‘Senseless killings’: Local groups, sheriff’s office host anti-violence event

CHARLOTTE — The City of Charlotte has experienced another violent 24 hours.

Officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department spent Friday night investigating two more deadly shootings.

Leaders throughout the community are asking what can be done to stop the violence and met at Johnson C. Smith University on Saturday morning to address it.

“We cannot stop the violence, but we can curb it; how can we curb it coming together?” Arkevious Armstrong, with the Step Up Foundation, told veteran crime reporter Glenn Counts.

Armstrong organized the anti-violence event to bring attention to not only the crimes but also the senselessness behind them.

One of the deadly shootings happened Friday night in east Charlotte off Boswell Road. Neighbors say the victim, Kaleb Brown, was just 17 years old.

“We want to bring attention to it—attention to the violence, attention to the senseless killings,” he said.

Saturday’s event at JCSU was a call to action and an effort to pull all members of the community together with governmental agencies like the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.

“We have like 15 vendors from all different sorts of resource organizations from the county and the city, but that’s what we wanted to bring to the table,” Armstrong said.

Most organizations share the same goal of keeping young people out of trouble.

“Your talent can be something that we can use, and our talent can be something that you can use, but we can all look at it as one,” Armstrong said.

A large aspect of bringing these groups together is to let the community know the resources that are there to help them help others.

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