City officials have presented a plan to tackle youth violence in Nashville with information gathered during the city's multiple youth violence summits.
In the last five years Nashville children were involved in almost 17,000 violent incidents. And according to crime reports 39 people under 25 were murdered in Nashville last year, which is a sharp increase from years past.
It's a number that continues to grow while Mayor Megan Barry and other city leaders say it's time to turn the momentum the other way around.
Because for a lot kids around Nashville, being a teenager can be downright dangerous.
"I looked up to the wrong guys I mean it was constantly nobody positive there it was always somebody negative and I just felt like I didn't have anybody to look up to," said 18-year-old Daquan Summers.
Summers says he tangled with the law early. And he was kicked out of several schools.
"It's not like I wanted to get kicked out of school it was just I didn't care," he said.
Nashville leaders asked the community, and even the teenagers themselves, how to make the needed change. Five youth summits were held over the last few months.
"If we ask you to walk a tight rope and we ask you to be perfect we as adults need to provide a safety net if you fall," said Mayor Barry Thursday when Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway and Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry presented the report with the proposed action plan.
"We're gonna concentrate on the best practices were gonna look around the nation and see who's got it right and whose getting it right," Calloway said.
"We know if you get that first job it's gonna lead to the second job and the third job and the fourth job," Barry said.
With activities like basketball and positive role models, Daquan Summers says he completely turned things around. He's already been accepted to multiple universities and may even play basketball at the next level. He hopes to be an example so more of his friends can do the same.
"It's like you're swimming in the lake and there's alligators in there. Someone has to be the first one to swim through it and then the second one goes okay he made it through I'm gonna try it," he said.
Local leaders hope it's the first step toward social change that they believe will help protect Nashville kids.
Mayor Barry said many of the proposals should show up in the budget for the next fiscal year but stopped short of saying exactly which ones or how much money may go toward the cause. She and the others involved say they hope private businesses also pitch in, opening their doors for teen internships and more community involved activities.
