Deadly Weekend in Detroit: 15 Shot, 6 Killed in Just 24 Hours

DETROIT (WJBK) - A balloon left for a 14-year-old boy gone way too soon bounced in the wind Monday. Dontavius Jones was accidentally shot and killed, police say by his 18-year-old friend Marco Miner while they handled a gun. Miner is now charged with murder.

"You have a young man you see one minute. Next minute he's gone," said Rev. Adrian McCullough, who knew the victim. "We need to do something to get these guns off these young people's hands."

Jones was one of several casualties during a deadly weekend in Detroit. From 6:00 a.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Saturday, 15 people were shot and six were killed, including another teenager.

46-year-old Antwan Chase is being charged with murdering two people during a dice game at a home on Harding. Chase was also shot and crashed his car a short distance away.

Five people were shot on Greendale where a homecoming party was underway for an ex-con.

"In the City of Detroit, unfortunately, it's easier to get a gun than it is a job," said Raphael Johnson with Detroit 300.

Johnson and the Detroit 300 are calling on all men to stop the violence and stand up against it as role models for young men and as a presence to prevent more bloodshed. They're recruiting and taking to the streets armed with orange instead of weapons.

"We must stand up and make a call once and for all that this is it. Enough is enough -- we will not tolerate you victimizing us, especially in our own communities," Johnson said.

As Detroit Police deploy more officers to the streets, author and activist Yusef Shakur, himself an ex-con, said it's not about the police. It's about putting the neighbor back in the hood.

"Can't be a strong city without strong neighborhoods," he said. "They're hostile because they live in a hostile environment."

"Any other way is considered to be soft or weak and things of that nature, and so we have to challenge them to walk away from a situation is not to be weak.  It's to be strong actually," Shakur added.

City Council President Charles Pugh is all too familiar with the violence having lost his own mother to murder as a child. Now a mentor to many young people, he, too, is urging more community involvement and asking people not to panic.

"I want people to know that they are safe. Conflicts between two people sometimes go in a downward spiral. That doesn't mean everybody's unsafe," he said.

One of the points that they're trying to make is that a lot of times these things happen between people that know each other. They're acquaintances or friends or enemies, but it's not just random violence. None the less, it doesn't make it any less awful, and it's obviously something that's a big concern for police and everyone in the community.

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Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee released the following statement on Monday:

Throughout the year, but especially over this past weekend, there has been an increase in shootings in the city of Detroit. In keeping with the Honorable Mayor Dave Bing's goal to create a safer city for our residents and visitors, Chief Ralph L. Godbee, Jr. implemented Operation Inside Out: Night Angels.

Today, a meeting between the executive members of the Detroit Police Department and the rank and file union leaders was held to bring all parties together to be transparent and to inform all of deployment strategies that the Department has implement to address this serious issue.

In addition to Operation Inside Out: Night Angels, the Department is putting more officers on the street to strengthen our overall deployment strategies by providing maximum saturation coverage and intelligence led pro-active patrol throughout the city of Detroit.