The victims of Toledo's epidemic of gun violence are progressively younger. No City neighborhood is immune. The body count continues to increase as the blood washes along city streets.

What is to be done?

Whatever the option entails, we can be sure of something. It doesn't consist of Carty.

Yet there he is, offering nominal leadership to this group and that coalition, bloviating and offering a 10-point plan. Wait, that's not rather adequate, how's a 12-point plan sound rather?

And while Carty and his ilk make political hay out of the continuous tragedy, the suffering in city streets is genuine.

Weapons, blood and aspiration

Reverse the clock to twenty twenty. The depths of the pandemic brought an unnerving increase in violence involving firearms. It appeared every few days another conflict ended in shooting.

The carnage did not go unnoticed, and Mayor Wade stepped up by announcing the Mayor's Initiative to Reduce Gun Violence (or to Produce Re-election, or something like that). By early twenty twenty-one Wade hired previous football gamer and native Toledoan JoJuan Armour to lead the effort. By August outreach staff were put on the streets.

Wade promised a public health approach to disrupting the violence. While the program was slow to get off the ground, data shows it was fairly effective where it was focused, in the Junction-Englewood areas.

Prowling in the background prepared to attack for political gain was the ever-ambitious Carleton S. Too slow, he fumed! Ten-point strategy, he demanded! And immediately revealed his candidacy for Mayor versus Wade's re-election bid.

Lest we forget, this is the very same Carty who demanded a "war on weapons" as a prospect for Mayor against then-incumbent PHH's re-election bid in twenty fifteen. And who furloughed seventy-five law enforcement officers after driving the city budget plan off the cliff as mayor in twenty oh nine.

On the other hand city council prospect Michele Grim drubbed Carty's twenty twenty-one ten-point strategy as out-of-date and filled with "failed ideas" like curfews and gun buybacks. She then provided her own ten-point plan including street outreach, domestic violence avoidance, and other deterrence concepts. The foreseeable political battle taken place.

And the gun violence continued unabated.

Back to the future

Quick forward to twenty twenty-two. Carty lost his mayoral bid to Wade and jumped to lead a Coalition for a Peaceful Toledo. You check out that right, the guy known for tossing coffee cups and roadway rage requiring a peaceful Toledo.

Grim got chosen to city board, forgot her ten-point strategy, and then got elected to the statehouse. Armour resigned from Wade's effort, and Wade proceeded to going over police methods to minimize weapon violence.

Here we are in twenty three. Guns continue to blaze across the city. Wade is seeking a brand-new initiative by partnering with the group Cities United.

Carty's group is relabelled Coalition for Peaceful Toledo Neighborhoods and is now led by all living previous Toledo mayors. Donna Owens, Carty, Mike Bell, and PHH just recently released their own twelve-point strategy.

Far this year at least seven teens have actually passed away of gunfire in the city. Fifteen-point strategy, anyone?

Enough of plans and political posturing. We require action. Treat this epidemic like the public health crisis it is.

Who will step up to at last lead this charge?