After 22 Homicides in 2025, Lawmakers Advance Bill to Establish Virgin Islands Gun Violence Awareness Week

Senator Angel Bolques Jr.’s bill to establish a week of remembrance and action on gun violence passed committee Monday. With 22 homicides already this year, lawmakers say the time has come for healing, education, and serious community engagement.

The decision by lawmakers to establish a week dedicated to gun violence awareness came hours after the territory recorded a particularly “bloody weekend,” as Senator Novelle Francis Jr. called it. A double homicide on St. John and a fatality on St. Croix brought the territory’s homicide toll to 22 as of June 23rd.

Mr. Francis was speaking during a meeting of the Committee on Government Operations, Veterans Affairs, and Consumer Protections, as he and other committee members deliberated Bill 36-0090. Sponsored by Senator Angel Bolques Jr., the measure seeks to “declare the week beginning the Monday before the first Friday in June as the Virgin Islands Gun Violence Awareness Week.”

According to Bolques, “this bill is not ceremonial. It is a call to remembrance, a call to intervention and a call to action.” He believes that “there is an urgent need to confront and uproot the culture of violence that is before us.” That work, he argues, must take the form of “a long term holistic approach to this overwhelming challenge.” Establishing the awareness week, he argued, would encourage “awareness, education and community healing.”

Referring to the proposed week as a “solemn and action-oriented time,” the senator hopes that it will encourage education, outreach, mentorship, and community engagement.

Though unable to attend the meeting, V.I. Police Department Commissioner Mario Brooks submitted correspondence in support of Bill 36-0090. The Office of Gun Violence Prevention also backed the measure. Present to testify was its executive director, Antonio Emmanuel. “The Office of Gun Violence Prevention does not wait for a designated day, week or month to be active or engaged in our community,” he said. Nonetheless, he maintained that a dedicated week “will help influence government agencies, community organizations and other community stakeholders” to use the time to focus on “effective outreach.”

“This is an easy bill for me to support but we have work to do in this community, and it takes all of us,” said Sen. Francis. A veteran law enforcement officer, Francis admitted that his “heart is heavy” when contemplating the toll of gun violence in the territory.