RICHMOND, Va. -- Five people were shot and two were killed in Richmond in the past 24 hours. Those living nearby the crime scenes are now saying they're afraid for their safety.
A widow spent her Tuesday night grieving after losing her husband to a fatal shooting.
She said she answered her phone and heard her husband screaming that he had been shot. She used the locater service on the phone to find the scene where she found her husband dead.
His death followed a night when two people were killed off Lamb Avenue just 24 hours prior. Then just a mile away from that scene, Crime Insider sources said a 51-year-old man was shot in the back Tuesday night and died outside a Carolina Avenue convenience store.
"Gun violence in Richmond is unacceptable, particularly when there's loss of life,” Mayor Levar Stoney said at an event Tuesday morning.
Stoney had a message for those involved in the city's latest killings.
"If you choose to take a life in this city, you should pay the consequences,” Stoney said. “The Richmond Police will find you and you should pay."
Tuesday night’s killing marked the city's 65th homicide of 2021, just one shy of last year’s total of 66 for the entire year.
People living in the city are voicing their concern over the recent shootings and killings, wondering if leaders have a plan to stem the tide of violence
"I’ve got a grandson that I'd like to take to the park, but I don't want to be out here if we are going to get caught up in a drive-by or some crazy mess,” said one Richmonder.
“I think we need to value life a whole lot more than we have been, but also have to stem the inundation of firearms into our communities as well,” said Stoney. “There are policy solutions to this, human services solutions to this and policing solutions to this.”
Several law enforcement experts CBS6 has spoken with said that restarting Project Exile would be a quick fix to the ongoing problem. The program imposes a mandatory minimum of five years in federal prison if a civilian is caught with an illegal gun.
