The grandfather of an 11-year-old boy who was killed by a stray bullet in Washington, D.C. over the weekend told “The Story” Monday that calls to defund the police are “not going to work” as gun-related crimes continue to surge in major U.S. cities.
“You can’t take money from the police department,” John Ayala, the founder of D.C.’s Guardian Angels chapter, explained.
“We need the police. You take the police from there and we wind up having less police officers in the street and less detectives. It’s not going to work. Crime is going to get worse…if you start having less police officers, who’s going to come when there is a need for police services?”
Ayala made the comment two days after his young grandson, Davon McNeal, was gunned down while grabbing a phone charger on the way to a community cookout.
Washington D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham told reporters late Saturday that about five adult men shot up the area, striking McNeal, who later died at a hospital. The cause of the shooting is not immediately clear, but D.C. police are asking for the public’s help in gathering information, including any sightings of a black car they say fled a nearby alley.
“I think in the cities, you have a lot of people that just do not value life at this time,” Ayala said. “They don’t realize that when you take a life, that life is not coming back.” – READ MORE
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