JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Just before the New Year began, a 16-year-old was killed in a shooting in Mandarin. Then, the shooting death of a 14-year-old in the Sherwood Forest neighborhood marked Jacksonville’s first homicide of the year.
On Wednesday night, a mother and her 4-year-old daughter were hit by gunfire on the Northside.
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The city’s high crime rate is always a topic of concern for the community and city leaders like Mayor Donna Deegan. On This Week in Jacksonville, Kent Justice sat with Deegan and talked about how a city riddled with gun violence affects children and the measures needed to stop the violence.
STATISTICS: Most Jacksonville neighborhoods saw fewer killings in 2023. One ZIP code spiked by 32%
“This is obviously an unfortunately ongoing discussion that we have here in Jacksonville and in many large cities around the country,” Deegan said. “We have to do what we can to minimize what is obviously the elephant in the room, and that is gun violence.”
Deegan said as mayor she has focused on decreasing crime through prevention and intervention programs such as rebooting the Jacksonville Journey, which is an anti-crime and prevention program.
“The gun conversation is a complicated one and one that’s largely been decided in Tallahassee. But I personally would love to see us at some point address the number of guns that are on our streets as well,” she said.
She also announced that the city hired Charles Griggas to replace Lakesha Burton as director of community initiatives.
“Charles is just a wonderful, experienced person in this space,” Deegan said. “He was one of the leaders of the journey when we put it together the last time and knows a great deal about it. So those initiatives like literacy and making sure that we’re connecting with those community partners who can give kids other things to focus on once they get older and get into these things that we don’t want them to get into.”
Tune in on Sunday to watch the full interview on Channel 4 at 9 a.m. and on News4JAX+ when the Mayor discusses other topics such as the controversial removal of Confederate monuments, sports tourism and Laura Street Trio updates.