FLINT, MI (WNEM) -
Following a weekend wave of violence in Flint, Shonda Perteet said she's worried how all the homicides are going to affect her children.
"A lot of the kids that are getting killed, they know," she said.
And most depressing of all, when she talks to her kids she said it's as if they are numb to the violence.
"It's like a part of life now, they've gotten so used to it, it's like it's a part of life."
We brought the issue up with Flint Emergency Financial Manager Ed Kurtz during his weekly news conference inside city hall. It was an opportunity for us to ask him how he plans to curb Flint's recent upswing in homicides.
Perteet has her own ideas.
"They need to put more police on the street," she said.
But Kurtz said that simply isn't realistic.
"We have absolutely no money to put more police officers on the street. We can do options. We can lay off firefighters," Kurtz added.
But short of that, Kurtz said there have been some changes aimed at maximizing the police officers the city can afford.
"We instituted several changes like the 12-hour shifts. We've improved our response time to these issues."
Part and parcel to curbing the violence, Kurtz also said, is the Flint jail.
"The Flint city lockup will open by the last week in September or the first week in October."
There was one other announcement from Kurtz on fighting crime: He and his staff just devoted $2.5 million to tearing down dilapidated houses; houses that provide the fertile ground for crime.
"Use those demolition dollars as it relates to public safety, target areas where we know there's a high crime rate," Kurtz added.
But other Flint natives we talked to say the community still needs to take some responsibility in order to win the battle against increasing crime here.
As Steven Mabry put it, "It's not just a police problem, it's not just a city hall problem, it's a community problem."
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Ed Kurtz
