Two members of Cleveland City Council are calling for an anti-violence summit after eight homicides in the city this month.
“We are finding out that it’s so random,” said Councilman Jeff Johnson. “It’s more of a culture of violence, where people are using it to deal with their disputes.”
On Tuesday, a gunman in a car opened fire on a crowd of people near East 144th Street. Someone fired back and killed the driver. “It makes me real nervous,” said one resident.
Late Monday afternoon, Jaquan Sims, 16, was fatally shot when a bullet struck him in the face. According to his mother, shots were fired at their house at Denison and West 95th Street. “Not a bad kid, no trouble out of him,” said Cherease Williams, Jaquan’s mom. “Your typical kid, that never deserved to die like that.”
Councilman Johnson and Zack Reed teamed-up Wednesday, promoting a summit to solve the problems. “We’ve gotta have everything on the table, everything, from revenue, from – maybe – tax hikes, there’s a number of things out there we gotta talk about,” said Councilman Reed.
Figures provided by the city show 55 homicides so far this year. That’s up five from the entire year of 2010, which was down dramatically from the 74 homicides in 2009.
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article courtesy of Fox8Cleveland.com
