LANSING, Mich. — Homicides in Lansing are double what they were at this time last year.
Six people have been killed in Lansing in 2021, half of them teens. There were three homicides in the city at this point in 2020.
Now, as families deal with the grief, they’re looking to the Lansing Police Department for closure.
“I just need to know why?” said Tyrece Darden. “Really, why?
That’s a question racing through Darden’s head after losing his 16-year-old brother, Darrelle Smith, to gun violence not even a month ago.
The family says they have a sense of what happened the night of the shooting.
“What I know now is he went to meet somebody and the guy pulled a gun on him and robbed him,” Darden said.
Lansing Police said they’ve been investigating the incident. They were the ones who found Smith in the area of Burneway Drive and Seaway Drive with a gunshot wound back in March. He was taken to the hospital and later died from his injuries.
“He really wanted to be a welder, that’s what he had his mindset on,” Darden said.
Smith wasn’t the only teen who lost his life to gun violence in Lansing this year. Lansing Police say three teenagers have been killed so far this year. They have made an arrest in just one of those cases
“This is something you can see coming a mile away,” Darden said. “Between the city and the schools, they’re taking everything away from the youth. Take some of this funding that we’re spending money on policing and try and interact with these kids and give them something to do.”
Lansing Police Department released this statement “The department continues to work diligently on the homicides without arrests. On a daily basis, the detective groups assigned to the cases follow up on leads, inteview people and gather evidence.”
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