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For the past month or so, the citizens of Selma, including the students of the Selma, have mourned the loss of several victims due to the reoccurrence of gun violence that has happened right here at home.

In response to the tragic deaths of multiple teenagers due to gun violence over the past 12 months, District Attorney Robert H. Turner, Jr., of the 4th Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, delivered a presentation titled “Stop the Violence: Your Life Matters!” on Friday at R.B. Hudson Junior High School, to bring awareness to the seventh and eighth graders about the seriousness of gun violence, the repercussions of picking up a gun and the outcome that their lives could go, if they ever decide to endanger themselves or the life of someone else down the road.

The first thing Turner told the students of the school that the adults in this community love them, and their love is under no conditions and regardless of what they do. But they want them to do the right thing.

Second, he said nothing hurts adults more than when something happens to younger folks.

“Lately, in this community, there have been too many T-shirts that have been created with young folks’ pictures on them, too many balloon releases,” Turner said. “And when I think of balloons, I like to see balloons at birthday parties, baby showers and festive events including at the basketball and football games when the team runs out of the locker room. I’m tired of seeing balloons just released in the sky, talking about ‘fly high.’”

Turner said to the gymnasium full of R.B. Hudson students that he and his staff, alongside the teachers and parents, came out because they love them and want to express to them that their lives matter.

“Your life matters to each and every one of us,” Turner said. “It matters to your families, and we want you to understand that your life should be important to you.”

Turner told the group that he used to go to groups and ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, but now because of the different responses he would get, he now tells them what he wants them to be one day.

“My goal for each and every one of you all is that you all end up being a grandmamma or granddaddy one day,” Turner said. “And I say it like that because it just shifts the whole focus off of being an astronaut, a police officer, a running back, a point guard, a singer, an entertainer or a rapper. I changed the focus and shifted the bar because in order to be a grandparent, you have to have a kid. That kid has to have a kid, and you have to be around to see that person. So, I want us to shift the goal to wanting to be old one day.”

Turner said some behaviors of young people lead them to move so fast that they are doing stuff so quickly that they one day might not be able to obtain those simple goals.

During the presentation, Turner questioned the audience filled with students if they have ever had someone personally that they know to be shot, whether a family member or a friend or somebody within the community, and the majority of the room stood up.

Then, he asked the audience if they have lost a friend or family member to gun violence. The number of standing individuals increased. Then, he asked a most pondering question to the kids: have they ever seen a friend or family member in your age group in possession of a gun? There were kids who stood among the rest of the crowd.

“That’s not normal,” said Turner. “That’s not something that we should all have that much experience with. That’s not normal. That is not the life that I’m sure many of us would choose to have if we were able to make choices.”

Turner told the group that there were eight out of ten gun deaths among African American teenagers that were ruled out to be homicides, which means it is caused by the death of another person.

“We have to start valuing our lives and the lives of other people,” said Turner. “You need to understand that you do not have the power and you do not have the authority to decide when somebody’s time is up and nobody has the authority or the power to decide when your time is up. But, we have to start living our lives and understanding that, that is too many people and that, that statistic is too out of whack and it is far too many people whose lives are cut short without the opportunity to become what I want you to be one day, grandparents, which is what grandparents think about.

Turner spoke to the kids more in-depth about what it means to get old, his job as a district attorney and the laws in Alabama about guns and the charges they could have if they ever decide to get one and use it for the wrong reasons.

Turner even had a young man named Jalin Booker who was known as “Spot” within the streets of Selma to speak to the kids about his testimony being that young adult who was charged with capital murder in a shooting incident that left an older woman dead and his story behind him being bonded out, going back to jail for eight years for a different charge and how now he has turned his life around for the better being a welder and staying out of trouble.

“You can really change your life,” Booker said. “But, you have to have a vision though and a plan, because you can have a vision all day, but without a plan. It’s nothing.”

Concluding Turner’s efforts to bring a change upon students of R.B. Hudson Middle School, a staff member of the school told the kids it’s never too late to do the right thing and that now it’s time to shape their future and he recommended being wise is the key to the students and when they rank wise choices, they will soon find that it will lead them in the right direction.