A stop the violence video produced by two videographers at VTV, the city’s local access channel, has gained a lot of attention since it aired Wednesday on the city’s Facebook page.

Called “#GunsDownVicksburg,” the video features a student athlete named Jeff, who is seen walking in several areas of the city to the accompaniment of a narrative. In the final scene, Jeff walks into a store, goes to the soft drink cooler, pulls out a drink and the screen goes blank, accompanied by a gunshot.

The video, VTV director William Nettle said, is the combined effort of videographer/editors Larry Walker Jr. and Marcus Allen.

“It started off as a challenge from the mayor to put out information about the problem with crime in the city, and the IT director, who’s my supervisor, challenged me to put out some PSAs, so Marcus and Larry put their heads together and came up with the idea and went and shot it, and here it is,” Nettle said.

“We were trying to find creative ways to show different scenarios and things that actually happen,” said Walker, who played Jeff and did the film’s voiceover.

Allen said the student athlete character fit in because he and Walker had been student athletes and knew other students who had to deal with issues such as violence.

“The whole point of the visual is just to let people know you see people walking around and you never know what’s really wrong with them.” Walker said. “I wanted to show he (Jeff) was just a normal kid, and sometimes you can make bad or good decisions and you have to live with the choices that you make.

“The gunshot dictates what can happen depending on the choices that you make.”

He said it is left up to the viewer of the video to determine what happens to Jeff.

Since the video was posted, Nettle said, it has been well received.

“The response from this video caught us all by surprise,” he said, adding that as of 3:45 p.m. Thursday it had 16,000 hits.

“We wait an hour and it may be 17,000,” he said. He said the video will air on the station’s channel 23 next week.

“I knew it was good when it went out, but the response from the community has been great,” Nettle said. “We appreciate the community’s support.”

“When they see the video, they understand the message behind it,” Allen said. “So many people in Vicksburg can relate so much to it because it happens; that’s what makes it so relevant.”

Allen said the social media subcommittee of the recently appointed crime committee wants VTV to create videos to bring attention to other forms of violence such as domestic violence.

Walker said other videos are in the works.

“We’re still brainstorming,” Nettle said. “There’s so many different issues we can address, so many angles we can take, and perspectives we could angle the video through. Everybody like what we will put out.”

He said the next video is expected to air early next week.

“Stay tuned,” Walker said.