Mayor Malik Releases Statement on Overnight Shooting

Akron Mayor Shammas Malik released the following statement regarding a shooting incident which took place shortly after 3am this morning in the parking lot of Mason CLC:

“First, I want to commend our entire city. For days, we had thousands of folks celebrating Independence Day and our Bicentennial at the Heart of Akron Festival in downtown Akron. We had great crowds that included a lot of young people out having a good time. We saw a very minor incident on Friday, July 4th with some juveniles fighting outside the festival and that was handled swiftly by APD but otherwise, the entire festival and the fireworks went off without a hitch. We want to continue providing safe, fun spaces for families to gather and enjoy time together because that's exactly what Akron is all about. I want to thank our safety forces for their work over the holiday weekend as well as the crews at Lock 3 for making sure everything went smoothly.

Early this morning, around 3am, we saw a very different kind of scene with young people gathering in a large group with guns. In total, five people were shot and ten others sustained injuries as the crowd attempted to leave. Let me be clear, this behavior is absolutely unacceptable. As a city, we are working daily to tackle violence like this and to put a stop to gatherings of this nature. Teenagers have no business being out partying at 3am. We need parents and our community to work with us to ensure that children are home when they need to be. Thankfully, no one was killed in last night's incident but there are too many times when lives have been lost due to senseless violence. My message to our teenagers is that no party is worth your life. You have so much to look forward to. Don't let one bad decision take away your future or someone else's. Our city government will continue to work to uplift our youth and help keep them safe.”