Man walks from DC to Philly to fight gun violence

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Mike D'angelo could be found limping along the side of the road in Fairmount Park this morning, but he wouldn't stop. He'd come too far, and this was too important.

"This is for Makiyah Wison and so many other kids across the country that lose their lives to senseless gun violence. Makiyah died after being hit by a stray bullet in Washington D.C. a year ago. She was 10 years old. D'angelo is her uncle. He decided to walk from where she was shot in D.C. to Philly, where a friend of his also died from gun violence.

"How can you kill like that? How can you hurt like that? How can you put a bullet in that? How can you have that kind of blood on your hands?" he said.

So he decided to combat that violence with love by talking to neighbors and counting on his friends to keep him moving when his body told him to give up.

"When things are happening in our community, everybody keeps talking," said his walking partner Stephanie Brodie. "You have to take action. You have to do something. So this was our way of doing something."

"The pain I feel right now can't compare to the pain of a stray bullet entering a child," said D'angelo.

It was a 124-mile journey. At the finish line of the African-American Museum, D'angelo's friends and family greeted him with posters and cheers.

He told the crowd, "Listen, this was already planned. God ain't going to take you to it and not take you through it."