DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — There have been 39 homicides related to gun violence in the Dayton area so far this year.
10 of those involve juveniles including 3 juveniles arrested for the murder of Lyft driver Brandon Cooper in January.
The region also saw high profile moments of violence, including the shots fired near the Dayton Children’s parade, the day after Thanksgiving, authorities say a large group of juveniles was involved in that as well.
NAACP president Dr. Derrick Forward stated, “Enough violence is enough violence,” and promised his devotion to working with law enforcement, like Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck. Streck added that they see a trend of teens falling into the wrong habits.”
“It doesn’t matter where you live, that this does occur, and like it’s been mentioned. The amount of shots fired calls, shots into residents, shots into vehicles calls we are responding with at this point is very high… it all correlates to the amount of vehicles that have been stolen and the amount of this that’s been happening, it’s just that lifestyle that’s been occurring. that we need to get a fix on,” he said.
Dayton NAACP Vice President, Mattie White added a solution, saying that a positive interaction will have a positive impact on the community.
“The ‘Just us, for us, by us’ roundtable is working together in a collaborative fashion to provide programs, services and to also be able to demonstrate to the community that we are a unified entity,” she said.
Moving forward, both the city and the NAACP hope to use the million dollars allocated to youth development in the city’s yearly budget to fund mentorship programs to help keep the youth off the streets..
