After the fatal shootings of two Little Rock toddlers within the past month, anti-violence advocates, clergy members and a city director on Thursday asked the gunmen to come forward and urged the public to not normalize violence.
City Director Ken Richardson, who represents Little Rock’s Ward 2; Benny Johnson and Walter Cockran of Arkansas Stop the Violence; Pastor Roger Glover of the Mount Carmel United Methodist Church in Benton; and Brother Larry of the Nation of Islam spoke to members of the media from behind a table in the sanctuary of the Greater Trinity Church of God.
At the beginning of the news conference, Johnson announced the start of the Justice for Rimaya and Justice for Acen Campaign, so named for Rimaya Reed, 2, who was shot and killed on Nov. 22 and 3-year-old Acen King, who died Saturday night.
“We want these perpetrators, we them brought to justice,” he said. “We want the city to band together: Put your arms around this families. But most importantly, we want to show support by bringing the ones who did these heinous crimes to justice.”
Reed was shot in a drive-by shooting as she rode in a car, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported. A $20,000 reward is being offered for information on her killing.
King was riding in the back of his grandmother’s car on the way to a west Little Rock shopping center. Police said a man exited the car behind his grandmother’s in a fit of road rage and shot once, the newspaper reported. King’s grandmother thought he’d fired into the air, so she drove to the Shackleford Crossings shopping center, where she found that her grandson has sustained a gunshot wound.
The city of Little Rock and the FBI are each offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Saturday's gunman. As of Thursday afternoon, no arrests had been made in either case, said Little Rock police spokesman Officer Richard Hilgeman.
“If anyone knows anything, we ask you to turn them in because you’re just as guilty as they are,” Crockran said.
Both killings happened in Richardson’s ward, and he said city leaders, churches and community members need to foster an attitude that doesn’t accept homicides of any kind.
“This is abnormal activity,” he said. “This stuff shouldn’t be accepted, shouldn’t be normalized.”
Richardson advocated that community leaders should all come together and decide on a universal strategy to limit violent crimes in Little Rock, which he said have centralized south of Interstate 630.
For Minister Danita Waller-Paige, who watched the proceedings from a third-row pew, the fact that King was discovered shot in west Little Rock — not south of I-630 — is why the crime garnered so much local and national media attention.
“It happened where there were mixed-race people around,” she said. “I believe that is the only reason why it has gotten as much attention as it’s gotten.”
Brother Larry, who didn’t provide a last name, noted that crime easily spreads. Like the others speaking, he asked that Little Rock come together, including those who might be on the sidelines.
“We should feel responsible for the murders of each one of these children because [they’re] our children.”
