COLUMBUS, Ohio — There have been 12 homicides in the city of Columbus so far this year.
That number is half of what it was this time last year and the community continues to make strides towards its effort to keep the number of homicides below 100 this year. Wednesday night, a meeting was held to discuss that effort, known as Operation Under Triple digits.
Over the past week, the tragic ending to Darnell Taylor’s story has weighed heavy on the minds of many within the community and across central Ohio. Darnell’s death is one of the 12 homicides counted so far this year.
"Those tragedies impact us as well. As a community, we are still hurting,” Columbus Police 1st Asst. Chief LaShanna Potts said.
Potts said her department worked tirelessly to find 5-year-old Darnell last week, hopeful they could bring him home alive.
"It crushed us. It crushed us when we knew that he had been murdered,” Potts said.
Darnell’s loved ones and the officers who relentlessly looked for him weren’t the only ones impacted by this loss.
"I couldn't really sleep for a day or so because I kept thinking about seeing that little boy,” Eugene Winfrey Jr. said.
Winfrey Jr. works for the funeral home contacted for Darnell’s service.
"It was sickening, I was hurt. Even Imperial Stewart, I did his service as well, and that was hurtful,” Winfrey Jr. said.
Imperial Stewart, 17, went missing last September. Officials determined he had been shot and killed when his remains were found nearly two weeks later.
Incidents like this rattle a community and force it to make a change.
"We're all saying the same thing, 'how can we save our youth?'" Potts said.
"It makes you wanna fight harder,” said Malissa Thomas-St. Clair, founder of Mothers of Murdered Columbus Children.
It's those feelings that inspired Operation Triple Digits. Thomas-St. Clair said it's about bringing every leader in the community together, from pastors to funeral home directors to judges in the courts, who each have their own stories about how these deaths impact them.
"We get to see a glimpse of their lense so that we can then start putting pieces of the puzzle together,” Thomas St. Clair said.
Wednesday night’s meeting focused on the data on homicides and felonious assaults in Columbus in recent years. More than half of the homicides and felonious assaults last year were committed by a person 21 years old or younger.
The city of Columbus also has a website for the public to take a closer look at the homicide data.
"We have to do a better job as a society of getting our babies out of trouble's way,” Potts said.
Reducing crime and in turn reducing the grief felt by the community with each loss.
"There are going to be more murders, that's fact. There's going to be more felonious assaults, that's fact. But stay the course with us, do not give up, and do not get discouraged,” Thomas-St. Clair said.
Operation Under Triple Digits will be hosting events through Columbus in the coming months. On Saturday, Mar. 16, an event will be held in the westside on Hague Avenue & Sullivant Ave from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.