There is a group of children in the community who do not care if they live or die, which has been highlighted by a string of violent acts and homicides involving teenagers, Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp said.
Wamp spoke Monday evening to a group of Republicans at the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club meeting at Monkey Town Brewery and Restaurant.
It’s easy to ignore in Red Bank, Ooltewah, Soddy-Daisy and Hixson, but the reality is violent crime mostly affects the Black community in a four-mile radius in downtown Chattanooga, Wamp said.
If a person looks at the county’s trial schedule, most victims of crime are Black, Wamp said to the mostly white audience.
“The bottom line is, it is not our community in this room that is dying every year,” Wamp said. “They are the ones that are unsafe. They are the ones that every single day we seek to protect.”