During a press conference Wednesday, Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said almost all tragedies the city is seeing this year are gang-related, and gun-related homicides are very targeted, with the average person having nothing to worry about.
David Ross is a community activist and life-long Toledoan. He identifies with the inner city and admitted the city has neighborhood gangs, but violent crimes and murders aren't happening because of gang affiliation.
The problem isn't as simple as that, according to him.
"It's not a thing where you can just sit back and say, if we get this leader, it'll stop. It's not like that," he said. "These murders that are happening are 'situations'. They're not money. They're not gang territory. They're not colors. They're not none of that. These are situations and senseless violence."
Ross said some kids join gangs as young as eleven years old, and most of them who commit violent crimes are in and out of the court system.
"I've asked some of these kids, 'how does this end?' And they'll say death. They're comfortable with it, with this ending in death," Ross explained. "That's the issue of the mind and mentality."
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