Dozens of gang members heard the message over and over on Friday: The violence in Toledo will stop.
Some rolled their eyes when job training and access to education were offered.
A few put their heads in their hands as Toledo police officers showed mug shots of south-side gang members — the Cholos and Locs — who are serving time in state and federal prisons.
"As a collective group, you have caused people to fear living in our city," Mayor Mike Bell said. "As a mayor, I cannot allow that to continue. You've kept elderly people [inside their homes]. They're scared to open the door."
The mayor, along with other government officials, police officers, and community members, addressed the group of nearly 40 known gang members — all ordered to attend because of parole or probation — making a plea to end gun violence and take advantage of opportunities to improve their lives.
The meeting, in a fourth-floor courtroom at the Lucas County Courthouse, was the first of its kind for the Toledo Community Initiative to Reduce Violence.
The initiative is intended to reduce gang-related shootings and homicides, which increased drastically in the past year.
The gang members were told they have two options: continue to participate in violence and face a heavy hand from law enforcement at the local, state, and federal levels or accept help and change their lives for the better.
"There are ways out," Mr. Bell said. " … It's your choice. … From the standpoint of a city, there is absolutely no way that I, as a mayor, can tolerate any more violence in this city. We're prepared to wrap it up. ... It is our intent to take our city back.
"We're not going to have old people, elderly people, scared to come out of their houses," he said.
"We will take our city back, we will return the quality of life that's necessary for us to be a great city," the mayor said.
Law enforcement officials, including police Chief Derrick Diggs, told the gang members that, if they shoot someone, police will come after them. If they are affiliated with a shooter, police will build an investigation on all of the friends and affiliates, charging them with any illegal activity.
Cases built from the initiative will be forwarded to federal prosecutors for consideration.
"It's a new day in this community when it comes to gun violence," the chief told the men. " … The next body that drops due to gun violence by gang bangers, gang members, or their associates will be pursued."
Community leaders say they hope the offenders will go back and tell their friends — their fellow gang members — that authorities are "serious." But they admit it could take time for the message to work — if at all.
Still, in case the men in the gallery at Friday's session thought they were untouchable, police showed surveillance photos that may have featured some of the men in attendance, and at the least were images of their friends.
"You may say ‘the police department doesn't know who I am.'?" said Toledo police Capt. Brad Weis. "Trust me. I do. This piece of paper here, I know each individual on it by name, your address, your set or subset. … We've done our homework."
There was a visible disconnect when members of the services team, who followed law enforcement officials, addressed the men, but the community members with emotional stories seemed to capture the men's attention.
When Dr. Barry Knotts, a trauma surgeon at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, showed a man whose head was blown away from a gunshot wound, men looked away.
"I know, and you know, if you're in a violent group, you're also a target," the doctor said. "That puts you at risk [of] meeting me in not a good way."
When Nicole Ross-Byrd spoke, the men stopped fidgeting, stopped yawning, and leaned forward.
"I'm a surviving mother of a murdered son named Christopher," she said.
Ms. Ross-Byrd was at home on March 3, 2008, deciding what to make for dinner, when she got a phone call that her 17-year-old son, Christopher Ross, was shot.
On her way to the hospital, she thought she would have to take some time off from college to care for her son.
She had no idea that, more than an hour before she arrived at the hospital, her boy — with whom she was in labor for 56½ hours — was dead.
"He didn't make it off the operating table," she said. " … My life has never been the same. My world, my family's [world] were rocked to the core. Life as we had known it would never be."
Ms. Ross-Byrd said the death of her son devastated her emotionally, physically, and financially.
She said she was "delusional" — told herself that Christopher was safe in Columbus with her brother.
She used her life savings to bury her son. She had to find a way to stand again. She needed a life coach.
William Braylock is serving a 12-year prison sentence for killing her son.
Charlie Mack, a radio personality from 107.3 The Juice, brought the message home with "real talk."
"For the better part of the past two decades, I've seen a progression in the emergence of the RIP T-shirts," Mr. Mack said. "We didn't have that before; now it's common spot. They do 'em for funerals, you wear 'em every day. … You gotta be tired of burying your homeboys."
Mr. Mack told the men it's a great feeling to know when a police officer is driving behind you and there's nothing to worry about. It's nice to not have to wonder if a car parked on the side of the street is really an unmarked police vehicle.
He challenged them to put down their guns and end the "nonsense."
"Some of y'all [are] like, ‘This is war,'?" Mr. Mack said.
"You fight a war that you jumped into on your own. Ain't nobody fighting against you if you just stop. Ain't no missiles coming at you. This ain't North Korea and the United States, nothing like that. … This is my city. I love everybody in here including y'all, but I'll be damned if I let anybody tear it down."
Contact Taylor Dungjen at: tdungjen@theblade.com, 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @tdungjen_Blade.
First Published April 28, 2012, 4:25 a.m.
