Detroit residents call for curfew change after teen shot in downtown area

Residents in Detroit said they are fed up with teens swarming downtown Detroit every weekend. 

Over the weekend, several hundred teens converged on the downtown area, and a 14-year-old was shot in the chest. That teen is expected to make a full recovery. A teen was arrested in connection with the shooting, and another teen was charged with carrying a concealed weapon near where the 14-year-old was shot.

Many are now calling on the city of Detroit to change the curfew.   

Lauren Walker and her husband, along with neighbors, said the teen takeovers have created a major safety concern. She said she believes teens should not be downtown without a guardian or parent supervisor, and that a curfew should be far earlier than 11 p.m. 

"And the people that live downtown are living in fear of being mugged, shot, robbed. "The curfew should be 4 o'clock. I just feel like that," said Walker, who lives downtown.   

Brak Little said he was riding his bike downtown when he saw what made him want to leave immediately. 

"And I hear this loud … oooooh … And I look in a certain direction, and I see about a hundred teens walking down the sidewalk, and there were police there," Little said.

Little said curfews should be no later than 9 p.m. He also said it was unreasonable to burden police with babysitting that many teenagers. 

"The parents need to watch over their kids instead of the police doing it," Little said. 

CBS Detroit caught up with Mayor Mary Sheffield at an event on Tuesday morning. 

When asked whether the city would consider amending the curfew ordinance, first implemented under former Mayor Coleman A. Young, Sheffield said, "What we're really looking at right now is parental responsibility, over the last two takeovers the city has issued well over 50 parental responsibility tickets and less than half of the parents showed up for court, so we are looking at ways to further enhance and really push parental responsibility and that's what we're working with the Chief and the courts with right now."

Some residents, like Jeff Bond, agree that holding parents accountable should make a difference. 

"I think that is the key: enforcement," said Bond, who suggested a 10 p.m. curfew.