RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Since Aug. 15, Richmond Police Department says they have investigated 23 shootings and 10 homicides in the city.

In a Facebook post shared Tuesday evening, RPD Chief Gerald M. Smith says the city and community as a whole needs to do things differently: “The killings are senseless. Teenagers dying. Fights and arguments ending in murder.”

When are we, as a city and a community, going to say enough is enough? What will it take?

Anytime you have five people gunned down, one of them dies and very few people give us anything to work with. What can we do differently?

The Police Department cannot fight this fight alone. When we get there, the deed is done. We are there to solve the crime and try to help pick up the pieces.

There’s still a pandemic going on. People are stressed. Tensions can boil over. But taking another person’s life is not the answer.”

RPD Chief Gerald M. Smith addressing the rise in gun violence.

The post comes after Smith joined Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney in the city’s Whitcomb Court development Monday night for a prayer vigil. There, the life of 53-year-old Timothy McMorris, fatally gunned down in a multi-person shooting on Aug. 24, was celebrated.

Richmond Police Chief Gerald Smith attends a prayer vigil in Whitcomb Court for homicide victim Timothy McMorris on Monday, Aug. 31. (Photo: Ben Dennis)

While Stoney asked the neighborhood, “How many more?” Smith made a public request.

“I ask that you stand, not just with me, but with each other because that is what it’s going to take,” he said. “All of us, standing together to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Stoney told 8News he will “without a doubt,” commit to putting more cops on city streets. 

LATEST HEADLINES: