Games teach kids gun safety

DURHAM -- On Saturday morning, Robert Fabretti laughed as a Durham Police officer snapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists.

It was easy to do so, because the 12-year-old boy was not under arrest or even in trouble.

Instead, he was participating in a ring toss game set up as part of a gun safety awareness fair taking place in the Durham Police headquarters parking lot.

With silver bracelets clamping his wrists together, Robert tried to fling rubber rings around their goals.

It was harder than it looked, he said. But after two tries, the Durham youth got the hang of it and was even joking with the officers who held the keys to his liberty.

"But they don't really make them very tight," Robert said.

The ring toss game was one of many activities for a few hundred residents who came out for the fair, which was put on by the city's Project Safe Neighborhoods campaign.

The yearlong project aims to raise awareness of gun safety issues and to communicate with Durham residents about interacting with the police.

Launched Jan. 4, Project Safe Neighborhoods has made a positive impact, Police Chief Jose Lopez said.

"We continue to address gun violence in a very serious way," Lopez said. "We are only as good as this community can help us be, and that is why this program has been so very positive."

At the fair, attendees downed the free Italian ices by the cupful. And many picked up bags for their neighborhoods' coming celebration of the National Night Out, a designated evening when residents of neighborhoods nationwide take to the streets to fight crime and raise awareness.

They talked with Durham police officers and took tours of the mobile crime scene unit, command center and an armored, tanklike vehicle used for dangerous situations.

There were representatives from the Duke University Police Department and the Durham County Gun Safety Team, a volunteer organization dedicated to encouraging gun safety.

At the fair, the gun safety team was asking kids to sign a pledge saying that they will not handle guns without permission, won't play with guns and will alert an adult first if they find a gun somewhere.

The pledge and other literature are key to opening dialogues about gun safety, said Gail Neely, assistant director of the North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Education Fund.

"A big misconception is that people feel that if they don't have a gun in their house that their kids will be OK," Neely said. "But they don't think about where their children play. ... As public awareness improves, it becomes OK to talk about it."

And, toward the end of the fair, N.C. Central University men's basketball coach Levelle Moton and Duke football coach David Cutcliffe spoke. The two are spokesmen for the campaign.

"I grew up in Boston, Mass., and my housing project was known as the murder capital of the world," Moton said. "This is our chance to commit ourselves individually to making our community a better place."

Cutcliffe called the Durham Police Department "the best team in Durham," and inviting the crowd to come to a Blue Devils game.

"If anybody wants to see Ala bama get beat this fall, come on over," Cutcliffe quipped.

Neighbors who attended said the fair drew people together and helped them connect. But many said there is still much room for improvement when it comes to crime in Durham.

"There are days when you feel yes, the crime is better, and there are days when you feel like no, it isn't," said Edna Hamilton, who brought her two granddaughters to the fair. "It depends on who happens to be in the neighborhood."