TALLAHASSEE, Fla.(WTXL)- After a ring of shootings in less than a week apart from each other, area residents are afraid that if something isn't done soon, more people will die.
Last Wednesday at around 2:55 p.m., the Tallahassee Police Department responded to the scene of a shooting at the Plantation at Pine Lake apartment homes. According to officials, David Queen and Michael Mason got into a fight, Queen was shot by Mason and later died in the hospital.
Two days later, at 1:55 a.m., TPD were called out to the Cancun's sports bar on West Tennessee Street, where bar security got into an altercation with a patron and shot him after continuing to argue outside, the patron was sent to the hospital with serious injuries, while police arrested at charged the employee. Police have not release the names of the victim or suspect.
Just a few days following the bar shooting, TPD officers were patroling the area of County Club Drive, Monday around 1:30 in the morning. Officers heard gun shots and once arriving to the location, found Christopher Seabrooks injured. Seabrooks was taken to the hospital where he later died. Police are still searching for the suspect and investigating what led to the shooting.
With these three shootings taken place so close together, community members are planning on putting an initiative in motion called "Cure Violence". It focuses on gun violence areas and works on steps of prevention in order to decrease the number of shootings.
Gloria Pugh, community resident and business owner said "the cure violence strategy has been implemented in many cities throughout the country and the cities that have implemented the strategies have seen, a 50 to 73 percent reduction in gun violence and it is basically behavioral change, education, it's really assisting the neighborhoods that are experiencing the high incidents of gun violence."
Pugh hopes that the community, law enforcement, and business leaders work together in order to help find a solution for the problem. She says that using the Cure Violence initiative should help put the community in a safe standing.
