The frontline against gun violence is getting reinforcements.
These neighborhood residents, many of whom were participants before finding a different path, have the street credibility and the passion to get people to put down their guns, choose not to pick one up in the first place, or de-escalate a conflict that may have already put someone in the hospital or morgue.
But for years, the vanguards of gun violence intervention have pulled long hours combatting the crisis on their own instincts and judgment, with insufficient support and coordination, training, pay, or healthcare. They don’t get the benefit of steady 9-to-5 hours, instead perpetually on-call for what’s dire at the moment. Their tactics – including mere survival – are learned from the streets. Despite their success – praised by neighborhood leaders and police chiefs alike – the status quo puts them at risk of simply burning out due to a lack of formality, sustainability, and funding.
A first-of-its-kind training, launched this week, is a crucial step to changing it all. It is one of the priorities outlined by the Blueprint for Peace, Kalamazoo County’s first long-term prevention strategy for violence. Kalamazoo Valley Community College is piloting a professional certificate training program in Community Violence Intervention (CVI), together with Gryphon Place and the Michigan Transformation Collective.
“How do you professionalize being a frontline worker?” asks Jen Heymoss, chief facilitator of the Blueprint. She says street outreach workers she assembled to help construct it consistently named training and coordination as top priorities.
“We have a ton of knowledge and lived experience here, and we need to just be more on the same page together,” she says. “So many things that are in the blueprint and the action plan depend on this happening.”
The training is meant to strengthen and coordinate local community efforts to prevent violence, to teach methods that are proven to work, and to improve the skills and access of frontline workers.
The end goal is to streamline services for the perpetrators, victims, and survivors of violence, to disrupt and eventually break the cycle. And who better to lead the charge than the big homies who’ve been caught up in the loop themselves.
“I was shooting early. My family and I were shooting victims early. I was in prison early, kicked outta school early. So a lot of things that these kids and these individuals are going through now, I survived that and now my mindset is something different,” says Yafinceio “Big B” Harris, co-founder of Peace During War, a street outreach worker for Group Violence Intervention, and connections coordinator for Urban Alliance.
Like Big B, each of the 30 interventionists, hand selected to attend this training, are driven by intuition and passion. Some have been operating alone and out of their own pockets; others have formed formal organizations: Bent Not Broken, Str8 Motivation, Girls Loving Our Wisdom, HOPE thru Navigation, Pastors on Patrol, and BLOCKS Club.
The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety even credits these prevention programs for combating gun violence. When asked why shootings and homicides spiked to unprecedented numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chief David Boysen and Assistant Chief David Juday have pointed to the absence of these services during the shutdown.
But these groups work without the protection, benefits, or authority that law enforcement has. “Even though we are certified through the streets … having the [CVI] certificate just gives a little more validity to what we do” says Michael Wilder, co-founder of Peace During War and a group violence intervention coordinator.
A series of sessions will instruct leaders on how to:
Understand violence as a public health issue and the role it plays in community violence intervention in Kalamazoo County.
Identify and practice high-risk conflict mediation.
Create a documentation process for Kalamazoo County street outreach.
Learn how to use local data to inform violence intervention work.
Understand the ways personal and societal attitudes affect views on suicide and interventions.
Provide guidance and suicide first-aid to a person at risk in ways that meet their individual safety needs.
Identify the key elements of an effective suicide safety plan and the actions required to implement it.
Appreciate the value of improving and integrating suicide prevention resources in the community.
Recognize other important aspects of suicide prevention, including life-promotion and self-care.
The curriculum is inspired by the national CVI Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago. Its executive director, Chico Tillmon, who has a doctorate in criminology, law, and justice, is instructing some of the lessons here.
“I believe Kalamazoo is a microcosm of what’s going on in the larger macro sector of the United States,” says Tillmon, “and if we could fix things in Kalamazoo, it could be the blueprint for the way things turn out in other vulnerable communities throughout the United States.”
Tillmon works in tandem with Reggie Moore, director of community safety policy and community engagement at the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Comprehensive Injury Center. Moore created the gun violence prevention model that shaped Kalamazoo’s blueprint, which he guided the creation of after leading the charge in Milwaukee.
“It’s extremely important that we have rules of engagement and standard operating procedures on the community side around how we engage with each other,” says Moore, “but also most importantly in the street for the safety of the workers, and then also for the impact of the work.”
Jeffery Fry, founder of Str8 Motivation, is hoping that impact will grow with this newfound knowledge and recognition, such as access into hospitals and schools to address issues “before something even becomes a crime.” And in times of tragedy, he wants to be able to help his neighbors work through their trauma, “cause we’re not used to this many murders in Kalamazoo, and it affects multiple people in various ways,” he says.
Fry wants to do all of this while simultaneously inspiring the next group of changemakers: by helping young people choose an alternative path when they see it’s possible to earn a living and influence their community positively.
After a week of core training, the next lessons for this first cohort will center around suicide prevention and intervention training, led by Gryphon Place. Then participants will have the option of furthering their education in gun violence intervention with KDPS, or restorative justice training with Gryphon Place, which is heavily involved in the public school system.
The next iteration of training has not yet been decided, says Heymoss. She says it will be molded by the needs of this group and the progress of action steps outlined in the blueprint, plus funding which has not yet been secured.
“This work moves at the speed of trust, but also at the speed of leadership,” says Moore. Oftentimes, people who are putting themselves in harm’s way to stop the cycle of gun violence are not given full credit for that work, since it’s seen as less official than if done by someone in a suit or a uniform. Moore says that the support of the police chief or the city’s mayor, who spoke at the opening of the training, gives the gun violence prevention work in Kalamazoo a better chance of success. “A lot of frontline workers across the country don’t get that level of respect in their community. And so I think that’s a testament to the culture of Kalamazoo and, and its commitment to this work.”
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