cheka.
2nd June 2017, 08:25 AM
http://www.islandpacket.com/entertainment/celebrities/article153980414.html
In the year since Ali's memorial service, the city's murder epidemic claimed 119 lives — more than twice the number of killings just three years earlier. When a 7-year-old boy was killed by stray gunfire as he ate a bedtime snack in his family's kitchen last month, the outcry reached new heights, with everyone from the governor to his grieving grandmother saying something had to be done.
"I'm getting numb to it, because I'm just beginning to feel hopeless," said Shekela Brasher, whose 24-year-old son, Steve Lamont Bledsoe Jr., was gunned down four years ago in the same neighborhood where Ali grew up. "I know some of the people that's doing some of the murders, they feel like I feel sometimes — angry, hurt. I know they feel lost."
The city is struggling to quell the violence. The police chief reorganized his department. City officials point to programs aimed at mentoring at-risk youths, building stronger families and helping ex-convicts turn around their lives. Yet the killing continues.
Mayor Greg Fischer touts efforts to bolster the police force and promote safe neighborhoods, but says a groundswell of outrage is needed, too.
Louisville's murder rate had been low compared to other cities, hovering at 60 killings each year. But homicides spiked to 80 in 2015, and kept rising. Louisville Metro Police investigated 118 homicides in 2016, and another 52 in the first five months of 2017. The city's homicide rate is still below places like Detroit, St. Louis and Baltimore, but it's climbing up the list.
In the year since Ali's memorial service, the city's murder epidemic claimed 119 lives — more than twice the number of killings just three years earlier. When a 7-year-old boy was killed by stray gunfire as he ate a bedtime snack in his family's kitchen last month, the outcry reached new heights, with everyone from the governor to his grieving grandmother saying something had to be done.
"I'm getting numb to it, because I'm just beginning to feel hopeless," said Shekela Brasher, whose 24-year-old son, Steve Lamont Bledsoe Jr., was gunned down four years ago in the same neighborhood where Ali grew up. "I know some of the people that's doing some of the murders, they feel like I feel sometimes — angry, hurt. I know they feel lost."
The city is struggling to quell the violence. The police chief reorganized his department. City officials point to programs aimed at mentoring at-risk youths, building stronger families and helping ex-convicts turn around their lives. Yet the killing continues.
Mayor Greg Fischer touts efforts to bolster the police force and promote safe neighborhoods, but says a groundswell of outrage is needed, too.
Louisville's murder rate had been low compared to other cities, hovering at 60 killings each year. But homicides spiked to 80 in 2015, and kept rising. Louisville Metro Police investigated 118 homicides in 2016, and another 52 in the first five months of 2017. The city's homicide rate is still below places like Detroit, St. Louis and Baltimore, but it's climbing up the list.