CLEVELAND — Less than 24 hours after a 3-year-old boy was shot and killed, Cleveland police say two arrests have been made and to expect more to come.
A 31-year-old man was wounded in the shooting on W. 66th Street near Denison Thursday afternoon.
The gunfire narrowly missed the boy’s baby brother and mother.
This was the second shooting involving a child in one week.
A local pastor says it’s up to individuals and families to help address a core issue with this violence.
Pastor Jake Streeter didn’t know Luis Diaz, and the shooting that took the little boy’s life doesn’t come as a shock.
“I wish I was shocked. I want to be shocked, but no, violence in poor communities is not a new thing. It’s just not a thing we’ve used appropriate responses to,” Streeter said.
Diaz was shot in the back, police say, while sitting in a car with his mother and 11-month-old brother.
The man was hit in the hip.
Witnesses told News 5 they heard a fight right before at least eight gunshots.
Just last week, a 6-month-old girl and her father were shot in Garfield Heights while the girl’s parents were walking.
Police arrested three people in that case.
Streeter is the pastor at Denison Avenue United Church of Christ.
He says gun violence is a symptom and believes a mental health component is not being addressed the way it should.
“There’s something going on in the processes of people’s minds where they don’t view themselves as valuable enough to walk away from the situation, or they don’t view other people’s lives as valuable enough to walk away,” Streeter said.
Pastor Streeter says there are people in programs who want to address those issues, but many of them are underfunded or not funded at all.
“We, as a community, respond to the last domino, when we had every opportunity to respond to the first one,” Streeter said.
Mike Dee says he’s a martial arts instructor. He says the kids he interacts with are very much aware of gun violence and have expressed fear.
"My program brings that information into context with them so they're aware of what they can do and can not do,” Dee said. He says communities can’t expect police to be everywhere.
"We're teaching the kids in a sense by not taking a proactive stance to have to do things on their own, so this is where gang members will come in contact with a lot of these young kids and try to influence them to become part of a violent community. So this is where we come in to try to intercept that way of thinking,” Dee said.
Dee and Streeter will soon talk about developing a partnership at the church on Denison to possibly bridge a gap and stop a cycle.
“It’s that community engagement that’s missing, and until we address the community engagement and mental health component, none of this stuff works itself out," Streeter said.
While there have been two arrests in the deadly shooting on W. 66th Street, no one has been charged.
Police say they're working to identify more people who may have been involved.
