive advice and reassurance from someone who had actually experienced what they’d each been through.

I’ve heard many members of the group say this. It’s why this group remains so important, and why in order for it to survive and thrive it needs the kind of support and resources this city is quick to offer other programs with nowhere near the impact.

It had been more than 20 years since McClain and Horton, who was 17 when he was shot in 1988, had spoken. It was an emotional reunion.

The bullets, Horton, now 50, said, made shooting victims “prisoners of their bodies.”

But their struggles, McClain said, “created a blueprint” they can use to help others.

Two men, connected by pain and misfortune, vowing to do more for the next generation of survivors than was ever done for them.