‘A symptom of a larger issue’: Bibb County passes homicide record set in 2018
Romero Gonzalez’s death over the weekend marks Bibb County’s 46th homicide of 2020. Bibb County coroner Leon Jones says that breaks a record of 43 homicides set back in 1992. 13WMAZ talked to the sheriff of Bibb County, plus a Macon man who is asking the community to come together.
“Who knows? If the situation was better within the community, they could have lived and fulfilled something better,” Carl Myers said.
Carl Myers is talking about the nearly 4 dozen lives to try to stop the killings in Bibb County.
“I feel like that is why the numbers are soaring because of the lack of resources and education that we have within in the community,” Myers said.
Despite his call for peace, the violence has remained in Macon streets.
“I’m saddened by it and it is very troubling. This year has really been an outlier year in many different ways,” Sheriff David Davis said.
Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones shows the number of homicides in 2020 has in fact been higher compared to past years.
2016: 20
2017: 30
2018: 41
2019: 25
2020: 46
“The commonality in many of them is that hopelessness and despair, the inability to control impulse and emotions,” Davis said.
Sheriff Davis says Bibb County needs more deputies, community engagement, and economic opportunities to slow the killings.
“That murder, that homicide is a symptom of a larger issue,” Davis said.
Myers agrees, hoping people can come together to keep people alive.
“Just productivity overall, the community just needs to be more productive,” Myers said.
Davis says despite the high number of homicide cases investigators have solved about 65 to 70 percent of this year’s homicide cases.