CLEVELAND, Ohio- In the wake of heightened violence against women in greater Cleveland from the victims of child rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro, to the 11 Black women murdered on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland by serial killer Anthony Sowell, to the three Black women whose bodies were found in East Cleveland wrapped in garbage bags last month allegedly at the hands of accused serial killer Michael Madison, graduates  from Cleveland Ward 2 Councilman Zack Reed (pictured) and the Mt. Pleasant Community Zone's neighborhood watch group will get pepper spray tonight, August 7, at 6 pm after a special training on self defense. The location of the gathering is the York Rite Masonic Lodge at 13512 Kinsman Road in Cleveland.

Alternative Defense Strategies LLC , with support from Mace Securities International, Inc., will provide the training on the proper use of pepper spray and present basic self-defense techniques, Reed said. For more information on the program contact Reed's  Ward 2 office at 216-664-4945.

“We are helping Clevelanders take back their streets and their lives,” said Cleveland City Councilman Zack Reed in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper. . “The best defense is good offense.  I thank Alternative Defense Strategies LLC, Mace Securities International, Inc. and Walmart for stepping up and partnering with Ward 2 to improve safety in Cleveland.”

Walmart, said Reed, has donated the pepper spray to residents of his ward on the city's largely Black east side in the Kinsman and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods where poverty rates are alarming in comparison to other communities throughout Cleveland, and the state of Ohio.

Reed and a some other community leaders have been urging residents to become more involved in the community safety issues following the unprecedented acts of violence against women across racial lines in Cleveland and East Cleveland, a largely Black neighboring impoverished suburb of the majority Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland.

The Neighborhood Watch Program assists residents to become more resistant to crime and was designed to increase the awareness level of citizens to crime through education, self motivation and community involvement.