ATL Standard

Atlanta police are asking parents to become more involved following a recent outbreak of violence involving teenagers in the Downtown Atlanta area. 

Multiple teenagers were shot late last month, a recent FOX 5 Atlanta report said. Atlanta police stated that the solution to juvenile violence begins at home.

"We gotta do more, we gotta take our youth back," Deputy Chief Timothy Peek told FOX 5 Atlanta. “There are a lot of different things taking place throughout the city that we can take our youth to. I say take and not drop off or tell them to go because once they're out of your eyesight then we're behind the eight-ball.”

In one recent incident, investigators noted that an argument turned into gunfire leaving five people injured — two of them teenagers who then carjacked a driver at gunpoint and drove themselves to the hospital, the report said. Atlanta police addressed parents in a lengthy statement, stating that they cannot be responsible for raising the city’s children.

The department commented that they are seeing too many young people committing crimes and far too many possessing guns, the report said.

Following the APD statement, some community activists have charged that the department's response to crime involving young people is scapegoating, stating it is easy to question why parents didn’t do more, but that the focus should instead be on looking internally at the community to see where the disconnect stems from.

Moving forward, both sides have committed to work together to address the ongoing issues that have led to the rising violence, the report said.