Grief is a funny thing. It can come in poisonous waves, as if the body is trying to expel something toxic, something dangerous. It sneaks up from behind, pushes you down and catches in your throat.

Sometimes, if enough days go by, it can be a powerful motivator, a warrior who rides beside you, whispering, “Do something.”

When our colleague, education reporter Sierra Jenkins, was killed in a shooting on Granby Street in March 2022, our newsroom was shocked and stung. Just 25, Sierra was a talented, joyous and popular member of the staff and a mentor to others.

We tried to make sense of it all. We followed the case closely and hoped for resolution when Antoine M. Legrande Jr. was arrested and charged in the shooting.

But just a few months later, charges against Legrande were dismissed after two witnesses failed to show for a preliminary hearing. No other suspects have been named since.

Once more, grief stretched out before us.

Meanwhile, many more shootings occurred, locally and nationally, after Sierra’s death. Nearly 3,000 Hampton Roads residents lost their lives to gunfire over the past 10 years, according to numbers from the Virginia Department of Health.

At the end of 2022, we honored Sierra by setting up The Sierra Jenkins Scholarship Fund to help support college students studying journalism in Virginia. It was one way to deal with our loss and to focus on the next generation of promising journalists.

Still, the shootings continued. A team manager at a Walmart in Chesapeake shot and killed six people in the store, then himself. A first grader shot his teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Ten-year-old Keontre Thornhill was killed by a stray bullet in his home in Portsmouth.

Hampton Roads has a homicide rate that is about twice the national and well above the state average, according to Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press reporting and calculations. Portsmouth alone has counted 22 homicides so far this year, up from the 19 it had at this point in 2023 and on its way to its second-highest all-time homicide count.

Our newsroom reported on the shootings, and tried to make the victims more than just another number.

But we wanted to do something more.

Last year, we began work on “Shots Fired: Combating a culture of gun violence in Hampton Roads,” a yearlong series that will explore why gun violence is so prevalent here and what can be done about it.

We are launching this in June to coincide with National Gun Violence Awareness Month and plan to cover this issue throughout the year. Our intention is to explore the issue deeply and from as many angles as possible. To that end, we’ve enlisted the help of community leaders in the form of an advisory panel, with a focus on solutions.

We know this is a complex problem that no organization will resolve alone. We hope Shots Fired will spark conversation in our communities so no parent, no city block, no workplace ever has to feel the weight of avoidable grief again.

Do you have a question or comment about our series? Send an email to shotsfired@pilotonline.com.

Editorial: Understand the scope of region’s gun violence to pursue effective action