Khari Edwards, vice president of external affairs at Brookdale, wants the young people of the community to confront the growing crisis of gun fighting and bloodshed. The hospital serves some of the most violent neighborhoods in New York City.
“What we’re trying to show you is, this is the end,” Mr. Edwards told a group of middle school students during the seminar, called “It Starts Here,” according to the report. “We want you to never have to come down here.”
Mr. Edwards hopes that by exposing young people to the gruesome reality of gun violence and death, they will make better choices and stay away from guns. Before visiting the morgue, students who take the 90-minute seminar watch real video footage of a man who is shot, endoscopic footage of a bullet being removed from a victim’s eye and a slideshow of bullet-ridden internal organs and body parts, including a gunshot to the face, according to the report.
Although Mr. Edwards says the goal of the seminar is not to “scare kids straight,” a method whose effectiveness has been discredited by behavioral researchers, some parents have not allowed their children to participate, calling the program too gruesome.
Since he launched the program last spring, more than 120 teens have participated, according to the report.
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