A Lorain grandmother who says her grandson finds himself caught up in the justice system due to circumstances beyond his control, is pitching a plan she believes can help stem the epidemic of youth violence.
Brenda Turner-Franklin has produced a detailed 28-page document that fleshes out her plan.
Calling it the “City of Lorain Collaborative on Youth Violence Prevention: The Lorain Plan,” the goal is to come up with an effective and positive response to the epidemic of youth violence in Lorain County, she said.
Turner-Franklin said many young people in Lorain County — particularly those who are Black and Brown — are acting out in violent ways as a result of suffering traumas that stem from a myriad factors ranging from the destabilization as a result of the coronavirus pandemic to systemic racism.
The recent stabbing at Lorain High School which resulted in three arrests, and a rash of shootings involving teens are evidence the problem is worsening, she said.
Also, the Lorain Police Department is investigating a shooting the afternoon of Jan. 17 that left Abraham Thomas Jr., 19, of Lorain dead, and another man injured.
The shooting took place about 2:55 p.m. in a parking lot on Tower Boulevard.
Turner-Franklin’s plan has four goals:
• Establish a governance structure that provides collective decision-making regarding the reduction and prevention of youth violence and is accountable, transparent and long-lasting.
• Support a neighborhood-based, data-driven strategy for preventing violence by utilizing a public health model.
• Through community empowerment, develop community skills, police training and proactive use of multidisciplinary approaches to solve community problems and improve relations between the community and the police.
• Support community engagement of and conveyance of services for underserved and at-risk populations, especially those between the ages of 15 to 25.
Violence begins
In the last year, Turner-Franklin had a front-row seat to the youth violence epidemic.
At one time, she said her grandson played youth football and was a member of a dance/rap group known as The 422 Boys, whose anti-bullying and stay-in-school initiative were lauded by many in the music industry.
But a couple of years ago, the boy, now 17, was targeted by a group of teens who bullied and tried to fight with him at school.
Turner-Franklin contends that three of the boys came to her Marshall Avenue home where she lived with the boy in February 2022 and robbed the family at gunpoint.
The teens then went on social media and bragged about the crime; auctioned off items taken from the house in the crime and even wore clothes to school that belonged to her grandson and were taken during the crime, she said.
Turner-Franklin said she filed a police report.
“We haven’t got any justice,” said Turner-Franklin, who graduated from Lorain High School in 1976. “I’ve never heard anything back from the police.”
Her grandson eventually acquired a gun to protect himself, but was arrested on a gun charge after police stopped him on a minibike in May 2022.
Now, the grandson is serving out out his juvenile sentence on the gun charge at her home. He wears an ankle monitor and is homeschooling.
Turner-Franklin in no way condones her grandson having the gun, but said she can understand why he ended up with one.
“He was afraid those guys were going to shoot him,” she said.
In her proposed intervention plan, though, her grandson’s case would have been handled far differently.
Turner-Franklin contends government institutions, such as local police, the courts, schools and nonprofits created to aid at-risk youths are not doing enough to help at-risk youngsters and don’t seem able to get their arms around the youth violence problem.
“The ball is being dropped,” she said.
She said her program would call on input from families that have children who have either been a victim of youth violence or found themselves in legal trouble because of violent behavior
“We have to know their stories,” she said.
Learning those stories, Turner-Franklin contends, will help institutions better learn what may have led to the violence and come up with strategies to prevent them from happening.
Turner-Franklin is looking to schedule a face-to-face meeting with Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley to discuss her plan.
It would not be their first meeting.
Bradley said he had met with Turner-Franklin to discuss her grandson’s case.
“She doesn’t think he was treated fairly,” Bradley said. “I don’t share her opinion”
But that doesn’t mean Bradley won’t listen to Turner-Franklin’s plan.
“If we can come up with some strategies, I would certainly welcome that,” he said.
He noted that Turner-Franklin’s grandson actually had a prior gun charge.
Several years ago, he allegedly found a gun on his way to school and then was caught with it.
Turner-Franklin doesn’t deny her grandson’s previous gun charge but said it led to prosecutors treating him more harshly when he caught his second gun charge.
She also alleged prosecutors wanted to paint her grandson as a gangbanger, a claim she denies.
“It’s a character assassination,” Turner-Franklin said. He trying to do the best he can.
“But they were trying to label him something he’s not. This is how a good kid turns bad.”
