A drive-by shooting in the Mission’s 24th street corridor left nine injured Friday night, posing the question as to how our community can heal from violence. 

SFPD Captain Thomas Harvey said that all nine victims are expected to live. One had sustained more serious injuries when they were hit in the abdomen. 

Legislative Aide to the District 9’s Supervisor, Santiago Lerma said that the shooting is not believed to be gang, nor graffiti related at this time: “There are a lot of graffiti artists that hang out there at the skate shop, and they do sell graffiti supplies but I can’t say that it’s graffiti related at this point.” 

Community members, like Lucia Ippolito, say for the neighborhood to heal, we need to have more opportunities for the youth to grow in more positive ways to divert them from violence. 

“We haven’t seen much violence in the community like we did 10, 20 years ago, a lot of it has really improved,” Ippolito said. 

Lerma said that the possible motivation for the shooting was retaliation for an incident that occurred outside of Dying Breed after Carnaval weekend. 

“It’s really unfortunate this happened, it’s shedding a bad light on the whole community and that’s not what our events, cultural celebrations, and block parties are about,” Ippolito said. 

Ippolito said that the altercation that occurred during Carnaval occurred between two women and shared no correlation with the shooting on Friday, adding, “It’s sad because this is probably

going to bring more police presence to our neighborhood which I don’t think is needed, what I think is needed is more community support.” 

“There’s no real job opportunities for a lot of these youths that’ve been previously incarcerated. That’s why a lot of these youths become entrepreneurs and do events like this because there’s no other opportunities,” Ippolito said. 

Ippolito is a Mission District native and local muralist, and the organizer of Lover’s Lane, the annual Valentine’s Day celebration in the Mission. 

Ippolito stated, “We need to have more mentorship and youth spaces where there is gang affiliation. We need more opportunities for people to do productive, creative things, we could have better services out of our youth programs where the city could fund. I’m not saying it would necessarily prevent something like this but it would make us feel safer.” 

Ippolito is organizing a healing circle this week — on June 14, 16 and 20 — with community members, including a trauma-based art workshop and somatic healing, led by local mental health facilitators at indoor spaces near the incident site.