By Stephen Hudak
Orlando Sentinel
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Two years ago, after a citizens-safety panel he created delivered a wide-ranging list of recommendations aimed at making the community safer, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings tempered his enthusiasm for the group’s detailed work with a jolt of reality.
“We may one day be back here again,” he said at the time.
Pervasive gun violence was a complex challenge with many causes and no simple solutions, he said.
But the day to restart the group has arrived already, and more quickly than he expected.
“This was always going to be a work in progress,” said Demings, a former Orange County sheriff and Orlando police chief, after announcing plans to “reconstitute” the collection of 37 community leaders in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting spree in Pine Hills.
The deadly violence is blamed on 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, an alleged gang member with no clear motive, with a lengthy criminal record as a juvenile. Sheriff John Mina said Moses killed a 9-year-old girl, a 24-year-old budding broadcast journalist and a 38-year-old woman riding in a car with Moses and his cousin.
Two others were wounded — a news photographer and the 9-year-old’s mother.
Orange County commissioners pledged $2 million in the fiscal year 2022-23 budget to underwrite the cost of implementing the Citizens Safety Task Force suggestions, which focused on four main topics — crime prevention, intervention, enforcement and prosecution.
The ideas led to the employment of “credible messengers” — often former gang members who have turned their life around — to work with at-risk youth and the creation of mental-health response teams to assist Orlando police and Orange County sheriff’s deputies.
Ruben Saldaña, who runs the Orange County Credible Messengers, said he was shocked at the news of Wednesday’s shooting. He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, including Lyons.
”Anything we can do as Credible Messengers to show up side by side for the media, we’re here for them,” Saldaña said. “The media is part of our community. They were at the right place at the wrong time, doing their jobs.”
The Credible Messenger initiative is expected to begin working more closely in high-crime areas this year. Saldaña and his network plan to visit communities throughout Orlando next week to address the shooting and other recent acts of violence.
“This isn’t a foreign invasion; this is us shooting us,” Saldaña said. “We have to acknowledge that and come together beyond the church walls and beyond the schools. If we have to keep our sneaks to the streets, that’s what we’ll do.”
“This didn’t start in Pine Hills, and it doesn’t end in Pine Hills,” he added.
The task force was created by Demings after a spate of seven shootings over a span of three weeks in 2020.
Most of the shootings involved juveniles. One shooting killed a 3-year-old.
As he did then, Demings consulted Thursday with faith leaders about how to move forward after the violence.
Bishop Derrick L. McRae, a task force alumnus and president of the African American Council of Christian Clergy, said he was most concerned about the apparent ease with which a youth can get a gun.
“They’re everywhere,” he said.
McRae said he was especially concerned with the proposed permitless or open-carry legislation.
“I think it’s a reckless policy,” he said.
Demings said the reconstituted task force will look at the previous recommendations to see whether modifications are needed.
“But I do remind you one of those recommendations was, as a community, to increase our advocacy in Tallahassee for common-sense type of gun laws ...” he said.
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EARLIER: Fla. TV reporter covering earlier fatal shooting is killed by the same gunman