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Grandfather of 11-year-old shooting victim says defunding cops isn't the answer: 'We need the police'
John Ayala (left) speaks on Fox News about the death of his grandson, Davon McNeal. (Image source: Fox News video screenshot)

Grandfather of 11-year-old shooting victim says defunding police isn't the answer: 'We need the police'

'Who's going to come when there is a need for police services?'

Davon McNeal was an 11-year-old boy killed by a stray bullet in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, and his grandfather told Fox News that defunding the police is not the answer to gun violence problems in major cities.

Davon was reportedly grabbing a phone charger before heading to a Fourth of July cookout when five men shot up the area for reasons currently unknown to police. McNeal was hit with a stray bullet and died later in the hospital. No arrests have been made, and the police are seeking public assistance in identifying suspects.

Davon's grandfather, John Ayala, said on "The Story" on Monday that crime will only get worse if there are fewer police officers on the street.

"You can't take money from the police department," Ayala said. "We need the police. You take the police from there and we wind up having less police officers in the street and less detectives. It's not going to work. Crime is going to get worse ... if you start having less police officers, who's going to come when there is a need for police services?"

Ayala disagrees with activists who think the police are the biggest problem when it comes to violence against black people.

"Before going to go after the police officers when they hurt someone that looks like me, they need to go after the people that look like me that hurt people that look like me," Ayala said.

At least six children were killed in shootings over the weekend, including shootings in Atlanta and Chicago. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms' comments on the killing of an 8-year-old girl were similar in their sentiment to what Ayala said — that members of the community are harming their own people more than the police are.

"You can't blame this on a police officer, you can't say this is about criminal justice reform," Bottoms said of the shooting, which happened in a protest zone. "This is about some people carrying some weapons who shot up a car with an 8-year-old baby in the car. We got to stop this. We are doing more harm than any police officer on this force."

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