FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Inside the Jones Walker Palm Gardens Apartments. If you make your way to Building 6, a closer look at the bedroom window of one room still has the bullet hole from a shooting the Fort Myers Police say started nearby.
"Mid-block Economy Street, and then it ended in this area," said an officer with the Fort Myers Police Department.
An area where officers have been making more arrests as part of a special task force. But some community leaders say hauling person after person to jail isn't enough. "That's only one component of the solution. Mass incarceration is not going to solve the crimes, its only going to increase them," said Fort Myers NAACP President James Muwakkil.
Muwakkil says that's because jail typically doesn't solve the shortage jobs that can often lead to crime. "Lack of opportunity helps to create this. Lack of opportunity."
He tells Fox 4 it's critical that more employers give a chance to people in Dunbar.
Employers like the hotel laundry service that just set up shop in town. "We have to look at bringing resources to the African American and Hispanic communities. The Dunbar community mainly, the East Fort Myers community. Not a lot of creation of jobs are going on there or in the Dunbar community," Muwakkil said.
A community that is used to seeing bullet holes like these. This was the second round of gun shots fired in six days where two men under 25 were shot. It's a violent truth leading Muwakkil to believe kids need more guidance and caretakers need to take more responsibility.
"We have to make sure you get your High School Diploma. We have to make sure that if you're not going to college, you're going to get a trade. Both the parents should have been saying that and Pastors," Muwakkil said.
