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Community members demand action in death of 13-year-old following council vote

Columbus City Council voted in Mitchell J. Brown on Monday, but community members are already for a push to tackle youth violence.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus City Council appointed former council member and Columbus Public Safety Director Mitchell J. Brown to take Elizabeth Brown’s seat where he’ll serve out the remainder of her term.  

Brown retired at the end of 2021 City Council.  

Already, some community members called for a push to tackle youth violence surrounding the death of 13-year-old Sinzae Reed. Krieg Butler is accused of killing Reed in October.

Butler was initially charged with his killing, but the charges have since been dropped and are still awaiting further police investigation, according to court records.  

10TV spoke with Ramon Obey II, a community activist. He was advocating for the family of Reed. He said moments after the shooting, Reed's mother didn't get the help she needed from a trauma response team. 

"It's time that we move from working with these same old same old safety teams and start looking at new ways of operating,” said Reed.  

The Columbus CARE Coalition is the city-operated response team and works alongside Columbus Police to go into communities after something bad happens. 

Obey suggested moving away from a city-operated team and to one formed by community members. 

"These communities are the ones that are constantly traumatized and what we're seeing at play right now is that full cycle of trauma happening again and again,” said Obey. “It's time that we invest in these communities that don't have the necessary resources that they need to survive,” he said.  

During Monday night's meeting, the Assistant Health Commissioner for Columbus Public Health Anita Clark said, “They [the trauma response team] do immediately respond sometimes it takes a bit to get family or contact information and I do apologize if that did not occur,” said Clark. 

Before the meeting 10TV spoke with Councilmember Emmanuel Remy about their plans to combat violence this year.  

He said they plan to double down services like afterschool and violence prevention programs. 

“It takes community leaders, it takes parents, it takes schoolteachers, everyone, to step up and lock arms so we can effectively reduce this crime," said Remy.

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