DAYTON — Two separate shootings have community leaders working to see if Dayton’s Violence Interruption Program needs to be adjusted.
The violence is connected to the North Riverdale Neighborhood, and a person died.
These are two of the five shootings that happened over the weekend in Dayton.
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Other shootings happened; one on Hoover Avenue, leaving a man in critical condition. Another on Gant Drive left several people injured with non-life-threatening injuries. Another shooting on Beechwood Avenue left a teenager injured.
News Center 7’s Cody Butler spent the Day in Dayton, where he learned that program leaders aren’t discouraged due to the shootings.
Dayton Police are still sorting out the circumstances around the shootings in and near North Riverdale over the weekend. The fact that this happened in the Violence Interruption Zone isn’t stopping advocates from continuing their work.
Greg West with Felons with a Future said, “We have to also treat this like recovery. We just got to worry about just for today a lot of times.”
West isn’t letting violence affecting North Riverdale stop his work.
“We’re trying to find out if there’s any way that all of this is related so that we can try to get ahead of it and hopefully, you know, put a stop to it,” West said.
North Riverdale is where the city is piloting the Violence Interruption Program. No one was killed in the neighborhood since the program started six months ago.
That streak ended Friday night when someone was found shot to death in a backyard on Riverside Drive.
On Sunday morning, a 16-year-old was found shot on Beechwood Avenue. West said the fact that they’ve gone this long shows the program is working.
“We can just duplicate it if we stick to the module. Today, we started day three of a new streak,” West said.
Dayton Mayor Shenise Turner-Sloss said she agrees. She said in a statement, “This work reflects the dedication of the city, community partners, and residents to interrupt cycles of violence. We know we have more work to do, and we are committed to doing that work.”
That work included expanding into other areas.
“We see the need for it to expand, but we need the dollars to be able to do it,” West said.
The city is working to get more than $176,000 to expand the program. The police chief said he would like to see the program in the North Main Corridor, the Miami Chapel Neighborhood, and the Summit Square Apartment complex.
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