NORFOLK, Va. – The senseless mass shooting in Norfolk’s Young Terrace neighborhood left the community shattered and broken.
Since then, grassroots groups like Guns Down have been working with kids in the community to stem the lingering trauma.
“A lot of the neighbors are still afraid when I talk to them,” said Guns Down President Clay Marquez. “Every time there’s a shooting that’s close that may be across the street or something, it triggers something.”
The ongoing trauma is why the Newark Community Street Team has narrowed its efforts on the neighborhood, labeling it a crime hotspot.
The New Jersey-based organization just finished the first round of training with anti-crime groups like Guns Down to enhance their crime-fighting techniques. Known as intervention work, the Street Team teaches the mentors how to resolve disputes in troubled neighborhoods by working with teens and keeping them from going down the wrong path.
“I think a lot of the skills and gifts the folks hold that do this work is intuitive,” said Newark Community Street Team President Aqeela Sherrills. “One of the things we get to do is overlay some of the more strategic and professional practices to combine with it, so it makes them even more effective.”
The strategy is part of the city’s holistic approach to curbing violent crime. Sherrills however said change won’t happen immediately.
“It takes about three years for this type of work to really take root,” he said. “There’s no instant gratification, there’s no magic. It’s hard work."
Interim Police Chief Mike Goldsmith said it could take years to move the needle.
“This is not a process that ever stops,” he said. “We continually access where we’re at. We continually engage in best practices to see what are the most efficient and best and quite frankly, cause the least amount of harm to our residents.”
For Marquez, he said so far, the Street Team’s training is helping his group better address and deal with community violence.
“They have taught me how to strategically approach the violence in our community by having a focus on targeted areas instead of being all over the place,” said Marquez in a statement. “They are teaching us case management, so that we can be more organized in assisting the youth. The Street Team has been very beneficial to our organization in helping our youth.”
The other grassroots groups the Street Team is training and teaching them how to secure grants, include K.I.N.D., Teens with a Purpose, and the Rec League.
Besides Young Terrace, Calvert Square is another neighborhood that’s been identified as a crime hotspot. The goal is to start with the two neighborhoods and expand intervention strategies into others.
