MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Few said it out loud, but the talk on Durby Circle, where 7-year-old Kirsten Williams was shot down and killed, is that the gunfire may have been revenge.
The night before, a 22-year-old man had been shot on the same street.
“Yeah they getting revenge, but that is just because they can do it,” one citizen told us.
Police knew it too.
One shooting often leads to another.
It`s why the City of Memphis created a Hospital Based Violence Intervention Program through Memphis Gun Down.
When a gun shot victim ends up at places like Regional One Medical Center, an intervention team that knows the neighborhood and players are there to try to calm tensions and prevent revenge.
After last Thursday`s shooting on Durby Circle, police said ‘they’ went to Regional One to talk with the man shot, but they said the 22-year-old victim did not cooperate.
A day later, gunfire on the same street left a 7-year-old dead.
Could a hospital intervention team from the area have helped to keep things safe?
Gun Down Organizers have told us in previous interviews their efforts have been successful in decreasing homicides and other crimes in Frayser and parts of South Memphis.
“In Frayser, we`ve had a 17.9% decrease in those crimes. In South Memphis focus area, we have had a 50% decrease,” Memphis Gun Down Director Bishop Mays told us in November.
The program hasn’t been expanded to the area of Durby Street.
Still, police beat the bushes and cracked the case in a week, arresting suspects in the 7-year-old’s death.
Still, what they could have learned at the hospital after the first shooting may have been valuable information to prevent the second.
Memphis Gun Down said they are hoping to expand its intervention to other neighborhoods, but that depends on funding.
