Families “would rather have their loved one in their life versus going to celebrate their life at a pole with teddy bears hung on it,” he said.
Foward said homicides in the Dayton community are up more than 13% this year, and it’s not even summer yet, which is when gun violence and bloodshed sometimes spikes.
Foward said the NAACP Dayton Branch fully supports Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims’ push to launch a violence interruption program. But he said the violence needs to end immediately.
“I’m pleading with the parents, I’m pleading with the grandparents, I’m pleading with the sisters, the brothers, the aunts, the uncles, the cousins — stop killing one another," Foward said. “We cannot continue at this rate. Your lives matter.”
NAACP Dayton chair David L. Fox compared Dayton’s murder rate of 26.12% per 100,000 people to the much larger city of Jacksonville, Florida’s 12.3%, saying that the difference was due to violence reduction programs.
Fox called for a 30-day ceasefire, saying that they are “asking people to lay down their guns, just for 30 days, so we can live in peace.”
