If the issue of blacks killings blacks in Cincinnati is to be resolved, everyone who is willing to be part of the solution should be at the table. A homicide in Over-the-Rhine Friday involving what police say involves one black man killing another brought the senseless violence into 2004, picking up where 2003 left off.

Mayor Charlie Luken Mayor Charlie Luken Friday was right to encourage former police Lt. Col. Ron Twitty play a lead role in finding ways to stop the violence. Twitty has new motivation. His stepson, Allen Shannon, was the city's 75th homicide victim in 2003. Twitty retired in September as part of a misdemeanor plea deal involving unexplained damage to his official vehicle. But Twitty's knowledge of the community is valuable. He can play a key role in an initiative put forth by the four African-American council members.

A so-called Black-on-Black Crime Initiative introduced Wednesday by Y. Laketa Cole, Sam Malone, Alicia Reece and Christopher Smitherman aims to educate young people on the dangers of gun violence, among other initiatives. Near the top of that list has to be a crackdown by police on Cincinnati's corrosive drug trade, which Police Chief Tom Streicher says led to 90 percent of last year's killings.

The alliance comes on the heels of two killings in Bond Hill Monday. Three of the council members - Reece, Malone and Cole - are residents of Bond Hill.

In 2003, Cincinnati experienced 75 homicides. Of the victims, 84 percent were black.

"Many of the funerals we go to are our peers or the ages of people that we might have grown up with," said Reece, 32. "We are at the point that we are tired of it. Young people and college kids are tired of seeing their peers going in the ground."

Malone said, "It's really important that black folks step up to the plate. ... We can't say, 'hey, the white man is doing this.' We are talking about what we are doing to ourselves."

The group next week will ask council members for $100,000 from the budget of the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission. Reece said the money would be partly used to place a Children's Hospital gun violence program into schools and recreation centers. The group also supports reinstating the Police Department's gang unit, and wants businesses to find ways to hire convicted felons.

Violent crime is a cancer that affects us all. Activism from a grass-roots level, with focused solutions from different points of view, is a great start to help keep the cancer from spreading.