Ring in the new year with a bell - not a bang
DETROIT (WJBK) - Ring in the new year with a bell - not a bang.
That's the message from Wayne County Leaders as we get ready to countdown to 2017. School children are joining the effort to get that message out, too.
Rev. Nicholas Hood III founded the initiative in Detroit 19 years ago after a grandmother was killed by a stray bullet.
"We've been tracking this year between 12 and 2 a.m. We have not found any evidence of people being killed," Rev. Hood says.
And while Detroit has made progress - no one has been killed on New Years Eve by stray gunfire since 1997 - the gunfire still hasn't stopped.
"Neighborhood to neighborhood, we hear different things. What we're hearing is that in some neighborhoods, the gunfire has been reduced to almost nothing. In other neighborhoods, to be quite frank, it is still like a war zone," Rev. Hood says.
To further the message, Plymouth United Church of Christ, Rev. Hood's church, is giving away free gun locks.