DAYTON — After months of the City of Dayton talking about fighting back against gun violence, they provided an update on where the new violence interruption program stands.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, Dayton police say four children have been killed in the last five months.
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On Tuesday, the Dayton Branch of the NAACP hosted a town hall at Grace United Methodist Church.
The organization had a panel discussion to highlight the ways people can get involved in their local government. However, several people brought up the topic of ongoing youth violence in the city.
“We have more group homes in Montgomery County than any other city in the state of Ohio,” Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims said.
Mims said a lot of those children have mental health and behavioral challenges.
“If you don’t feel like you have value, you tend to do something crazy, something that’s stupid. And we get more and more of them to understand that they have value as they grow, they begin to project and act much differently than how they would if they feel like they didn’t have any contribution to their self, family, and friends,” Mims said.
Over the past year, Mims has been working to bring the Cure Violence Global (CVG) Program to Dayton.
Once implemented, the program would be made up of people in the community who detect and interrupt conflict before it happens.
“Having violence interrupters that are trained to work in those spaces is what we’re in the process of doing right now. The health department is writing up the REP for that right now,” Mims said.
“I’m quite sure that’s going to work out just fine because we’re going to be there to support the initiative,” Dayton Branch NAACP President Derrick Foward said.
Forward said the organization will help out with this program.
“He wants partners to be able to collaborate to be able to make our city better, to make our city safer, and that’s really what it’s all about,” Forward said.
“All this is under the umbrella of peace that we are working on,” Mims added.
As previously reported by News Center 7, Mims said he wanted the program up and running before Memorial Day, but that has not happened.
The city is currently waiting on the health department and its guidance for support and services before taking the next step, according to Mims.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
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