Columbus community leaders plead for peace following fatal triple shooting
COLUMBUS (WCMH) – Columbus community leaders are making it clear: stopping violence needs to be a community-wide effort and they cannot do it on their own.
The message from It’s similar to what city leaders said Wednesday: They want people to come forward with information.
They also hope more people provide mentorship and guidance so violence does not become the answer to solving problems in the first place.
The Tuesday night deadly shootings of 22-year-old Charles Wade and siblings 9-year-old Demetrius and 6-year-old Londynn Wall’neal sent a feeling of heartbreak across the city.
“My heart hurts for this mother,” said Jene Patrick, a volunteer with Mothers of Murdered Columbus Children. “She shouldn’t have to go through this. No mother should have to bury their child.”
Mothers of Murdered Columbus Children is a nonprofit organization that works to end violence and helps families deal with losing loved ones to violence.
“These kids were supposed to be somebody,” Patrick said. “Who knows what they were the cure to, what they were supposed to do when they grew up.”
Like city leaders, she calls on the entire community to help reverse the violent trend.
“We all have a place in the fight,” Patrick said.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther is hoping faith leaders can help. At Family Missionary Baptist Church, Pastor Frederick LaMarr already works with at-risk youth and young adults. He’s feeling the heartbreak, too.
“The fact that somebody would shoot down a car and got children in the car, it ought to send a light off now, OK? Now somebody got to step up,” he said.
LaMarr has worked with shooting victims and suspects, but what happened Tuesday night hits differently.
“It’s sad to think of it this way, but it might take this to really open peoples’ eyes up,” he said.
Both LaMarr and Patrick hope someone who knows something about the shooting sees the heartbreak that’s been caused and comes forward.