CHARLOTTE — A new year typically brings optimism but groups in Charlotte fighting gun violence can’t find anything to smile about so far in 2023.
It has been a deadly start to the new year.
“(There are) nights I just want to talk to my son, and I can’t,” said activist Clydia Davis. “I still call his phone.”
Davis formed a group called Moms Ain’t Playing to lobby for tougher laws.
Her son Donquavious was murdered in 2019 and she doesn’t like what she is seeing so far this year.
“It sickens me to my stomach,” she said.
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There were two murders on New Year’s Day.
Oscar Sorto Ramos, 38, was shot and killed at about 2:50 a.m. along Blackhawk Road in the northeast part of the city.
Raymond Ntungwen, 28, was killed in a shooting at about noon on West Tyvola Road in southwest Charlotte.
There was another deadly shooting Wednesday on North Graham Street at West 24th Street in north Charlotte. Charles Maxie, 46, was the victim of that deadly shooting.
Davis said the victims’ families have a long road ahead of them.
“A lot of times I stay up with other parents 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning,” Davis said. “We’ll actually meet each other one or two in the morning. Nobody understands the pain like us.”
Three homicides in four days are a lot for the beginning of the year in Charlotte.
Last year, Charlotte reached three homicides in 29 days. There were 110 killings in Charlotte in 2022.
It took 24 days to reach three homicides in 2021. There were 97 total that year in the Queen City.
One of the changes Davis would like to see is the elimination of bail for accused murderers.
“Because it’s not fair,” Davis said. “Our kids are still in the grave. Our kids will never get out of that grave. They should never get out of jail.”
One of the tools that CMPD is using is a federal grant to speed the collection of real-time ballistic evidence to tie gun crimes together in efforts to take violent armed offenders off the streets.
VIDEO: Police investigate homicide in north Charlotte
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