Detroit dresses Spirit of Detroit in orange to open a month of action against gun violence

For the second June in a row, Detroit opened Gun Violence Awareness Month by changing one thing about its most recognizable civic landmark. On Friday, June 5, city officials and more than 100 community members gathered downtown to dress the Spirit of Detroit statue in an orange jersey. The orange jersey stays on through the month.

The backdrop is real progress. Detroit Police First Assistant Chief Franklin Hayes told the gathering that homicides are down 13 percent compared with the same point last year. That continues a 2025 in which the city recorded 165 criminal homicides, its fewest since 1965 and an 18.7 percent drop from the year before. Nonfatal shootings fell 26 percent over the same span, and carjackings dropped nearly 46 percent.

The ceremony led into a full day of community action the next morning, when residents gathered at Church of the Messiah in the Islandview neighborhood for the annual Silence the Violence march, now in its 19th year. Pastor Barry Randolph runs the event, which opened with a press conference at 10 a.m., stepped off at 11 a.m., and closed with a community resource fair and a chance to surrender unwanted firearms through Disarmory Ministries. "We marched in the memory of those we have lost, and with intention to continue the work to silence the violence in our community," Randolph said.

The institutional investment behind those efforts has deepened under Mayor Mary Sheffield. She signed an executive order on February 23 creating the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety, a new city agency that took effect April 7 under violence prevention advocate Teferi Brent. The office coordinates six prevention areas: community violence intervention, conflict resolution and restorative practices, survivor services, domestic and intimate partner violence prevention, reentry support, and group violence intervention. The Hudson-Webber Foundation committed a $200,000 grant toward building its community-driven prevention infrastructure.

Sheffield's office extends a network the city began assembling in July 2023, when it launched ShotStoppers with $10 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds. Six community organizations, including FORCE Detroit, each work a defined three- to five-square-mile zone to disrupt violence before it escalates, and groups can earn additional funding when violence in their zone drops faster than the citywide rate.

At the state level, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed Executive Order 2026-13 on June 4, re-establishing Michigan's Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and declaring June Gun Violence Awareness Month statewide. The march that started in Islandview is now a citywide institution, and Detroit's homicide numbers are the lowest they have been in six decades.