LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Gun violence is rising in Louisville.
Louisville Metro Police said 16 people were shot and three were killed from May 31 until June 2, a weekend.
At least five of the victims were children who were shot early Sunday morning.
That incident was in a parking lot outside of a party in Pleasure Ridge Park.
The ACE Project is keeping children off the street by teaching them life skills like how to work together.
“Now they have a bench that they were able to sit down and eat lunch at, but it used to just be raw lumber and so I think often times we learn things, but we don’t get to see the fullness of what we learned this is one of things where we can kinda encapsulate learning different principles and working together,” said Joshua Toomer, program manager for Men in the Making for the ACE Project.
Toomer said he knew a victim of the shooting on Raggard Road.
“Very smart, very bright and time flies and just been around the wrong people. So, I think that’s really the, you know, the how this unfolded,” said Toomer.
LMPD said the six victims, including the five children, are expected to survive. The only information LMPD said it’s willing to share is that the evidence shows the shooting did not come from anywhere else but from the crowd that was gathered in the parking lot.
“You know, if there’s a gathering party, get together or whatever happens, we need to know where our kids are. They need to have a curfew and we need to make sure that they’re where there’s where they’re said they were going to be,” said Toomer.
Gun violence among children is increasing, according to the Louisville Metro Gun Violence Dashboard. Compared to 2019, the number of children 11 to 17-years-old who were victims of gun violence increased by 250%. Since 2023 it increased by over 66%.
“This has been a very challenging time in our careers in the homicide unit. They worked tirelessly, long hours. Obviously, when we have a weekend like this, it takes every resource we have obviously many of those detectives are working multiple cases and working multiple scenes through the weekend. So, it takes a toll on all of us,” said Lt. Les Skaggs, with the LMPD Homicide Unit.
Toomer said the biggest problem is youth lack conflict resolution, so issues can often lead to gun violence.
“For some youth, I think that’s the way they see is their only out, that’s their only out is to use a gun. Because if somebody threatened to jump me and I threaten to do this to me, then, you know, so I think it’s a level of fear,” said Toomer.
Parents can sign their children up for an ACE Project course online.
June is National Gun Violence Awareness Month.
On Tuesday, June 4 at 6 p.m. the Jewish Family Career Services is hosting a discussion on gun violence prevention.
The event is free and open to the public.