A community is reeling after two children were shot and injured while sleeping in their beds early Thursday morning in what Detroit police are calling a senseless act of violence on the city's east side. 

"Any time a child or a person gets shot in the city of Detroit, that's one too many individuals," said Detroit Police Assistant Chief Eric Ewing.

While addressing reporters after the shooting, Ewing mentioned the city's efforts to address what many are calling the epidemic of crime in the metro area.

"We need to come together in this city. As you know, crime reduction in the city has been going down year after year. Currently, we are down about 15% with homicides and 30% non-fatal shootings, but that's still not enough," said Ewing.

We reached out to Chief Todd Bettison on Thursday to learn how this shooting could impact the city's response to rising community violence. His team said that the department has spoken about its efforts at numerous scenes and directed us to use any previous statements.

On Tuesday, Bettison underlined the recent approval of increased parental responsibility fines for children who break curfew.

"We need to have something to have leverage, to have parents actually know where their kids are," Bettison said.

CBS News Detroit spoke with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who acknowledges that this summer's rising rates of crimes committed by teenagers are making the problem even worse.

"Now, I think there have been some changes in the juvenile justice system in the last year or two that I don't think there's enough consequence for these teen shootings, but we'll have to sit down and deal with it. We know what the problem is, and we need to focus on it," said Duggan.

To fight that, FORCE Detroit, one of the city's Community Violence Intervention groups, is working on the front lines to actively change the root causes of crime in different neighborhoods – through targeted therapy, mentoring and physical activity.

"I'm tired of seeing our children be harmed because of the decisions of individuals who put their emotions or their disputes over the safety of the community," said Dujuan "Zoe" Kennedy, executive director of Force Detroit.

Community leaders say they hope the recent changes to curfew fines and the renewed focus on providing parents with resources to aid their families will help as well.