TOLEDO, Ohio — Toledo police joined neighbors in west Toledo Tuesday night to talk safety in the Five Points neighborhood.
TPD planned the meeting as a follow up to operation FASER, -- Five Points Area Safety Enforcement Response -- which began on Feb. 21, 2022 and involved a coordinated effort between city police and other state, local and federal agencies.
The targeted enforcement in the Sylvania corridor resulted in:
- 38 guns seized
- 8 search warrants executed
- $216,090 worth of drugs seized
- 590 citations issued
- 9 DUI arrests made
- 320 parking tickets issued
- 8 gun locks distributed
- 101 junk cars towed
Interim Toledo police chief MIke Troendle said an uptick of violence in the Five Points neighborhood "caused us to launch our initiative over here, to try and get a handle on the violence that's occurring here, to try and get a handle on the shootings occurring here and to take it one step further. We get into the neighborhood and try to improve the neighborhood living conditions.
There have been five juvenile homicide victims in Toledo since Dec. 5, 2022, three 15-year-olds and two 16-year-olds.
Three of those teenage victims were killed in 2023.
"Juveniles have been a tragic event this year," Troendle said. "We've had a lot of juveniles shot. Our gang unit, our criminal intelligence, our detectives are all working on trying to figure out whose doing it, what the connection is between all of them, if there is a connection. Then, we're out there to find those people that are the shooters and try to get them off of the streets."
Troendle's sentiment was shared by the dozens of community members who came to the Eleanor Kahle Senior Center Tuesday night to attend the safety meeting.
Several people in attendance did not want to show their faces. They said they feared retaliation for speaking out. One woman even said she was afraid for people to know she was at the meeting because of her personal experiences.
"Nobody should be living in in fear to have people drive past your house actively shooting and you have to dive for the floor," the woman said. "People need to feel that they're not going to be retaliated against if they're speaking up. A lot of my neighbors, I couldn't get anyone to come tonight because they're afraid of retaliation."
Some attendees had a pessimistic outlook on violence and said parenting is the only solution.
"I don't think there is a solution to all this," one attendee said. "I think parents need to parent their own kids."
Tina Scott, president of the west Toledo neighborhood association, said that fear needs to end if anything is going to change.
"We are stronger than the criminals, we are more than the criminals," Scott said. We are the voices of the community and we're going to take our neighborhood back."
She called upon the Toledo community for unification.
"Let's pull together as a community because if we cannot do that as a community then we have failed as a city," Scott said.
Troendle said TPD will continue to listen to people and work to make the city a safer place.
Another meeting at the Eleanor Kahle Senior Center will be held on Feb. 23 and will focus on violence involving young suspects and young victims.