'Stop Reppin' if you ain't helpin' - Detroit leaders plead for peaceful summer

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Grassroots community group New Era Detroit is pushing for a safe summer.

The recent shootings of a 4-year-old and an 81-year-old underscore how important that message is.

"I’m so sick and tired of the streets I don’t know what to do," said Zeek of New Era Detroit. "Just the other day we had someone shoot up a house - full of kids."

Kids paying the price of grown-up beefs is becoming as common in Detroit as coneys and buffs.

A 4-year-old boy was shot in a drive-by on the city’s west side Wednesday as he was lying in bed.

The violence spares neither the young nor old in this city. Later that day an 81-year-old man was shot while trying to apologize to a man who he nearly struck with hs car.

New Era Detroit is asking yet again when will enough be enough?

"I'm saying some real (expletive) though Detroit," Zeek said. "How are we letting kids get killed in the way we've been letting them get killed."

Isaiah Zeek Williams posed that question to a crowd at the corner of Seven Mile and Gratiot as he and others urged the community to play their part in making sure this summer is not a violent one.

"Stop reppin' if you ain't helpin'," said one of the women at the rally - which is a rallying cry by New Era.

"Stop reppin’ if you ain’t helpin" Zeek said. "We don’t want to hear nothing about where you from, or what hood you claim, if you're not helping your environment level up."

Rapper GMAC Cash amplified that message with his new track, "Stop killing the kids."

"I ain’t going to say it, but a lot of people don’t want to speak on the topic," he said. "A lot of people don’t want to speak about it and you know I don’t have a problem speaking on what’s going on in our city.

"Whatever it takes to protect these babies and these kids, we gotta get it done."

For Briittany Harris it hits home — her 6-year-old son Tai-Raz Moore was murdered two years ago. His killer was convicted last week.

"So every day I think of my son, I think about his future: What he would’ve he been like at 16, going to prom, his first girlfriend. my son didn’t even lose his first tooth yet," she said.

Detroit City Council leaders Mary Sheffield and James Tate led the crowd in reciting New Era’s safe summer community pledge --- a vow to look after the safety and well-being of children, women and the elderly.

Not to mention, making sure kids don’t become collateral damage in adult beefs.

On a positive note, Detroit police say murders, shootings and robberies are all down this year compared to this same time last year.