Community members demand action over 13-year-old boy’s death after council vote

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus City Council has appointed former Columbus Councilman and Public Safety Director Mitchell J. Brown to succeed Elizabeth Brown, where he will serve out the remainder of her term.

Brown retired at the end of 2021.

Some members of the community have already called for a crackdown on youth violence surrounding the death of the 13-year-old Cinza Reid. Krieg Butler is accused of killing Reed in October.

Butler was initially charged with his murder, but the charges have since been dropped and are still pending further police investigation, according to court records.

10TV spoke with social activist Ramon Abi II. He stood up for the Reid family. He said Reed’s mother did not get the help she needed from a trauma response team in the minutes after the shooting.

“It’s time to move on from working with the same old security teams and start looking for new ways of working,” Reid said.

The Columbus CARE Coalition is a citywide response team that works alongside the Columbus Police Department to reach out to communities after something bad happens.

Obey suggested moving away from a city-run team to one created by community members.

“These communities are constantly traumatized, and what we’re seeing now is a complete cycle of trauma happening over and over again,” Abiy said. “It’s time to invest in these communities that don’t have the necessary resources they need to survive,” he said.

During a Monday evening meeting, Columbus Assistant Health Commissioner Anita Clark said, “They [the trauma response team] respond immediately, sometimes it takes a while to get family or contact information, and I apologize if that hasn’t happened,” Clark said.

Before the meeting, 10TV spoke with Councilman Emmanuel Remy about their plans to tackle violence this year.

He said they plan to double services like after-school programs and violence prevention programs.

“It takes community leaders, parents, school teachers, everybody to step up and lay down their arms so we can effectively reduce this crime,” Remy said.

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