Gary working on plans to stem violence, mayor says

Shootings in the Horace Mann neighborhood since June 26 have left three young men dead and two females wounded. A fourth young man from Horace Mann was found shot to death Sunday in the 400 block of Fillmore Street, about 11 blocks away from his home in the 400 block of Roosevelt Street.

Across Gary, a total of four people have been killed and seven have been wounded by gunfire in the past week.

Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said late Wednesday that the city has been working for about a year with the business community, educators and law enforcement to address gun violence in the city.

Until two young men were shot to death June 26, the city had gone nearly two months without a homicide, she said.

"That led me to believe that we were in fact getting ahead of the curve," she said.

Before June 26, Gary had not had a homicide since Alvis Moore, 21, of the 1200 block of West 52nd Place, was gunned down the afternoon of May 2 in a parking lot at the McDonald's at Fifth Avenue and Grant Street.

The June 26 shooting deaths of Daven James, 17, and Derrion Estes, 23, are believed to be linked Moore's slaying, Freeman-Wilson said.

James lived in the 200 block of Pierce Street and Estes lived in the 500 block of Fifth Avenue, according to the Lake County coroner's office. They were killed in the 1600 block of West Fifth Avenue, less than a block away from the McDonald's were Moore was killed.

In the city's most recent homicide, Jaquan Strong, 19, of the 400 block of Johnson Street, was found dead Wednesday morning in the 400 block of Roosevelt Street, authorities said.

Strong, of the 400 block of Johnson Street, was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m. from a gunshot wound, according to the Lake County coroner's office.

Police found Jaque Jones, 22, of the 400 block of Roosevelt Street, shot dead in a vehicle Sunday morning in the 400 block of Fillmore Street.

At 11 p.m. Saturday, an 18-year-old woman and another female were wounded when someone shot at the vehicle in which they were riding in the 400 block of Roosevelt Street, police said.

Gary police will continue to work closely with Indiana State Police, Lake County sheriff's police and several other departments involved with the Region STOP Team, she said.

"It's not something that is going unnoticed," Freeman-Wilson said of the rise in shootings. "We're going to do something about it."

A new partnership with the U.S. Marshals Service will be announced at a later date, she said. Freeman-Wilson declined to release any details about the partnership.

Maurice Lewis, of the 400 block of Roosevelt Street, said the violence in his neighborhood is "messed up." The community needs more youth centers and jobs, he said.

Many young people in the community are misguided because they don't have a mother or father in their lives, he said.

"These kids are supposed to be our future," Lewis said. "So where is our future headed?"

Lewis said increased police patrols can only do so much. Law-abiding residents sometimes feel harassed when they're stopped during police sweeps and that leads to distrust between the community and its police, he said.

"Just because I live in a bad area don't make me a bad person," he said.

Kisha Jones, who said she was visiting relatives on the block, said she can't make sense of the violence and she doesn't think the youths who are perpetuating it can either.

Jones has six boys and one girl, she said.

"That's what I wanted when I was younger — boys," she said. "But now with the violence I wish I had all girls."

In many cases, parents need to take more responsibility for providing guidance to their children, she said.

The mayor said gun violence among young black males has been on the rise across the country.

"We have been addressing this issue probably for the last year, looking at systematic issues relative to what are the underlying causes, what motivates largely young African-American males to take each others' lives," Freeman-Wilson said.

The city has reached out to the business community and educators to help spread an anti-violence message, she said.