NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Ahead of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, a survivor of gun violence is asking people how they would help.
April 21 through April 27 is a time to offer “options, services, and hope to crime survivors.”
Cameron Bertrand, 33, is using his voice to advocate against gun violence and in favor of change across the nation.
Starting in Hampton Roads, he is providing Violence Intervention and Prevention (VIP) and Gun Violence Intervention and Prevention (GVIP) outreach and research. Bertrand is the founder of four different organizations, all with the focus of addressing the gun violence “crisis.”
“With Hampton Roads, we’ve seen that we’re a part of a nationwide problem, gun violence as a public health crisis,” Bertrand said. “The fact that we have people, every single day in our communities, that still show up, I think that’s the part that needs to be commended and applauded.
“We have to equip people with the skills, tools and resources to fight back and to end gun violence. It ends with us. I don’t think that anybody is above or beneath this problem, and I’ll continue to say that. This has to end with us. I want people to know that we are a part of these solutions.”
Bertrand established the gun violence emergency hotline, 757-945-0456, as well as the Beyond the Bullet Bleeding Control Kits.
“Hearing the testimonies and talking to families and grieving mothers, they’ve had to bury their children,” he said. “Hearing stories [like], ‘my baby was laying on that ground for X amount of time before they bled out,’ [or] ‘my baby was laying in this room for X amount of time before they bleed out,’ we can actually save lives and it’s our duty to do so. It’s an obligation at this point.”
The kits includes a tourniquet, gauze, gloves, CPR mask, vented chest seal and other emergency items.
“Our long-term goal with the kits is to make sure that the General Assembly mandates that these kits are everywhere,” Bertrand said. You see AEDs and fire extinguishers.”
Throughout the last decade, Bertrand has worked as a mentor, mental health counselor and community activist, all while healing from a traumatic incident on Nov. 7, 2015.
Bertrand asked 10 On Your Side to visit Marshall Avenue and Corprew Avenue, which is the location where he and his friend were shot.
“We were shot out here leaving a homecoming football game,” Bertrand said. “People may ask, why would you come back to a spot where [I] experienced such trauma? It’s because I’m asking my young people to do it every day — when I’m asking them to walk away from problems, when I’m asking them to go to school, still stay out of trouble and to try to be a positive product of a negative experience. They know that I’m asking that from a real place cause they see me do it.”
Bertrand has dedicated his life to creating the resources he needed during his healing journey.
“I’m still partially paralyzed from the knee down,” Bertrand said. “I still have three chronic disorders and things that people can’t see. I always wonder if I hadn’t lost the amount of blood that I did, would I still be able to do some of the things that I’ve been able to do my whole life? I haven’t been able to run, play sports and do things that I kind of took for granted.”
The GVIP has traveled to locations in Newport News and Norfolk, as well as Asheville, North Carolina to offer the Beyond the Bullet training course, the bleeding control trainings and the trauma informed workshops.
“We’ve been able to do this gun violence prevention training in eight different states. We’ve been able to come back here to Hampton Roads. … I think that’s beautiful.”
He is hopeful people across the country and Tidewater area will embody what it means to live beyond the bullet.
“Beyond the Bullet represents the all the amazing things that many of my peers have done beyond getting shot,” Bertrand said. “The fact that we are still alive and breathing [while] living through ailments that people can’t see, that is exactly what it means to live life beyond the bullet. Any person who has been impacted by gun violence, whether you’ve been personally shot or you’ve experienced gun violence, if you did not go out and retaliate, you are living life beyond the bullet.”
To schedule a Beyond the Bullet Bleeding Control course and kit, email endgunviolence.va@gmail.com. Kits are $125, and for each kit that is purchased, one will be donated to a local community.
