Springfield leaders seek solutions as homicide rate grows

A close friend to a man who was shot and killed Sunday morning in Springfield said she’s still in disbelief her friend is gone.

Christina Crim said 26-year-old Stephen Wagner was a good person. She said he was there for the birth of her son and was like a dad to him. She said it’s hard to explain to her 9-year-old boy what happened.

“Now I have to listen to my son saying ‘Where’s my daddy? When’s my daddy gonna come home?,’” Crim said.

Wagner is the 13th homicide victim in Springfield this year, which surpasses last year’s total by one, according to Springfield Police Division statistics.

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No one has been arrested in the case. Springfield police said in a statement it hopes anyone with information will come forward and alert police.

The shooting took place just days after the Springfield NAACP announced it was launching a gun buyback program to help get firearms off the street.

“Getting one weapon off the street is good; at least we are trying to do something right,” Denise Williams, president of the NAACP Springfield, said.

Springfield Mayor Warren Copeland said there are two sides to what the city is dealing with — punishment and prevention of violence.

“The police are trying to be active and catch the people involved in violence and hopefully send a message that there’s a price to pay for it,” he said.

Copeland said prevention is more difficult, and he fully supports any group that tries to prevent more violence in Springfield.

Copeland does support the gun buyback program, though he’s said he’s unsure if it will be effective.

“We need to keep trying everything we can think of,” he said.

Parents of Victims of Crime founder Mary Dill said she believes violent crime in Springfield won’t stop until people are arrested and jailed.

“It’s even going to get worse than it is because the retaliation is going to start up,” she predicted.

Dill Founded the Springfield-based organization after her son was murdered in the city in 2011. Her son’s killer was convicted.

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Her organization has hosted peace walks and marches in the past, but not enough people have come out to support them, she said. Dill said she does not believe the gun buyback program will be effective because criminals won’t be quick to relinquish their weapons as the streets have become more dangerous.

“Those guns (that will be turned in) aren’t the ones that are killing,” she said.

She said the homicides in Springfield are extreme and the community needs to do more than come together — they need to report the killers to law enforcement. She also believes law enforcement needs to do a better job investigating the homicides.

“It’s sad,” she said. “These are executions, not just killings.”

Springfield police responded to the Knights of Pythias lodge on South Yellow Springs Street at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning where they found the victim suffering multiple gunshot wounds, according to a Springfield police report.

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“Upon arrival, we found a security guard giving the victim chest compressions in the parking lot,” the report states.

Wagner was taken to Springfield Regional Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead, according to a news release by the Springfield police.

Family and friends of Wagner got together on Monday and constructed a memorial around a telephone pole near the lodge in his honor.

“We had a bond nobody could break,” Crim said. “I’m hurt. My heart’s broken. I go to sleep crying. I wake up crying. It seems unreal right now to me.”

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