'It's About Saving Lives': Community Looks For Answers After Another Child Falls Victim To Gun Violence
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Chaos erupted on Monday morning on North 4th Street.
Just moments before, 5-year-old Jayda Holmes had been sleeping peacefully.
"A lot of gunshots and then my granddaughter screaming, just screaming, 'Nana, Nana.' And I went back in there and I opened up her bedroom door and there was blood on the floor, her showing me her foot is bleeding and I'm like, 'What the heck just happened here?' Jayda's grandmother, Lori Melchert, said.
A bullet went right through her bedroom wall. It was a chaotic scene, but not a unique one.
Just to name a few more incidents like the one involving Jayda, in 2002, Tynesha Edwards was hit by a bullet and killed while doing homework.
In 2011, Tomika Swope was shot while walking home from school. That same year, 3-year-old Tyrell Mayes was killed when a passing car shot at his house.
"Every day, about 6 o'clock, my heart skips a beat cause I don't have Junior here no more. This is not OK," Tyrell's mother said.
Activist KG Wilson stood at her side.
"We are begging you again to turn yourself in. Let's get this thing over with. Let's bring some closure to this mother," Wilson said.
And on Monday, Wilson stood with Jayda's grandmother, capturing the bloody aftermath of another child bearing a bullet.
"A community is terrified because when you have people out there this violent to shoot up a house seven times with no concern about who they shoot or kill, then that's something to be concerned about," Wilson said.
Wilson says he will work so no other child has to become a victim in someone else's fight.
"Everybody has to be on the same page and that page has to be peace. We want to bring the neighborhoods, make the neighborhoods back a neighborhood again. If we have to do it block by block, that's how we are gonna have to do it because its about saving lives," Wilson said.