Cape Girardeau Community Gathers in Orange to Honor Victims, Demand End to Gun Violence

Cape Girardeau Community Gathers in Orange to Honor Victims, Demand End to Gun Violence

By - August 28, 2025

By L. Williams
CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO —Under a sky that suggested impending rain on Friday, June 6, a small but determined group gathered at Peace Park in downtown Cape Girardeau. Clad in bright orange, they came together not just in color, but in purpose—to mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day and to reaffirm their commitment to building a safer future for their community.

The event, organized by Southeast Missouri Moms Demand Action, was Cape Girardeau’s ninth annual Wear Orange gathering. Though the crowd was light, the atmosphere was heavy with meaning. Each speaker, each shared story, and each symbolic act served as a reminder of the lives lost, the families broken, and the urgent need for change.

Ramona Bailey, a lead organizer for SEMO Moms Demand Action, opened the event with a call to solidarity.

“Wear Orange is about more than just a color,” she said. “It’s about coming together, using our collective voice to say: enough is enough.”

Orange became a national symbol for gun violence prevention after the 2013 murder of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old Chicago honor student whose death shock

ed the nation. Her friends chose the color orange—the same color hunters wear to protect themselves—as a visual call for safety and life.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Stacy Kinder helped set the tone for the day by reading a city proclamation, officially recognizing Gun Violence Awareness Day. Her words honored the victims and praised the efforts of community m

embers working to end the epidemic.

Mayor Stacy Kinder

The city’s commitment to prevention was further reflected in remarks from the Cape Girardeau Police Department, which offered updates on

Officer Richard Couch

the Gun Violence Task Force formed in July 2024. The task force’s final report, presented in January, outlined a multi-pronged strategy that includes increasing police visibility, supporting youth and community engagement, and expanding public education about safe firearm storage.

Officer Couch paraphrasing Chief Adam Blake, stressed that enforcement alone was not the answer. “We can’t arrest our way out of violence”. Lasting solutions come from partnerships, from education, and from a community committed to solving problems together.”

One of the department’s newer initiatives, a voluntary home security camera registration program, was highlighted as an example of how residents can assist in public safety efforts while maintaining their privacy.

As the event unfolded, speakers reminded attendees of Missouri’s sobering statistics. The state ranks fourth in the nation for gun-related homicides, tenth for gun suicides, and is among the top ten in unintentional shootings involving children.

“We’re not just here because of the numbers,” one speaker said. “We’re here because every one of those numbers represents a name, a family, a future stolen.”

In a particularly moving portion of the program, local survivors of gun violence stepped forward to share their stories. Their words were raw, emotional, and deeply personal stories of lives forever altered by a single moment.

Volunteers from the Be SMART campaign handed out free gun locks and information about secure gun storage. The initiative, which emphasizes safe practices in homes with children, has become a cornerstone of Moms Demand Action’s prevention efforts.

Before closing the event, organizers invited attendees to contribute to a local cause by supporting the Women in Action Summer Reading Program. Donations of children’s books and school supplies were collected, highlighting the connection between safe communities and educational opportunity.

As the evening drew to a close, the message remained clear: while the struggle to end gun violence is far from over, Cape Girardeau is not standing still. From city leaders to grieving families, from law enforcement to everyday citizens, the community is coming together—with voices raised and shirts glowing orange—to demand a safer, brighter future for all.