Standing next to his car as he monitored traffic, District Police Chief Rodney Querrard looked over the throngs of residents that flocked to the waterfront Sunday for the annual Walk/Run Against Violence.
"Wow, it looks like it’s more than last year," he said, nodding as a family, with mom and dad wheeling a couple of tots in strollers, crossed the street and pushed toward the pre-registration table.
The two-mile race has become increasingly popular over the last decade and Sunday’s attendance might have broken the record, with at least 400 or so in attendance, pushing the tightly packed crowd from the head of the A.H. Riise Mall to the bend right before Vendor’s Plaza.
A quick scan at the starting line showed the Charlotte Amalie High School’s track and field team crouched low to the ground, ready to go, and looming behind, a mish mash of students and teachers, business and church leaders, families and friends — many of whom wore T-shirts with a variety of anti-violence slogans, or the pictures of loved ones recently killed on the streets.
For Celia and James Carroll, that loved one was their son Jason, who was gunned down in May 2000, while he was wandering downtown in search of a part-time job.
"He had just completed his freshman year at UVI, and had come home and rested for about a week, when we suggested that he go out, and you know, look for something," Celia Carroll said in a candid interview with the Source. "His dad had dropped him off, and that night, Jason never came back. That was our 9-11 — it was the most devastating day of our lives."
People often deal with death in different ways, and for the Carrolls that way was bringing the community together to stamp out gun violence, which Celia said her son had begun to do before he died.
"He would always come to me and ask me what it was like when I was in school — and that was the Charlotte Amalie High School," she said. "I told him that people would fight, but no one was ever killed. And at that very young age, he began to write. He wrote so many essays about gun violence and how he felt about gun control. To know that Jason ended up murdered … well, I just feel very strongly about continuing this vision that he had to fight for the young people."
That vision appears to have turned into a community movement, as Celia began a local chapter of Mothers Against Guns and worked with her husband to establish the Jason Carroll Memorial Fund, which offers scholarships to high school seniors planning to attend UVI. Proceeds from the annual Walk/Run are usually just enough to cover the tuition for one year, and so far, the organization has supplied more than $22,000 to youngsters who Celia said have gone on to finish college and get the kind of education her son was never able to.
"Gun violence has become an epidemic," she said recently. "We have lost so many of our young people in our community. Everyone is put on this earth with a purpose — but many of them have not fulfilled their purpose because of premature death."
The Carrolls were on the sidelines Sunday promoting the same message as the race kicked off around 4 p.m.
"You have all chosen to take a stand today against the violence in our community," Celia shouted over the megaphone as race participants squirmed at the starting line. "This is a sacrifice you have made today, and I thank you all for it."
It didn’t take long for the first runners — who sprinted from the Coast Guard dock, down the Waterfront to Addelita Cancryn Junior High School and back — to cross the finish line. Keeping his title for another year in the best overall male category was CAHS track star Kyron Correa, who came in with a time of 11:23, while local fitness guru Ruth-Ann David cleaned up for the women with a time of 11:42.
As usual, the day’s event ended with a short ceremony in Emancipation Garden, where race participants were asked to take an oath never to carry a gun to school, or use a gun to solve a dispute.
This year’s winners also include:
• Oldest Participant: Bill Mooney, 72 years
• Youngest Participant: Sofia Kappel, 2 years
• Male 12 years and younger: Ateniah Roacher, 12:01
• Female 12 years and younger: Marie Labardy, 17:07
• Male age 13-15: Malik Todman, 13:47
• Female age 13-15: Kesheema Fleming, 13:49
• Male age 16-18: Kino Malone, 11:35
• Female age 16-18: Thea Hodge, 19:08
• Male age 20-29: Mark Skandier: 11:51
• Female age 20-29: Andrea Bailey, 17:40
• Male age 30-39: Eric Browne, 14:13
• Female age 30-39: Melissa King, 13:56
• Male age 40-49: Layer Thomas, 11:38
• Female age 40-49: Boel Merritt, 15:55
• Male age 50-59: Leroy Mars, 15:59
• Female age 50-59: Billie Hodges, 15:08
• Male 60 and older: Vince Fuller, 17:23
• Female 60 and older: Karen Bertrand, 27:18
