COLUMBUS, Ohio — On the side of Arlington Avenue is a reminder of what a neighborhood lost.
“It’s sad because the baby didn’t have a chance to live,” Tamara Toudle said. “He was just starting.”
Toudle has lived on the same street for the last nine years. The last three months she says it’s all changed.
“In this area, in the Linden area, there’s been a lot of deaths up here and it’s all young kids,” she said.
The latest kid is 14-year-old Daymar Carlisle who will forever be known as the 148th homicide in Columbus in 2021.
“And I don’t know where these guns keep coming up at and how these little young kids is getting a hold of them,” she said.
Columbus police say this homicide investigation has a person of interest, which is an adult, but that person is not in custody.
“It breaks my heart,” Al Edmondson said. “Every day when I wake up and when I see another young man shot.”
Edmondson is a mouthpiece against youth violence in the Linden community.
“I think in our community right now we have lost a love for our brother and a love for our sister,” he said.
Until everyone sees the importance to get involved he says violence will continue.
“When we bring back the love in our community I think we can see some change,” Edmondson said. “With everybody working together.”
Without that Toudle fears more balloons will be lifted with heavy hearts.
“You know it’s just sad,” she said. “It’s just sad to see these babies going all the wrong way.”