DENVER — Community members and local leaders are coming together for a meeting following the East High School shooting that happened in Denver last week.
They'll discuss guns, youth violence and mental health among other topics during the meeting Tuesday at 6 p.m. at New Hope Baptist Church in Denver.
“I just think that we need to be sure that we hug our kids today," said John Bailey, a community activist who helped organize Tuesday's meeting.
Less than a week after the East High School shooting, the country is grappling with the news of yet another deadly school shooting in Nashville.
"It's loss of life, but it's public policy, and gun legislation can have a significant impact on how many lives we can save, as opposed to how many more lives we're going to lose," Bailey said.
Bailey hopes to continue an important discussion during Tuesday's gathering.
"The real emphasis is to bring folks together and start talking about issues along the whole lines of gun violence, youth violence, and legislation that might be able to ameliorate that to some degree," he said.
Among the speakers will be Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
Bailey said elected officials, community members, community organization leaders and pastors will also be in attendance.
"I think the meeting is part of an ongoing dialogue to make sure that parents, kids, concerned citizens, and others have a sense of where they are," Bailey said.
It's also an opportunity to provide an update on school resource officers and legislation that is currently going on in the state.
Bailey hopes to see progress come out of Tuesday's meeting that anyone is invited to attend.
"That people will make a commitment to continue to love their kids, that they'll continue to talk to their kids, that schools will make a difference in terms of coming up with a public policy that will in fact, be safe," Bailey said.
