When Eric Wilkins first heard that President Donald Trump was considering deploying National Guard troops to Chicago, he said he couldn’t help but think it sounded like a “bully tactic.”
Wilkins, 54, was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot about 26 years ago. Now an organizer with Communities United, he said community groups are using other, more effective methods to prevent gun violence, such as jobs programs and sports leagues.
“To have the military come in and push his agenda — that’s just really being bullied,” Wilkins said. “I feel like it’s aimed at Black and brown (people), and I think it’ll cause discord.”
Wilkins was joined Tuesday morning by a few other survivors and advocates to condemn the Trump administration’s reported plan to send troops to Chicago. They called instead for the president to reinstate federal funding for gun violence prevention programs at the news conference, organized by One Aim Illinois, a gun violence prevention coalition.
“Bringing the National Guard to Chicago is not a solution. It is an attack,” said Artinese Myrick, a deputy director with Live Free Illinois. “It sends a message that Black communities are problems to be controlled, rather than people who need to be supported. Sending the National Guard only increases the likelihood of violence.”
In April, the Trump administration slashed more than half of all federal funding for gun violence prevention programs, cutting $158 million in grants for groups in cities including Chicago, according to Reuters. The administration also closed the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
“We know what safety looks like — it looks like jobs. It looks like access to healing. We will not be silent while our neighborhoods are treated like war zones,” Myrick said. “This is why we need community-centered solutions from those who live in the neighborhoods themselves.”
Myrick, pointing to the citywide decrease in gun violence, also said over-policing could reverse that trend. She called it “unconstitutional and immoral.” According to Chicago police data, shootings are down 36% and homicides 31% so far this year from the same time period in 2024 after peaking in 2021 to levels not seen in more than two decades.
These downward trends also make it clear that Trump focusing on Chicago “is not about saving lives, it’s another political game,” said the Rev. Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, executive director of Live Free Illinois. She also praised Gov. JB Pritzker for explicitly telling Trump not to come to Chicago, and said it was “childish” for the president to mock the Illinois’ governor’s weight.
“You do not expect to hear that from the president of the United States,” Bates-Chamberlain said. “And as Illinoisans we should demand better from the man who is sitting in free Section 8 housing because he doesn’t pay rent, who’s sitting with his bills paid by our tax dollars.”
“So for him to have the audacity to come in and attack Black and brown people is something that every person in Illinois should be in an uproar (about),” she added.
Ever since his life was so drastically changed by gun violence, Wilkins said he’s focused on “talking to individuals who made the wrong choices and challenging them to change.” Many people lose hope after being paralyzed, and he said it’s activities like wheelchair sports that kept his spirits up.
“Being a survivor and being able to talk to other survivors about just being able to maintain, because it’s a roller coaster,” he said. “It has its hills, it has its valleys. It’s a life-changing event.”
Wilkins said he’s already seen the “wrath” of the federal cuts to gun violence prevention. Some of the groups he works with were forced to downsize, leaving those who remain to feel the “pain” of worrying that their job is in jeopardy. But he said he’s not giving up for himself and for his two young sons.
“I don’t want to see my sons face down on the ground. I don’t want to see my sons handcuffed,” he said. “I don’t want to see my sons being a part of none of that.”
