RICHMOND, Va. -- Richmond's top prosecutor recently issued a challenge to parents.
"If you are paying for your child's cell phone, I challenge you to tell your child I want to see your cell phone and I want your password," Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Colette McEachin said.
She called out parents, while taking part in the CBS 6 STOP the Violence Town Hall earlier this month, to be aware of what their children are doing online.
"I challenge you as a parent to take responsibility for the cell phone that you are paying for, that your child has in school, on the streets, on the bus — everywhere and actually look and see what your child is doing," McEachin warned. "That's my challenge. All right, who's gonna take the challenge?"
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Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards echoed what McEachin said.
"I can tell you that when we see our murders and when our investigators are looking at many of those, you see it play out on those phones and on social media," Edwards said. "I know those parents who have learned about that wish they could go back in time and sometimes intervene."
Edwards also urged folks to get involved in the community.
"Find something that you can do to make the lives a bit better for our people in our city," Edwards said.
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Edwards said that while violent crime in the city is trending down, property crime is on the rise -- driving an overall increase to major crimes by 7%.
The police chief said gun violence in the city -- especially among young people driven by beefs on social media — is an ongoing.
In fact, while non-fatal shootings are down (-15%), the number of juvenile victims is increasing (from 12 to 14). He added they have several initiatives to address youth violence including Operation Safe Summer which aims to get guns and perpetrators off the street and give kids safe places to hang out when they are out of school.
He said they also partner with the school system to help keep tabs on issues starting online.
"It's hard for us to determine what we've actually stopped," Edwards said. "But we know if we're seeing some of these videos where people are threatening each other online and our detectives go out there with their [Virginia State Police] trooper partners and stop that person and find that specific gun and make that arrest -- who knows what we stopped. So I think every time we're able to do that we can we can count that as a win."
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Edwards added some statistics of concern overlapped at times: accidental shootings and guns stolen from cars.
On the latter, he said they have increased 19%. On the former, Edwards said while eight adults were accidentally shot (by themselves or others) in all of 2022, six months into 2023 nine adults and six juveniles have been shot -- including Marquan Mitchell-Nash, 13, who was killed in March when by a gun stolen from a car.
"Those are totally preventable statistics and they affect people and ruin lives. And it's something we have to talk about," said Edwards.
Donielle Keel, who has lived in the city her entire life, worries there are no easy solutions.
"With Instagram, Facebook. Society now, they don't -- young people growing up -- they don't have respect for other people, nor our lives, anything. It's all about the likes, shares, and checks," Keel said. "I don't think it can be stopped because everybody have a phone. The only thing you have to do is record just like we're doing now."
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