Dear New Yorkers, 

The heartbreaking news of Tuesday’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas is a new gut punch in already-painful times. It comes as we are still reeling from the murder last week of 10 Black New Yorkers in a Buffalo supermarket by a white supremacist. And from far too much daily gun violence on the streets of our own city.  
 
It’s hard to find meaningful words of comfort – we are so far past sick & tired – or to offer hope for the federal action on gun violence that we have long needed. As poet Amanda Gorman wrote on Tuesday, it feels like “The truth is, one nation under guns.” 
 
But we cannot, must not, will not resign ourselves to a country where mass shootings and racist violence happen with such terrifying regularity.    
 
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams is holding a vigil tonight, Thursday May 26 at 7 PM, in Union Square, an hour of healing, aimed at turning grief into action. My office is co-sponsoring, and I invite you to join. 
 
We must keep working to strengthen initiatives to get guns off the streets, to adequately fund effective mental health services and violence interrupters, to ban assault weapons, and so much more. Our failure to make meaningful progress each time such horrific events happen compounds the trauma of this moment.  
 
Still, I know this for sure: Our only choice is to help each other heal, and to do all we can to turn that grief into action – to put down the guns, to take real action for racial justice, to build safety in all of our communities. 
 
For healing, and for acting,    
 
Brad