Mayor Bill de Blasio with cure violence leaders following the death
of a one-year-old. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Offi ce
Mayor launches
initiative to combat
rash of shootings
COURIER LIFE, JULY 24-30, 2020 3
BY BEN VERDE
Amid a recent uptick in
gun violence throughout
Kings County, the city will
launch the “Central Brooklyn
Violence Prevention
Plan” to combat the wave
of shootings, Mayor Bill de
Blasio announced at a press
briefi ng.
“This is the way forward,”
Hizzoner said.
“Working with communities,
by recognizing the
leadership of community
leaders, organizations,
clergy, elected offi cials.”
The initiative — which
comes after gunmen shot 53
people last weekend, including
a one-year-old baby in
Bedford-Stuyvesant — calls
for an increased NYPD
presence in Crown Heights
and Bedford-Stuyvesant,
and civilian “violence interrupters”
stationed at
seven hotspots in the neighborhood.
While part of the
plan, NYPD offi cials were
not present at the mayor’s
Wednesday briefi ng.
City leaders will also set
up “resource fairs” on pedestrianized
streets in central
Brooklyn to offer the
borough’s youth free information
on housing, jobs,
and other services, along
with “mobile trauma units”
that will provide mental
health and support services.
And to further stop the
spate of violence, local clergies
and community groups
will host peace marches —
which one Bedford-Stuyvesant
legislator said would
be a necessary step toward
engaging the community
and addressing the root
causes of violence.
“We can handle this as a
community, as a city, if we
come together,” Cornegy
said. “Where there is an
uptick in crime we are going
to have an uptick in services.”
Violence prevention
groups like Save Our
Streets Bedford-Stuyvesant
will help lead the efforts toward
combating the shootings,
according to the organization’s
deputy director,
who said their organizers
would be out in the community
and on the front lines
this weekend.
“Our goal this weekend
is to be out there Friday
and Saturday, to saturate
the community with
the violence interrupters
and outreach workers and
all the members of the cure
violence team,” said Ife
Charles.
Charles also encouraged
all New Yorkers to occupy
the neighborhood alongside
the organizers, saying that
more visibility in the neighborhood
would help turn
the tides of violence.
“This is about collectively
utilizing the
strengths we have as New
Yorkers,” she said. “We are
resilient and we are tough,
and this is a time for us to
step up.”
GUN VIOLENCE
to curb uptick in shootings
ing to get through it and now
that I have family that love me,
I know that I can get through
it just by being positive, that’s
the best thing I can do.”
Shootings and violent
crime tend to increase in the
summer, but many advocates
theorized that mass unemployment,
limited activities,
and prolonged stay-at-home orders
because of the coronavirus
outbreak could contribute
to the recent spike violence.
City Councilman Robert
Cornegy, who represents Bedford
Stuyvesant, echoed those
sentiments, saying the community
must do more to stop
the root causes of violence.
“While one depraved individual
pulled the trigger, society
is responsible for loading
the bullets in that gun,”
he said as S.O.S. tabled outside
Raymond Bush Playground.
For his part, Mayor Bill de
Blasio announced the “Central
Brooklyn Violence Prevention
Plan” on July 15, which leans
on the work of both cure violence
groups like S.O.S. and
increased NYPD presence in
hotspot neighborhoods to curb
violent crime.
The Bedford-Stuyvesant
march comes as police, protesters,
politicians, and activists
debate the causes of the
uptick in shootings.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot
Shea has pointed to the
planned closure of Rikers Island,
recently-enacted bail reform,
and cuts to the NYPD
budget as the primary drivers
for the spike in crime.
Others have blamed community
deprivation instead, such
as poverty and unemployment
— advocating for holistic approaches
to help neighborhoods
ameliorate those burdens.
In an effort to kickstart the
community-based approach,
groups like S.O.S. have hit the
street to give out literature on
gun violence and information
on various services that people
could utilize to keep them
off the streets.
Lawrence Brown, an outreach
worker supervisor for
S.O.S. Bed-Stuy, spent the
night of July 17 trying to engage
his neighbors — but bemoaned
the lack of more widespread
community support.
“There’s a lot of people
that believe in what we’re doing.
But I’m just saying, with
the support of the community,
this movement would be even
greater,” said Brown, 48. “But
if we can connect with one person,
that person can connect
to two and that can turn into
four.”
Dr. Jeffrey Butts, the director
of the Research and Evaluation
Center at John Jay College
of Criminal Justice said
that community-based antiviolence
initiatives are more
effective in the long run than
mass incarceration.
“It’s not like a miracle
where it just wipes out violence
and there are no more
shootings, but it can substantially
reduce the numbers of
violent incidents in that neighborhood,”
Butts said.
Butts, who has been studying
cure violence programs
for years, used the analogy of
smoking in meetings going
from a normal occurrence to
being taboo.
“You can be a 15-year-old
walking around with a gun in
your pocket and you hear the
police commissioner or the
mayor say something about
shootings and it doesn’t faze
you, but if your next-door neighbor…
people that you know say,
‘This is not cool, just leave that
at home, our neighborhood
doesn’t need this,’ and you get
those messages consistently, it
can start to reset the norms.”
When S.O.S. Bed-Stuy
members arrived to Herbert
Von King Park to table on July
18, they were met with wafts of
barbecue smoke, music from
a DJ and the background conversations
of families celebrating
various milestones.
“Look, people should always
be able to enjoy themselves
like this,” said Brown.
Overnight between July
18 and 19, at least fi ve people
were shot in Brooklyn and one
man died after being shot on
Nostrand Avenue in Crown
Heights, just over a mile from
S.O.S.’s table by the park.
Photo by Paul Frangipane