CINCINNATI — At just 17, Jevion Mikel Byrd has already lost several friends in shootings. He just said goodbye to another this past weekend. His 11- and 12-year-old cousins thankfully survived their gunshot wounds, but now must carry the trauma for the rest of their lives.
Byrd on Wednesday shared his connection to gun violence with a room filled with adults who met his raw, heartfelt account with teary eyes and applause.
"Y'all don't really, really know what's going on," Byrd said. "The only time people really use their guns is when other people die."
He spoke during WCPO's 'Search for Solutions' roundtable at Lloyd Library. He joined other youth, leaders, neighbors, business owners and community groups to discuss possible solutions to downtown youth violence.
Byrd said community stakeholders can't find effective solutions if they look at the problem through their typical lens — they have to see violence through kids' eyes.
"All we seeing from other cities is violence like I always see in music videos, we hear somebody talk about, 'Oh yeah, my person down, now I'm going to go kill this person, so you feel me? What do you think they're going to do?" he said. "And then it's just people that's bad influences. And it ain't always about your family, it's about who you around, who they allow you to go outside and see."
Byrd lives in Avondale, where teens feel they have to carry around guns for protection, he said.
"Y'all don't understand that even if we don't want to be in a predicament sometimes just because of the neighborhoods we in, we gotta have a gun," he said. "I don't want my mama to be a mama rolling around in blood and bleach on the ground."
The root of the issue is trauma, said MoPoetry Phillips with Arts Equity Collective.
She made an emotional plea, asking her fellow community members to invest more time into kids' lives.
"When we go into the schools, when we go into the community, we want to know real skills to be able to connect with our children ... before the guns get in their hands before they're out at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. in the morning at the Banks. That's when we need to get them," Phillips said.
Some attendees mentioned more funding for community programming, others mentioned more boots on the ground. One suggested solution is getting adults to proactively be in areas where teens are gathering in large groups, most of the time at late hours and even past midnight.
"If the police can tell me when crimes are happening, then I gotta mobilize citizens, individuals at that time so that they too can be a part of the work," Pastor Ennis Tait said.
We asked the longtime anti-violence advocate how he felt about Wednesday's discussion. He said it needed to happen a long time ago, though there are more talks, and most importantly, more action that needs to happen.
"No data was shared here today," he said. "That's what drives our work. So, if I had people representing different communities and parts of the city, there should have been some information to help educate me on where my position is in all of this. It just didn't have to be, as we heard today, the neighborhoods at the top of the list of all of the gun violence. 'Cause there's so much more to this work than just the gun violence."
Mayor Aftab Pureval said while shootings involving teens are down since last year as well as over a three-year average, he acknowledges more work needs to be done. Pureval stressed widespread access to guns is the heart of the problem, noting a recent event he took part in at Woodward High School.
"I asked, 'How easy is it for you to get a gun?' and each person raised their hands and said, 'I could get a gun within 30 minutes.' These were children," he said.
He also talked about the possibility of implementing a curfew. While not outright shutting down the idea, he said he's not considering it for the time being.
"You have groups of teenagers and children given access to guns — they are likely armed. Then you have police officers who are, at night, trying to run after these kids. Police officers are also armed. It is inviting a bad situation to happen," Pureval said. "But let's say you get past that challenge. You apprehend the kids. Where do you take them?"
Pureval said oftentimes kids come from unstable homes and don't wish to stay in them or return to them.
"Where do you keep the kids until some other kind of parent or guardian or adult can come get them?" he said. "I'm not interested in jailing kids for curfew violations."
Angela Chang said there are more than enough kids facing systemic barriers already.
Director of the Hamilton County Public Defender Office's Youth Defense Division, Chang said once a kid enters the system, it's difficult for them to grow out of it.
"A lot of times, young people need additional help. They need medical services and we see a lot of barriers like wait lists — things just take a really long time to happen," she said.
She believes the community is the solution, and though she came hopeful for concrete ideas Wednesday, she said she feels the discussion got close to offering some but fell short.
"I just wonder what we could do if we put more of our investment into each of these organizations and could multiply how much they could do because it costs $500+ a day to house a kid in detention," said Chang. "It's very expensive to process kids through court so if we move the investment and the focus on the front end of things ... we could make a huge difference. We could start tomorrow in making a difference."
