A coalition of clergy members, city leaders and law enforcement officials has formed to encourage a late night curfew for youths citywide as a way of combatting gun violence deaths.
The grassroots initiative, called #InBy10, will span three months and asks parents and guardians to ensure their children are home by 10 p.m.
Community leaders, who met Friday, July 25, at northeast Oklahoma City’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, said the effort was in response to a recent surge in violent crimes involving young people, too frequently resulting in death.
The Rev. Derrick Scobey, pastor at the church, said he was approached by Douglass High School Principal Kevin Jones to help lead and speak for the coalition. Also an Oklahoma County jail trustee, Scobey said he was very familiar with detention booking records and how many young people were being arrested in the late night and early morning hours.
“On the evening news, it would ask the question: It’s 10 o’clock ― do you know where your child is?” Scobey said, remembering public service announcements of the past aimed at parents. “That question carried the weight of parental responsibility, but today it carries the weight of life and death. And we have spent a lot of money over the years with different interventions and things of that nature, but this doesn’t cost anything. Just simply: In By 10.”
Related: Two incidents leave 17-year-old, 18-year-old dead over holiday weekend in Oklahoma City
Law enforcement officials and community organizers alike have voiced increasing concern about the growing incidents of gun violence throughout the city in recent months, frequently during late night hours and often counting young people as victims.
Around 10:30 p.m. on June 22, shortly after the Thunder won the NBA Finals, a teen was shot on the east side of downtown OKC’s Scissortail Park. And around 11:50 p.m. on June 24, late in the same day as the Thunder Champions parade, 18-year-old high school graduate Lyric Lewis was fatally shot in the chest outside a movie theater in Bricktown.
Another 18-year-old shooting victim, Laililiana Willis, was found lying in a driveway on NE Seventh Street over the Fourth of July weekend. Less than 24 hours after Willis was pronounced dead, 17-year-old Jacob Crawford was also found shot in the Will Rogers Courts area while out with friends celebrating the holiday.
“In the past six months, we have lost several school-age young people due to homicide,” Scobey said. “As a pastor, I have held weeping mothers and I have prayed with broken fathers. As an Oklahoma County jail trust member, I have reviewed booking reports and incident data that really tell the statistical story behind these tragedies. Both perspectives lead me to the same conclusion, and that is: we must act now.”
Through Oct. 25, parents and guardians are asked to ensure their children are home by 10 p.m. ― with no exceptions for Bricktown outings, movies, house parties, kickbacks or other social gatherings, Scobey emphasized.
After the 90 day implementation period, the coalition expects to convene again to analyze metrics on how effective the efforts were in reducing youth victimization rates and decreasing juvenile arrest numbers.
More: 9 p.m. curfew for minors already in place for Bricktown. Here’s what we know.
Various officials and leaders for Oklahoma City gather as pastors Rev. Derrick Scobey and Dr. Major L. Jemison prepare to speak at a news conference at Ebenezer Baptist Church in northeast Oklahoma City, Friday, July 25, 2025.
Recent statistics cited by officials Friday were already troubling. Oklahoma County District Judge Lydia Green said that at least 780 young people had gone through the local juvenile justice system since January 2023 ― an “astronomical” figure, Green lamented.
“An alarming number of our youth have fallen victim to preventable violence, systemic incarceration and the devastating impacts of gun-related tragedies,” Green said. “This is a crisis that demands the public’s attention … (and) the way in which we care and support our children is a direct reflection of our community’s character and priorities.”
Associate Judge Angela Singleton added that 37% of young people arrested and processed at the local jail are being brought in after midnight.
“I see these families on a daily basis ― I see families broken, scared, kids scared, having to overcome these crises, and if we can stop that before it starts, that would be an amazing asset for our community,” Singleton said. “The kids that I see successful are the ones that have community, the ones that have Mom and Dad there to support, the ones that have friends to support, uncles, aunts, grandparents ― they’re the ones that are successful and move on.”
More: Three people died in shootings in OKC over two days. Is public policy on guns to blame?
Other leaders, including northeast OKC Senator Nikki Nice and OKC Chief of Police Ron Bacy, stressed that the #InBy10 initiative was a preventative effort that would hopefully keep kids out of harm’s way. But several officials acknowledged its success will depend entirely on community participation.
“While we know the trials of what’s happening across the country with our parents trying to raise children, grandparents trying to raise children, and children trying to raise each other, we as a community must stand up,” Nice said. “I heard … ‘it takes a village,’ but we have to understand and show what that village looks like. It looks like going block by block. It looks like understanding who your next-door neighbors are.”
Oklahoma City Chief of Police Ron Bacy speaks during a news conference at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Oklahoma City on Friday, July 25, 2025.
Expressing his support for the #InBy10 initiative, Bacy underscored the harsh reality of youth not being able to fulfill their potential by dying from violence before they can live out their lives.
“We have a generation out there right now that is not learning how to grow old,” Bacy said. “They’re dying too young. They’re making mistakes that cost them their freedom, and those mistakes and those lost lives have impacts in their ecosystems, their families, their friends, their classmates. It amplifies ― but it’s avoidable.”
“Several times I’ve stepped up to a podium or a microphone and I said, ‘it takes a village,’ and we’re a part of the village,” the police chief said. “But I’ve also wanted and prayed for the actual village, the other part of that village, to come together as well and help us with this epidemic. We have to save the lives of our children.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC coalition launch ‘In By 10’ curfew initiative against gun violence