Detroit city councilwoman proposes designating Greektown, Riverfront, other areas gun-free zones

DETROIT (FOX 2) - After a violent weekend in Detroit, Councilwoman At-Large Mary Waters has proposed designating several areas of the city gun-free zones, including Greektown.

"Greektown, the Detroit Riverfront, Hart and Spirit Plazas must be gun-free zones," Waters said. "There must be severe consequences for unacceptable behavior that injures or kills human beings in Detroit. I will be asking the Law Department to come before Council to advise us on the legalities involved in establishing these gun-free zones."

More: Detroit police say don't bring your guns downtown

Police investigated numerous shootings over the weekend, including one in Greektown that left a security guard dead and a quadruple shooting downtown that led to an officer shooting a suspect.

The rash of shootings led police to start enforcing a Downtown Detroit curfew for minors in an effort to quell the violence.  

"Just as important is the role and responsibility of parents in ensuring that their children are conducting themselves appropriately. Parents may have to endure consequences of curfew violations and worse should children access guns that should be locked up and stored so that children cannot gain access to guns," Waters said. 

She also noted that other factors must be addressed, including poverty and systemic racism.

"Even as we deal with unacceptable violence We must also deal with unacceptable poverty, systemic racism, illiteracy, and disintegration of Black Families resulting in the streets raising our children with street values that don’t give a damn about human life, respect or love for self and one another. We can and must do better by restoring real family structure and love to Detroit as the foundation to ending street violence," she said.

She plans to have the City’s Law Department come before the full Council to see about the legality of making such a move.

"There are some people who would like to see it and of course you have the other people who say, what about me? The fact that I’m a licensed gun carrier what about me? And so they are totally against it, that group of people. And I understand where they’re coming from. They say why don’t you just address the root causes? Well we do need to address the root causes."

"Broken family structures - now there’s a root cause for sure."