“I didn’t know Miss Odessa, but I feel like I do,” said Tamika D. Mallory, the nationally known anti-violence advocate told the AmNews. “The tragic loss of life leads us to ask what could have been done, and we must acknowledge that desperation breeds crime.”
It was a warm summer night Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016, around 11:45 p.m. Odessa Simms, 61, was playing a card game of pinochle at the Charles Young Park at West 144 Street and Lenox Avenue, two blocks from her West 142 Street home in Harlem. From between parked cars, one group of males reportedly fired at another group, in the general direction of the park, where many people were milling about and sitting on benches.
Unaware of the developing deadly melee, Simms a grandmother, was shot in the neck. She was taken to Harlem Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Her family and friends are devastated.
“Everyone knows Miss Odessa,” one neighbor said of the beloved Harlemite. “Why they do that?” “There are no arrests at this time,” the police told the Amsterdam News, “The investigation is ongoing.”
This weekend there were more than a dozen shootings. Activists across the five boroughs dispute the NYPD and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proclamations that gun violence is on the decline, asserting instead that in certain inner-city hot spots, shootings are up.
The NYPD told the Amsterdam News, “From Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016, through Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016, there were 15 shooting incidents and two murders. Year to date as of Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016, there are 634 shooting incidents in 2016 versus 738 in 2015 and 222 murders in 2016 versus 222 in 2015.”
“There is no denying that chronic problems like gang and drug activity are made worse by a lack of opportunities and alternatives,” said Mallory. “When one in three Black youth are looking for work and unable to find it, and Black adults face an unemployment rate that is consistently twice the national average, the need for special attention to fast track employment and opportunities is clear.”
A board member of activist Harry Belafonte’s Gathering for Justice, Mallory is no stranger to gun violence. She is the single mother of a teenage son who lost his father to a bullet when he was very young. She got involved with social justice activism as a pre-teen herself with the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. She rose quickly in the ranks, becoming the executive director.
Now, Mallory is the co-chair for the Gun Violence Awareness Month Initiative, and co-chair of Justice League NYC, Gathering for Justice. She told the Amsterdam News, “While there is nothing that can bring Ms. Odessa back, there is work we can do together to prevent this kind of senseless violence going forward. I would like to express how hurt I am for the family of Odessa Smith, who was tragically killed this past Saturday evening,”
Councilwoman Inez E. Dickens told the Amsterdam News, “Like many other Harlemites, hoping to enjoy the summer evening, Ms. Smith’s life was taken away by the reckless action of individuals who have very little regard for the people they harm.
“Throughout my years in office, I have seen mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters needlessly taken away from us. Ms. Smith was not the target and should be alive today with her family and friends instead of members of the community preparing for a funeral.”
Dickens concluded, “I have tried to do my part by funding programs that seek to quell the violence in our streets through intervention programs and creative outlets. But still, we must mourn for another soul lost too soon. We are better than this, we must do better in making our voices heard that these acts of violence cannot be tolerated in our community. My office is always here to help.”
Amid a growing memorial at Charles Young Park, a vigil was held Sunday. There activists and locals such as Jackie Rowe-Adams of Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E., and Iesha Sekou of Street Corner Resources decried the violence.
Activist Dawn Jones posted on Facebook, “Last night we were on the street until about 4 a.m. responding to shootings. There were three people shot in two separate incidents. One shooting was fatal. A 62-year-old woman was shot in a park on 144th and Lenox. SCR Speak Peace Forward Team was leaving the hospital with this woman’s husband only to find two young men in their 20s were shot. We returned back to the hospital to find that they were in satisfactory condition. We then left the hospital only to find shots were fired on 139th street off Lenox Avenue After inquiring about shots fired there, gun shots rang out near Savoy Apartments, causing me and my team to have to take cover in a corner grocery store. All this shooting may have been sparked by the overcrowded unmonitored cookout with open drinking and hundreds of young people in attendance. Please stay posted as we plan the shooting response and prayer.”Local residents and members of the community expressed sadness and disbelief. “[Simms] was a lovely lady,” said local resident Boswell Hosea. “She didn’t bother nobody; she was very courteous to people who came out here. We come out here, we played cards, we played dominoes and we socialized. She was a pillar of the community.”
“She’s a one of a kind person,” said Nora, who gave only her last name. “Nothing bad about her, everything’s good. I knew her all my life. A beautiful character. She’s missed.”
A photographer who declined to give his name shared the emotional hit the news gave him. “I photographed here for almost four years now,” he said. “I would come here every summer, and I knew Miss Odessa [from] talking about her time in Harlem as a native and her love for the game of dominoes. On my way to work this morning, I was reading The New York Times and I saw her. In my head I’m hoping it’s not anyone I know here. It’s been really heartbreaking for me personally”
