TOLEDO, Ohio — West Toledo's Library Village neighborhood is struggling with a spike in violence, with the third shooting since Saturday happening Monday night.
The 15-year-old victim was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Save Our Community Commissioner David Bush and Toledo Deputy Safety Director Angel Tucker said the recent crime and bloodshed afflicting Library Village has their full attention.
"We have families too, so, of course we're concerned," Bush said. "But we're going to do all we can to provide resources and to continue to work with residents in our community."
So far, there has been no connection to gangs discovered among any of the victims, Tucker said. And gang loyalties being fluid, Tucker said hunting down the original criminals during spikes like these has become a challenge.
"I think what we know of as gangs are no more," he said. "So when we think about what gang violence is, we don't know if this is gang violence, we don't know if these are random acts of violence, because things have morphed, things have changed."
So, the city is changing its strategy.
Leaders are focusing on preventing the shooter from having a reason to pull the trigger at all instead of just putting them in handcuffs. And they plan to do so by addressing Toledo's systemic poverty through city programs.
"We're talking generations of under-resourced communities, and eventually bubbles burst," Tucker said. "People get to a point. We're working on the home ownership aspect, renter's assistance, we're helping people's bills get paid."
But Tucker and Bush said getting Toledo's poor back to a better place could take years or even decades. They compared the work they're doing now to planting a seed that needs time to grow.
But what about short-term solutions?
Bush said it's possible the city may place violence interrupters in Library Village, but it comes down to funding and whether community members want that.