LANSING, Mich. — Homicides and gun violence in the city of Lansing are up.
There have been 14 homicides this year, 13 of which involved guns. At this time last year, there had been 5 homicides and 4 of those incidents involved a gun.
Three people were shot and killed in the city just this past weekend.
Mayor Andy Schor said he’s starting a task force to help decrease the number of people dying from gun violence.
“We take any gun violence very seriously, and we’re going to take any gun violence seriously and take any step needed to bring justice to the victims and prevent these things from happening in the future,” Schor said.
The task force, announced Monday, will be made up of representatives from the mayor’s office, police department, parks and recreation department, and others.
The mission is to get illegal guns out of the community.
“We’re seeing illegal guns. That’s causing all types of problems and we know there’s a lot of them out there. This year alone, we’ve taken away over 100 of them off the streets,” Schor said.
On Sunday afternoon, police say, 41-year-old Melvin Darnell Pinder shot and killed himself after assaulting three people in an attempted murder-suicide. And early this morning, two teenagers were shot and killed and two others wounded in an incident near Rotary Park.
The increase in gun violence is "happening everywhere,” Schor added. “Lansing is not exempt from this. Obviously, we don’t people losing their lives to gun violence and our goal is to get guns out of the hands of people carrying them illegally.”
The Lansing Police Department said in a statement that it "is working with its local, state and federal law enforcement partners and other city stakeholders to demonstrate that we want peace in our city.
"We want those shooters and others exhibiting violence to know that law enforcement is assertively collaborating to locate and arrest violent offenders,” the statement said.
