LANSING, Mich. — Lansing Mayor Andy Schor chatted with me about gun violence in the city Thursday.
So far this year, the Lansing Police Department has responded to 47 non-fatal shootings and 5 fatal shootings.
“Years past, we saw arguments and fists thrown, and now, people pull out guns,” Schor said.
Schor has received criticism this week for his response to the gun violence.
Lansing City Councilman Adam Hussian said that Schor's administration is "asleep at the wheel" when it comes to addressing the problem.
“When things go right, they don't wanna give me the credit, they want to blame the mayor, but when things go wrong, they want to blame me, the mayor,” Schor said.
Schor said the city has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to address the problem.
“We kinda have a three-step process where we focus on prevention, intervention and enforcement,” he said.
Prevention means working with youth who may be at risk or partaking in crime, intervention tackles young adults and helping them turn their life around, and lastly, there’s enforcement, which means getting police involved.
“We have seen our homicides go down more than 50%,” Schor said.
And while Schor is confident his strategy is working, he said he wants people to know it’s a team effort.
“I welcome suggestions on others, things that others may think we should add into the strategy,” he said
