By Patrick McGroarty
Reporter Staff

Janet Conor's son was murdered in 2001. Genevor Monell's oldest son Ernesto spent seven years in prison on gun-related charges, only to be released and then re-incarcerated on another gun conviction.

On Thursday morning, Conor and Monell stood side by side with other mothers who have lost their sons to violence or prison to call on police and government officials to trace the flow of handguns into their children's hands.

The group of approximately ten local mothers came together last year as Massachusetts' Mothers on the Move (M'MOM) under the leadership of Tina Chery of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute.

As Chery addressed the crowd, onlookers held signs that read "Where did the gun come from?" and Chery urged the Boston Police Department to trace the origin of every weapon used in a homicide or collected through the ongoing gun buyback.

"We are asking you to help us figure out who is putting these guns in our children's hands," said Chery. "And our children need to know that when they kill someone, they are killing not just that person but a whole family."

M'MOM members were joined at the press conference by police officers, city officials, and neighborhood leaders on the corner of Bowdoin and Topliff Streets, where an impromptu memorial of flowers and poster boards has been erected in memory of Gregory Josey and Kenneth Murray Jr., murdered just feet away on June 7.

C-11 Captain John Greland, who attended the event, agreed that the flow of illegal guns into his district was a serious problem, but said that a feasible solution lay beyond the resources of the city's police department.

"When you trace a gun, you can probably go back and find the original buyer, but it's all legwork after that," said Greland. "It's not like there's a database of this information. Part of the problem is that some states around here, their gun laws are not as stringent. It's too easy to go up, get a gun, and bring it back, and we have no way to track the hands it passes through along the way."

When her turn came to speak, Mondell, who lives near Blue Hill Avenue, urged more mothers to join their ranks, saying that it was their responsibility to keep track of their children's actions.

"We need mothers to be a big part of this, because mothers get blamed for the problem," Mondell told the Reporter. "We have to reclaim our sons, to take them back from the system."

As demonstrators dispersed around noon, Chery said that the gathering was the first step in the advocacy she would undertake to stop this wave of violence as soon as possible.

"I'll walk naked wrapped in purple ribbons to the Statehouse if that's what it's going to take to make some change," said Chery. "We need the state, the city, whoever, to give resources to the families who have been affected by violence; to the families whose kids felt they needed a gun to stay safe."