COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus Police are now investigating six more shootings throughout the City of Columbus, that happened Saturday night into Sunday morning.
Police told us within four hours, six shootings occurred between 10:25 p.m. and 1:37 a.m. The shootings were spread out throughout the city.
City leaders continue to voice their concerns about the violence through social media, like Franklin County Coroner, Dr. Anahi Ortiz.
She took to Twitter to say, “And the violence continues. Virtual town halls, speeches by the Mayor, none of these address how to deal with the problem right now!”
We reached out to Dr. Ortiz for further comment:
“Violence in our city and our county has increased significantly. It takes a coordinated, collaborative response to decrease and prevent the violence we are seeing. I have urged this previously, we need an office of violence prevention. D. C., Chicago and New York City all have moved to implement one in response to increases in violence. The key is going to be continued funding to keep it going. Results Ohio is one type of funding source that can be used through the State Treasurer’s Office. There are others: philanthropic organizations such as Columbus Foundation, etc.
Here is an example of a comprehensive plan put together in 2020 by Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot. We need a plan like this tailored to what we are seeing here."
10TV also spoke with Franklin University, Chair of Public Safety Programs and criminal justice expert, Dr. Chenelle Jones about the violence.
She calls this a pandemic within a pandemic. The community is fighting COVID-19 but also fighting violence in the streets.
“I’m feeling heartache for the families, I’m feeling like we definitely need to do something as a community,” Dr. Jones said.
We asked Dr. Jones what impact this has on a community as a whole.
“It’s just sheer trauma for the community,” Dr. Jones said.
Dr. Jones described the impact has a ripple effect and said it’s felt by not only the families involved, but their close friends, church members, teachers, police officers and city leaders.
“Or how the doctors are impacted because they have this person that had to bring themselves to the hospital and they all of a sudden have to rush them to the ER into surgery to try to save their lives, how the nurses are caring for the person,” Dr. Jones said.
She feels the city as a whole needs to take a public health approach to gun violence.
“That requires you know a declaration from the Mayor, a declaration from City Council,” Dr. Jones said.
When addressing it like a public health issue, she said this would mean more resources could be directed towards it and allocated to solving it.
Dr. Jones also said it could target a few other elements like defining and monitoring the problem.
“We’re going to see in the City of Columbus exactly where this gun violence is happening and how often this is happening, what is the scope of it,” Dr. Jones said.
Next is identifying who is most at risk and what could protect them from the violence.
“Once we’re able to identify that, then we’re able to come up with some really evidence-based practices and strategies that can be implemented,” Dr. Jones said.
Lastly, she mentioned paying close attention to the needs and voices of young people.
She also said targeting the violence is something that needs to be done by a team, done by everyone working together within the community.
We have reached out to the Mayor’s office and have not heard back just yet.