Democracy In Albany

__________

518-465-4413
TerryONeillEsq@aol.com
www.constantine-institute.org   
                         4 September 2009

James J. Barba
President and CEO
Albany Medical Center
43 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York  12208

Dear Mr. Barba:

In 1998, at the request of my dear friend Paul Richter, I moved heaven and earth to help him get the Spinal Cord Injury Research Board Act (SCIRB) signed into law.  Mr. Richter, you will recall, was shot and paralyzed while on duty as a New York State Trooper when he intercepted a criminal gun-trafficker on the highway near Saranac Lake.  The sponsor of our bill was then Assemblyman Edward Griffith who represented the East New York section of Brooklyn, a district torn by gun violence during the crack epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s.  He had an appallingly high number of constituents paralyzed by gunshot wounds.

On the evening of September 2, Kyleal Avery was pronounced dead in the emergency room of Albany Medical Center, the latest victim of the gun violence that is the leading cause of death among young black males.  In inner city communities, unsecured handguns are as much a threat to public health as any malignant virus or toxic environmental pollutant.  This problem of violence prompted the Albany Common Council to create and commission the Albany Gun Violence Task Force, which completed its work and submitted its recommendations in recent months.  I reckon chief among those recommendations that  we move forward in partnership with Albany Medical Center to create a hospital-based violence intervention program (VIP) such as has been established and scientifically validated in other cities that have gotten serious about confronting the gun violence epidemic that is taking the lives of so many young black men and leaving tragic collateral damage in its wake such as the death last year of little Kathina Thomas in Albany.

I was very gratified in 1998 to have the expert advice and cooperation of a number of distinguished researchers at AMC when we created the SCIRB.  We couldn't have done it without that support.  I hope that our community can expect similar assistance in confronting the gun violence problem through the establishment of a state-of-the-art VIP.