{"id":215432,"date":"2026-06-10T11:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215432\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T11:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:08:07","slug":"allentown-mayor-tuerk-urges-peace-after-recent-teen-shootings-pushes-back-against-gun-violence-allentown-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215432\/","title":{"rendered":"Allentown Mayor Tuerk urges peace after recent teen shootings, pushes back against gun violence | Allentown Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – In the wake of two deadly shootings of teenagers in the past month, the mayor of the Lehigh Valley’s largest city issued a heartfelt plea for peace. 69 News spoke with Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk about working on a safe summer.<\/p>\n

The mayor is asking young people from all over the city to get in touch with him. He’s not just looking for tips or information; he wants to talk with teenagers.<\/p>\n

“I want them to know the mayor is someone they can go to, and not just to report something, but to have a dialogue,” said Mayor Matt Tuerk.<\/p>\n

Mayor Tuerk is responding to recent shootings in the city. 17-year-old Ja’meer Roberts<\/a> was killed Saturday night, near the intersection of East North and North Jay Streets. The shooting left two others injured.<\/p>\n

On May 15th, 18-year-old Tymell Millan-Mason<\/a> was shot and killed outside the McDonald’s on Union Boulevard.<\/p>\n

Mayor Tuerk is challenging young people to help shape their city this summer.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t have to be about violence; it can be about any number of things. It can be about street safety, job opportunities, we want to hear from young people,” Mayor Tuerk said.<\/p>\n

Allentown is a young city. Mayor Tuerk says 25 percent of residents are younger than 18 years old. The mayor is building a “Council of Youth” with the city’s Violence Prevention Coordinator, who was hired last year.<\/p>\n

“So, there’s a huge opportunity for us to lean into young people and get their perspectives about what Allentown should look like in the future,” Mayor Tuerk said.<\/p>\n

Mayor Tuerk says all you have to do is call the mayor’s office, and he will talk to you, or you can email his office.<\/p>\n

Or you can reach him on all forms of social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – In the wake of two deadly shootings of teenagers in the past month, the mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,38332,758,2459,84,94348,59492,44994],"class_list":["post-215432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-community-safety","tag-gun-violence","tag-matt-tuerk","tag-mayor","tag-teen-shootings","tag-violence-prevention","tag-youth-engagement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}