Syracuse, New York (NCC News)- On July 23rd, 1999 a 17-year-old male is shot on the corner of West Newell and Cannon Street. The victim’s name is Duriel Ryans. He lost his life to gun violence.
20 years later and Duriel’s father Clifford Ryan credits the loss of his son as his motivation to advocate against violence in Syracuse. Ryan says July 4th, 2015 is what pushed him to do more than just speak out.
On that day, 10 people were shot — including three in a park shooting and another four when a gunman opened fire on a crowd of people watching fireworks. Ryans said this is when he made his first “OG’s Against Violence” sign — he made the sign and headed out.
“I literally went out into the community and went to each and every single side of town and began serving notice,” Ryan said. “That I would be coming out peacefully protesting against violence and reaching out to the young people and the community and that was the beginning of OG’s Against Violence.”
Now OG’s Against Violence is a non-profit organization, and Ryan’s signs can be seen in the windows, lawns and porches of downtown Syracuse. The organization holds toy drives, vigils, and school presentations.
Ryan credits his boots on the ground method for stopping violence.
“What that means is you are actually going out into the community where the violence takes place and you’re intervening in the violence per say,” Ryan said.
Learning from his own tragedy helps Ryan connect with those that have lost someone to violence. For example, he contacts the families of victims and asks them to release a statement asking people to refrain from violent retaliation.
Ryan said immediately visiting a place where violence occurred is necessary to prevent more violence.
He said he intervenes by getting directly in between people threatening violence. He said sometimes this means staying at theselocations for hours until the people leave.
Nitch Jones is another local activist you may see holding prayer vigils at the scene of violence. Jones says his advocacy started with a Facebook post. He has since started working with local groups like Ryan’s and collaborating with the Mayor’s office and the Chief of police to help stop violence.
The connection between these activists may have only come a few months ago, but Jones says he remembers the murder of Ryan’s son.
“His son was actually the first murder that I ever remember someone being murdered,” Jones said.
Now raising his own son, Jones said there is a key difference between his childhood in Syracuse and his son’s childhood.
“We never had to worry about an armed person coming into our school, we never had to think about that,” Jones said. “We never had to think about that, we never had to have that as a concern.”
An FBI report showed a drop in all violent crimes in Syracuse.
Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens said there is still concern about gun violence, and the youth affected by it.
“Crime in general has gone down, what has been of greater focus, has been gun violence related to general gun violence and gang related gun violence, and the involvement of very young people in that type of violence,” Owens said.
Ryan says the OG’s stands for “our generation.” He hopes to spread his message of peace to every generation.
