Philadelphia mom has reservations about CDC’s expansion of gun violence data

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Maxayn Gooden is still reeling over the death of her 18-year-old son Jahsun Patton.

She recalls her phone conversation with a police detective who confirmed the news while her son lay in a morgue.

“I still think about that. It was such a shock to my system.” Maxayn Gooden told WHYY News.

Patton was a defensive back for the Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia Charter School’s football team in West Philadelphia. But his life took a different turn Thanksgiving day in 2017.

He was looking forward to gathering with family and celebrating his college acceptance letters. Gooden said her son headed to Harrisburg for the weekend to see his sister on his dad’s side. When she dropped Patton off at 30th Street Station, Gooden never imagined it would be the last time she would ever see him alive.

“The next time I saw my son was in a casket at home,” Gooden said. “It was hard. It was really hard.”

On November 25, 2017, Patton was shot and killed at his sister’s Harrisburg apartment. The gunman, a 30-year-old North Carolina man, was convicted of third-degree murder. He is currently serving a 25- to 50-year sentence, according to Gooden.

Since her son’s death, Gooden has been advocating for gun violence prevention, mentoring young boys, and working part-time at the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting. She produced a podcast that’s scheduled to air in the coming days.

On September 26, 2024, President Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to do more to help reduce gun violence.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will use data from vital statistics and local emergency rooms to improve its public reporting.

In a statement to WHYY, the agency wrote: “CDC continues to work to improve the availability of timely, local firearm injury data to the public. CDC recently began displaying provisional data on firearm homicide and firearm suicide online to allow for more timely visualization of national trends. In addition, CDC has expanded the FASTER program to fund more state and local health departments to use nonfatal injury data from emergency departments to better understand firearm injury patterns. Funded recipients continue to develop local dashboards and share information with the public.”

While Gooden agrees with the CDC’s decision to improve its reporting for data and research, she’s concerned how it will impact families of gun violence. “I think it will traumatize people in the neighborhoods,” Gooden said. ​​“It’s scary. It puts you back in a state of fear.”

Organizations like Philly Truce have been on the front lines of tackling gun violence in the city.

One of its initiatives, called Peace Patrol, is made up of volunteers who walk through communities most impacted by gun violence.

Maya Stallings, who handles research and data reporting for Philly Truce, calls the CDC’s action a positive step forward. She says getting access to those numbers would help them respond quicker to shooting incidents for their Peace patrols and provide support in high-crime areas.

“If we could kind of trace more in real time what that looks like, then it would be helpful for us to have that intervention go into that community who just experienced that trauma,” Stallings said.

She cautioned, however, that doing so could retraumatize those victim’s families.

“I think that’s where making sure we have that equitable lens when we use data. I’m a big believer in identifying data.” Stallings said. “We should not be able to trace who the person is when we have data. We should only use that data to inform interventions.”