THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608020182
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Faces and Places
SOURCE: Susie Stoughton
LENGTH: 81 lines
Two young boys playing in the back yard. Kids splashing in a swimming pool. Youngsters watching TV. Happy scenes of childhood innocence.
Quickly, the images follow one another until the last view: children rummaging through a dresser drawer. The scene explodes as a gun they've found there fires.
``Gun safety is not child's play,'' a caption on the screen screams.
Guns and kids don't mix. That's the message from the Suffolk Police Department, which sponsored the brief but power-packed production.
``It's a hard-line video,'' said Officer Chuck Terrell, one of the tape's producers. ``It's meant to be a hard-line video to catch the adults' attention.''
The 29-second public service announcement is airing on Falcon Cable TV and the city's municipal channel 8.
``Falcon has been kind enough to assist us in airing it on their programs,'' Terrell said.
Mike Matovich, the city's cable coordinator, was the man with the know-how and the equipment to make it all happen.
``He was very instrumental in helping us with this production,'' Terrell said.
The clip is the first of several videos planned to help educate citizens about safety issues.
``This is a positive way we could get a message out to our community,'' said Terrell, one of three officers in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., unit. ``It's a technique of communication.''
During the regular school year, the D.A.R.E. officers - Terrell, Tim Duncan and Pam King - teach in each of Suffolk's public schools and two private schools. This summer, they've teamed up with the department's two community services officers, Junious Jackson and Fred Panton.
Together, they identified a need to educate the public about gun safety.
``So many children have access to firearms,'' Terrell said. ``We have pretty much desensitized guns. Children think they will not kill them.''
So the video speaks to the parents: Protect your children.
``They need to understand if you have firearms in the home and you have children, the firearms need to be kept locked away - unloaded - and the ammunition locked separately,'' he said.
Police officers don't just write tickets, the officer said. ``Our major concern is to protect and preserve the community of Suffolk,'' he said. ``We wanted to show that the Police Department is pro-active.''
The officers felt there was a need for such a video because so many children have accidents with firearms.
``This was a way we could get the information out to the public that we have not utilized that much in the past,'' he said.
Fortunately, there haven't been any recent incidents of children being hurt by handguns in Suffolk. But in the past five or six years, four children have been killed in accidental shootings in the city, and there have been about 60 gun-related accidents involving children, a police spokesman said.
Even one is too many, Terrell said.
Memory still haunts anyone involved in events like the death of a 9-year-old boy accidentally shot by his 14-year-old brother while the youngsters were playing with their parents' gun.
They can't forget the 10-year-old boy who died when his 13-year-old brother picked up a handgun he believed was unloaded and the gun fired. Or the 13-year-old boy who died after he was shot in the head when he and a friend found a gun in a dresser drawer. Or the 3-year-old who died when he shot himself in the head with a handgun his mother had bought for protection.
``The video was done to make the citizens aware that this could happen,'' Terrell said.
State law holds gunowners responsible. Leaving a loaded, unsecured firearm in a manner that allows it to endanger the life or limb of a child under 14 is a class three misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $500.
The safety message starts on a cheerful note.
``The video is pretty soft in the beginning,'' said Terrell, who runs the police department's Explorer Post. ``You just see children playing. Suddenly, you are hit hard by children being hit by a gun going off.
``It was meant to stick in the back of people's minds.''
Our children can't be too safe. MEMO: Susie Stoughton covers public safety issues for The
Virginian-Pilot and The Sun. If you have comments or ideas for stories
about police, fire, rescue or court matters, you can reach her by phone
at 934-7555; by fax at 934-7515; or e-mail at
stough(AT)norfolk.infi.net. by CNB