MACON, Ga. — It’s something that we see far too often – headlines about teens and young adults committing violence against each other.
We see your comments on these stories. We see people questioning where it starts, why it’s continuing, and wondering when it will end.
Youth violence is a problem and it costs our community in different ways.
By the end of 2018, seven teenagers were killed in a year of near-record breaking violence in Macon-Bibb County.
Not only were an alarming rate of teens being killed, but teens were also being charged with those murders.
In Sept. 2018 with the arrest of a teenager in the fatal shooting at the Chick-fil-A on Bloomfield Road, the Bibb County Sheriff's Office recorded six teens charged with murder in a month's time.
Everyone would agree youth violence is a problem, but communities are affected in different ways. Many entities have a stake in the problem and the solutions.
Through a partnership with Mercer's Center for Collaborative Journalism, Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Telegraph, we will seek out many voices over the next year and ask the question: What is the cost of youth violence? The project is named Peacing Together.
But we can't do this on our own, we need your help too. We'd like to invite you to take a brief survey on your thoughts on youth violence in your community.
For the next week on 13WMAZ News at 5 p.m., we’ll be introducing you to five members of the community who are working with youth in hopes of stopping the spread of violence.
- Monday: Reggie Thomas
- Tuesday: Tajalyn Woodruff
- Wednesday: Ray Rover
- Thursday: Campus Clubs
- Friday: June O’Neal
On Tuesday, Sept. 17, we will air an investigative piece in collaboration with our CCJ partners – Grant Blankenship from GPB Macon, Joe Kovac from the Telegraph and Adam Ragusea from the Center for Collaborative Journalism – about data showing when children turn to violence.
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