While violent crime has fallen in the city of Youngstown, a group of women want to make sure their lost family members are not forgotten.

21 News Reporter Sydney Canty sat down with four women who either lost a child or sibling to gun violence in Youngstown and are calling for justice and accountability.

On January 5, 2023, two years ago this month, a shooting on I-680 abruptly ended the lives of 19 year old's Kylearia Day and Marquis Whitted.

"It's still too hard, you know I still haven't had time to even digest this, I believe that I'm still living in a state of shock," Kimberly Hughey, Day's mother said. "It feels like maybe she's just away at college but I know that's not true," she said.

Brandon Wesley, 19, was just playing basketball at Homestead Park when he was shot and killed back in 2020.

"As a mother I'll always be a grieving mother. There was a lot of injustices with my son's death and not to have those answers is painful," Lynette Wesley, Brandon's mother said. "My son was never in any trouble, fresh graduate out of high school, on his way to college and it's sad when you lose a child of that caliber that wasn't in the street life to die that way," she said.

Braylin Bell, 18, was shot multiple times at his Mistletoe Avenue home back in 2017.

"It's just hard. It's upsetting and it's, I feel betrayed," Lestia Nelson, Bell's sister said.

Charles Allen, 27, was shot and killed in 2021 at Utopia night club.

"We feel destroyed! We feel ripped, we feel robbed, of our child," Aleesha Foster, Allen's mother said.

Each one of these cases, like many others, remain unsolved to this day. These women shared their frustrations about the Youngstown Police Department, calling for immediate justice.

"The last time I heard anything from the police was maybe three months after my brother was murdered, multiple family members including my mother have called into the police department," Nelson said.

"Still to this day I haven't heard from anyone," Hughey said. "I did talk to the detective on a couple of occasions but they were waiting for the BCI report, they were waiting for this, it's information but nobody has contacted me or communicated with me as her mother at all," she said.

"I still want justice, I still want to know what happened with my son. We depend on the system to help us when we're dealing with these types of crimes," Wesley said. "And for us not to get these answers, we get to a point like where do we go to, who do we ask? What do we do, because we feel like the system is failing us," she said.

Youngstown Police Detective Sergeant Michael Cox said they continue to work on open investigations but can't reveal much.

"Sometimes you tell family stuff that you want them to keep to themselves about the investigation just to let them know you're working on it for them, but then they tell others like their family members and somehow the criminals end up finding out. It has blown up in our faces telling family members what we're doing as far as the investigation goes because angry family members will go to the suspect that we've revealed to them and start asking questions and doing their own investigations or they'll post what we told them on Facebook and it puts the suspect on notice that they're being looked at. So now, they're destroying evidence and this has happened many, many times," Cox said. "We only give a little information to not jeopardize the integrity of a case, like to not give away too much but the suspects always end up finding out after we've done that," he said.

Cox said, in most cases there are people who have the information they need in order to move a case forward, but those people aren't willing to come forward because "it's the culture of the city."

Cox adds, it's not even a fear of retaliation but a fear of being labeled a "snitch."

"Usually we have a strong belief that a certain person committed a certain crime and if the witnesses were to come forward it would be much easier to charge the suspects but if nobody does then we can't charge anyone," Cox said. "There was a certain high profile case involving a juvenile and one juvenile saw what happened that night so his mother made him stay on the scene and tell police what he saw and that made the difference. It led police down a path to an arrest and conviction. Just one person coming forward played a pivotal role in solving this case and that's really what it comes down to," he said.

Wesley expressed the same sentiments, putting some of the responsibility on the community.

"Our problem right now is people not speaking up as to what's actually going on. If we wanna change the community, people need start speaking up because a lot of things were going on in this community, it was like a war zone and nothing was being done," Wesley said. "So a lot of these lives that are lost probably could've been prevented. Can we make a change? We can't fix the life that's lost, but can we get justice? Can we be accountable," she said.

The other women in the group are calling on parents to do their jobs and watch over their children.

"I feel like somewhere along the line, a lot of these parents stopped parenting their kids. They're letting social media, they're letting TV rap songs influence their child's life because they're too busy doing something else," Hughey said. "I believe that if the parents start raising these kids and stop letting the streets raise them, then we all wouldn't be here right now," she said.

"I think the community needs to step up and if you know something, if you know somebody committed a crime speak out," Nelson said. "You can call and be anonymous, like speak out and tell because it could happen to you," she said.

Foster said she's going to run for Youngstown Mayor because she's determined to be the change in her city and doesn't want anyone else to know the feeling of waking up every morning to relive the loss of their child.

"We will never, ever, ever stop grieving our child or our siblings, never," Foster said. "They die over and over every time we wake up in the morning they die over again, every breath we take, they die over again," she said.

This group of women hopes Youngstown won't continue to see violent crime cut short the lives of men, women and children.