CLEVELAND — Cleveland City Council members declared gun violence a public health crisis in the city.
The announcement came after a violent weekend and during a news conference ahead of Monday night’s council meeting, where a resolution will be introduced and voted on.
Councilman Richard Starr says they want to get to the root of the problem.
Council President Blaine Griffin admits this isn’t a new idea, but says new leaders are in place and new corporate partners have stepped up to help.
One woman on the city’s East Side lost sleep Sunday as bullets flew by her house.
She didn’t want to show her face in fear of retaliation, but says throngs of young people ran up and down Talford Avenue where a party was taking place.
The woman describes the moment she heard gunshots as surreal. Her doorbell camera captured the gunfire.
Police say a party was happening at a vacation rental.
Radio traffic revealed how one caller heard 50 gunshots.
“To find out that a bullet went into a house across the street into the couch so it’s like houses were hit,” the woman said.
“And then you could hear somebody was yelling she got hit.”
Police later discovered that a 17-year-old girl with a gunshot wound was brought to the hospital in a private car.
Less than 24 hours earlier, a man in his 30s was shot on East 116th Street near Union Avenue.
The weekend began with an 18-year-old shot and killed on Portage Avenue near Broadway Avenue.
“It’s not just the people or the place or the underinvestment it’s calling out people to be accountable for what the value of people and neighborhood means to them,” Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance Myesha Watkins said.
Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance joined Cleveland council members in declaring gun violence a public health crisis.
“There’s no rules when you’re living in survival mode so we need to be addressing the root causes of violence we need to make sure we’ve got all the resources necessary,” Councilman Richard Starr said.
Griffin says that with the school year ending soon and warmer weather, we will see more violence and some conflicts spinning out of control throughout the summer.
“We’re not coming here with a new idea, a new program we are trying to realign, redesign repurpose and refocus what we need to do,” Griffin said.
The woman on Talford Avenue says neighbors are angry that not more is being done and demand accountability.
“It’s a problem, the idea that you can’t have an altercation. This was a party. What happened at this party that shooting started,” the woman said.
A second resolution will be introduced during Monday’s council meeting to declare the first week of May Gun Violence Survivors Week.
