Philadelphia is riding high this week, with the city’s second NFL championship in five years a very real possibility on Sunday. But the Eagles are using the spotlight of Super Bowl week to draw attention to the darker side of Philly—its escalating gun violence, which to many has become a true crisis.
Some 516 people were murdered in the city in 2022, most of them killed by guns. The violence has steadily risen since 2016, when 277 people were killed. There have been 41 homicides already in 2023, and the problem is widely considered to be reaching a boiling point.
Now, the Eagles have rolled out a 90-second film addressing the crisis.
It stars—and is narrated by—Ja’Nell Hall-Ragin, a local artist, actress, poet and gun violence survivor whose brother was killed in the epidemic. Hall-Ragin begins by talking about the city’s great qualities, including pride in its sports teams, before moving on to the wellspring of pain just beneath the surface.