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Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Neighborhood leaders call for earlier youth curfew in Navy Yard
WASHINGTON () — Neighbors in Navy Yard are pushing for a new youth curfew after a group of over the weekend. According to police, a large group of juveniles caused a disturbance and committed at least two robberies on Saturday. Three kids were arrested. 'I can't explain what's going on down here when you're caught up in it and you see 200 people rushing towards you and the police trying to escort them out of the neighborhood,' said Edward Daniels. 'It's just hard to explain.' One hospitalized in Navy Yard assault Daniels is a commissioner on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC). On Tuesday, the ANC met to discuss safety concerns and how to address the ongoing issue with juveniles in the neighborhood. 'It's scary, it's unfortunate, it's just frustrating because it just keeps happening and happening and happening and the kids just keep getting a slap on the wrist,' he said. The group suggested an 8 p.m. curfew in Navy Yard for juveniles. The time is several hours earlier than the midnight curfew implemented during summer months. But, it is later than the 5 p.m. curfew in place for juveniles at nearby National Harbor. Shooting in Navy Yard leaves 1 dead, DC police say Daniels said he is aware there would be challenges. 'We also have a lot of officers that say it's hard to enforce that and it's hard to quote unquote round up the bad apples and get them to a detention area and get their parents to pick them up,' he said. Still, he and others want something to be done. While meeting Tuesday night, a away. 'As I'm sitting there, I'm being slid a note that the young person died on the sidewalk. It's frustrating because we keep talking about these issues and last night was a meeting of frustrated residents and then a ton of people with excuses about the behavior,' he said. The ANC plans to submit a resolution to the DC Council requesting the curfew. DC police arrest Maryland man in U Street shooting that injured 3 Meanwhile, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith is expecting to share more plans this week regarding juvenile crime and safety. 'We want our young people to enjoy everything this city has to offer, from parks and recreation events to our Late-Night Hype and Beat the Streets programs, and all activities that give them an engaging and safe space to gather,' she said in a statement shared earlier this week. 'However, we will not tolerate criminal behavior that puts others at risk, or disrupts the safety of our residents, businesses or visitors in our city.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Yahoo
In Cleveland, shootings drop but kids are at higher risk
Kids participate in an after school program with Beat the Streets, a nonprofit that works to positively alter life's trajectory for K-12 student-athletes in the Cleveland area by giving them access to youth development, mentoring, and wrestling. (Photo by Daniel Lozada for The Trace.) This story was published in partnership with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence. High school students were reading, studying, and hanging out on a Tuesday afternoon at the Shaker Heights Public Library, just seven miles east of downtown Cleveland, when a confrontation broke out between two teenagers. It started with pushes and shoves, but then one of them pulled out a gun and started shooting. In the end, 18-year-old Charles Lee Shanklin was killed, and a 15-year-old was arrested on several charges, including carrying a concealed weapon and murder. Since 2021, shooting and homicide numbers have declined throughout Cleveland, in keeping with national trends. Children and teenagers, however, are still bearing the burden of firearm injuries and deaths in Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located. Since 2010, shooting deaths among people 18 and younger have more than tripled in Cuyahoga, rising to 37 in 2023, the latest year for which data is available. The youth firearm homicide rate is more than 30% higher in Cuyahoga than it is in three comparable counties — Allegheny County, in Pennsylvania; Franklin County, Ohio; and Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit. From 2020 to 2023, according to The Trace's analysis of census data and statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Cuyahoga's youth firearm death rate averaged to 17 per 100,000 residents, including a six-point jump between 2019 and 2020. A report by the Cuyahoga County Board of Health found that overall child fatalities in 2023 reached a five-year high, and 19% of them were by firearm. Last year, 41 people under 18 in the county were charged with homicide, which matched the record set in 2023. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Cleveland, which is the largest city in the county, is responsible for around 75% of all homicides countywide, and a gun is used in over 80% of them. 'Every week it seems like someone I know gets killed,' said Delano Griffin, a 17-year-old resident of East Cleveland. 'You just never feel safe.' Like other midwestern cities, downtown Cleveland is separated by just a few miles from the historically redlined and neglected neighborhoods surrounding the metropolitan area, like East Cleveland, Garfield Heights, St. Clair Superior, and Central. Police data shows those neighborhoods struggle the most with gun violence. All of them are predominantly Black. The vast majority of gun deaths in Cleveland are among Black men. Cleveland's Black population is 47% — yet its Black residents make up nearly 85% of all gunshot victims. Local activists said pinpointing a single reason for the higher rates of shootings among young people is difficult, but they said poverty plays a major role. Myesha Watkins, who runs the Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance, a community-led violence prevention and intervention group that focuses on children and teens, said the economic hardship young people experience can make them feel their lives are out of their own control. They can feel they have no choice but to get involved in street activity, and might even pick up a gun 'A lot of the actions and the choices they're making are because of the unmet needs of somebody that's caring for them,' Watkins said. According to U.S. Census estimates, Cleveland has the single highest child poverty rate of any U.S. city with a population of more than 300,000, at 45%. Demetrius Williams, who runs Beat The Streets Cleveland, a nonprofit program that gives young people access to mentoring, youth development, and wrestling, said that the peer pressure is heavy. 'A lot of times they come from these type of environments, and everybody in your neighborhood is doing it, everybody that you been surrounded by is doing it,' Williams said. 'Once they're caught up in it, that's it.' Local activists point to other issues, like accessibility to resources, mental health services, and job training, combined with a lack of dependable financial investment from the city. 'Young people who are already on the cusp of being involved in violence are living in a system that hasn't been set up for them to succeed,' said Sonya Pryor-Jones, who runs the Office of Prevention, Intervention and Opportunity for Youth and Young Adults in the Mayor's Office. In 2023, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb announced the Neighborhood Safety Fund, which allocated $10 million in grant money from American Rescue Plan Act funds to invest in violence prevention. From it, 44 different groups have so far received an average of $46,000 each, totaling roughly $2 million. The year before, the city was awarded a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for the creation of Cleveland Thrive, a community violence intervention coalition meant to bring groups together and build a strategy to reduce gun violence. It's led to some collaboration, including a gun violence training program, but activists say it hasn't been enough. 'We have to get the right resources to these areas. We cannot expect everything to change if we're giving limited resources to people who need it the most,' said Richard Starr, a City Council member who represents several neighborhoods stricken by gun violence, including Central. He's leading an effort to establish gun violence as a public health crisis in Cleveland, which would enable the federal Department of Health and Human Services to help fund a centralized Office of Violence Prevention. Local community organizations are appreciative of the existing funding, but 'the biggest thing is getting consistent money, and a lot of groups that are working with these kids are not getting it consistently,' Williams said. That instability has them all vying for the same bucket of dollars, part of the reason many community organizations are doing their gun violence prevention work in silos — and struggling to sustain their efforts. 'Collectively, if we come together and share resources and share language and share data, we can do a lot more and cover a lot more,' Watkins said. More importantly, though, the infighting projects a lack of legitimacy to young people who are faced with picking up a gun. 'The youth are not dumb, when they see us beefing within ourselves, it's a problem,' Williams said. Delano Griffin, the 17-year-old who lives in Garfield Heights, said he appreciates anyone from his area stepping up to help the kids — but he hadn't heard of most of the community programs that exist specifically for him. If they want to address gun deaths, Griffin said the decision-makers downtown need to do a better job of reaching out. 'They shouldn't forget about us,' he said. 'We live in this city, too.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Keyshawn Davis has that star vibe — and he arrives at just the right time
NEW YORK — As far as false alarms go, the only one that's sounded off more consistently than the old 'rock is dead' mantra over the years is its sports equivalent — boxing is dead. We've been reading about its demise at intervals since Cassius started running his mouth. Yet just a week before boxing's great Lollapalooza card in Saudi Arabia, in which Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol will battle it out once again for the undisputed light heavyweight title, the 25-year-old Keyshawn Davis made a quick stop in the Big Apple to give a glimpse of boxing's future. They've been calling him the best boxer to come out of Norfolk since Pernell Whitaker, a gravitational statement meant to highlight the late champion more than the geography. Still, Davis was in New York to try to win his first major title on Friday, and I thought I'd stop in to get a look and see what all the hubbub was about. Nothing in the fight game is livelier than seeing a youthful fighter who is on the verge of breaking through. And it's even better to catch them in a small bunker as famous as The Theater at Madison Square Garden, which — with the trademark crisscrossed ceiling lights and the ring washed up to one side — has the feel of a glamorized smoker. A small contingency of Ukrainian fans showed up to back their fighter, Denys Berinchyk, who was temporarily holding the WBO lightweight title. I say 'temporarily' because Vegas installed him as a +475 underdog, which wasn't exactly an endorsement. He felt more like a sacrificial offering in a star-making ritual, which only lent to the vibe. The first to walk, though, was the challenger Davis, and it wasn't a long runway at the old Hulu so he took his sweet time. Decked in white and gold, he glowed against the darkness of the light drop, his white gloves swaying as he lifted his arms. The assembled crowd came to life. High expectation was in the air. Earlier in the night, just before Vito Mielnicki and the Irishman Connor Coyle went on, cell phones were aloft in the smoke-filled men's room as two fans squared off after a disagreement at the wash station. A group of onlookers cheered on the dispute, with one going so far as to yell 'Handle your business, Mr. Businessman!' — a homage to the man of the hour, 'The Businessman,' Davis. The dispute ended peacefully enough (to the dismay of those gathered), but that anticipation held taut throughout the night. Compared to other trips to The Theater, this felt significant. I'd been to here for events in the past, a GLORY event in which diehard fans insisted that I pay close attention to Georgio Petrosyan, a then 27-year-old phenom who was the Jon Jones of the kickboxing world. Those fans apologized when Petrosyan lost to Andy Ristie, in a way that a dinner guest apologizes when excusing himself from the table with an upset stomach. I was also there for a Beat the Streets wrestling event years later, in which Jordan Burroughs treated Ben Askren like a ragdoll. Relatively low-key affairs, and anticlimactic in every way. But this was different. The Ukrainian flags waved, and chants broke out, yet the only one that Davis heard was, 'NOR-FICK, NOR-FICK.' The actual chant sounded far more profane, especially for ESPN audiences, but that's just how Norfolk is pronounced. It wasn't a spectacular second-round demolishing like he had against Gustavo Lemos back in November, but it was still a subtle masterclass of the right hand. That right hand. That right hand was the co-star of the show. It threatened. It made promises. It carried the crowd's tension with it, whenever it flew, right up until the end. Berinchyk got in and out of the exchanges like a man playing with fire, and he tied Davis up whenever he could. But in the fourth round it all came apart. A brutal hook combination to the body dropped him to a knee, and long before referee Harvey Dock could wave him off, there was Davis, waving his hands from the neutral corner. He knew it upon impact. You couldn't help but feel for Berinchyk, who'd been accused of sending a box of bananas and watermelon to Davis in what was thought to be a racist gesture. He didn't have anything for Davis on fight night. He got bloodied up and tenderized when in close, made to feel like a title tenant more than an actual owner. Over a decade ago he won a silver medal for his country at the Olympics in London, and he's had a nice career. He even dabbled in the bare-knuckle boxing scene, going against the former UFC fighter Artem Lobov just for kicks. Yet you get the sense that Davis isn't just a boxer, but the emerging face of boxing itself. If there was a masquerade in play, it got shut down quickly. Davis, who has been around Terence Crawford long enough to know how to handle himself as a winner, now has the WBO lightweight title, and he'll be hunting for more. Add him to the other names. Vasiliy Lomachencko. Gervonta Davis. Shakur Stevenson. Top Rank's officials believe he's bound to be a champion in other weight classes, too. 'What a performance,' the 93-year-old Bob Arum said. Arum has been promoting events since George Chuvalo took on Muhammad Ali in 1966. 'You saw the future of boxing tonight here in New York City.' So we did. And boxing is as alive as its ever been.
