FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Louisville family hit hard by the city's epidemic of violence is asking lawmakers in Frankfort for help.
Christian Gwynn was murdered as he walked home from a restaurant on Dec. 19, 2019. His parents told their story to the Interim Joint Judiciary Committee.
"A car proceeded to pull up beside him, roll the window down, and gunned my son down," said Krista Gwynn through tears.
Gywnn said her son was a good person who had graduated from high school, had a job, did not do drugs or alcohol, and had never been in trouble with the law. She said her son had a 10 p.m. curfew and was gunned down at 9:20.
"Why? Why did the city of Louisville, why did gun violence take my son away?" asked Gwynn. "We are being gunned down, and children are taking children -- and something has to give."
The Gwynns asked lawmakers to get behind a new anti-violence effort being rolled out in Louisville called Group Violence Intervention or GVI.
GVI combines aggressive law enforcement targeting those who commit gun violence, with aggressive intervention by social service agencies to prevent it from happening again.
Former U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman told the committee GVI has worked in other cities.
"It's an effort almost 30 years ago in Boston that reduced homicides by over 50 percent," said Coleman.
Coleman asked lawmakers, not for funding, but for oversight.
"There's been an approach to Louisville as if your authority ends at the border of Metro Louisville," said Coleman. "We need your oversight to ensure that this is implemented correctly in Louisville."
Lawmakers generally promised support, but Sen. Danny Carroll, a former police officer, lamented the fractured relationship between LMPD and some of Louisville's citizens.
"Until there is a partnership, until there is a coming together, and until there is some trust built between those two parties, it's not going to get any better," he said.
Rep. Pamela Stephenson urged everyone to work together -- Frankfort with Louisville, and police with neighborhoods.
"I want a vibrant police force, and I want them in Louisville," said Stephenson. "But you can't come to Louisville and say, 'This is what you need -- shut up and do it.'"
Even as a suspect was arrested for Christian Gwynn's murder earlier this year, his sister Victoria's leg was shattered by random gunfire. She attended the hearing on crutches. Krista Gwynn hoped lawmakers got the message
"If we sit down like grown people should, and talk grown talk, and stop pointing fingers like children -- then maybe we'll get an answer."
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