Fort Worth group credited with curbing gang violence at risk amid funding cuts

CBS News

5 days ago

In 2019, following a string of homicides and shootings where police officers opened fire, Rodney McIntosh said he first felt called to action.
"I just had a desire to be a voice for the people," McIntosh said. "I went to City Hall, speaking on what I believed were injustices that were taking place in the inner city."
After speaking about his past being involved in gangs while growing up in the Stop Six neighborhood of Fort Worth, he caught the attention of city council members and was soon tapped to launch and run a community-violence intervention program to stop gang and retaliatory violence in the city. In 2020, McIntosh signed a contract with the City of Fort Worth, and V.I.P. Fort Worth was born.
Five years later, funding that was used to grow these programs is running dry. Now, McIntosh and other advocates nationwide are facing tough decisions.
"We all are struggling to find out what funding will look like over the next year or two, if this work will continue to go on," McIntosh said.
V.I.P. Fort Worth is modeled after a California program called Advance Peace. The nonprofit employs men and women who have had past run-ins with the law to work as mentors for at-risk teens and young men.
"We literally come into the street, we come into the dark alleys, into the places nobody wants to go," McIntosh said.
Those who work for V.I.P. said they fill a need that otherwise would go unmet in helping address crime.
"The police, I say this with no disrespect intended, I just don't believe they are able to relate to the ways that we are," V.I.P. mentor Darius Murray said.
McIntosh and his team host life skills classes with their mentees, helping them talk through problems and advising them on how to tackle issues ranging from mental health to conflict resolution. They also work with them one-on-one to do things like obtain a G.E.D. and set goals for the future.
"I think what V.I.P. Fort Worth and what these programs are able to offer people is ... hope," McIntosh said. "When you're a young man and everything around you is dark, you're looking for some kind of light."
McIntosh said it was difficult at first to get young men to buy into the program. But that work has gotten easier as the group of mentors continues their work and builds trust in the community.
The work was also made easier thanks to an $800,000 funding boost the group received in 2023. V.I.P. was awarded that money through the United Way of Tarrant County, after the organization received $2.1 million from the federal government's American Rescue Plan Act. United Way of Tarrant County used that money to create One Second Collaborative, a coalition aimed at gun violence prevention.
That money helped V.I.P. grow. McIntosh was able to double his staff, reaching as high as 21 total mentors. With more staff, he was able to take on more mentees.
"From January to June of 2023, there were 25 either gang homicides, gang shootings or investigations," McIntosh said. "Last year, from January to June, there was zero."
According to data from Fort Worth's Crime Control & Prevention District, V.I.P. engaged 1,041 known or suspected shooters in fiscal year 2024, and is believed to have interrupted 165 shootings.
For Murray and his mentee Terence Calton, the bond they've fostered working together is almost familial. Calton said their connection was automatic.
"I love to hear his story," Calton said. "Talking to him just made me see myself in him in a lot of ways."
Like McIntosh, Murray has a criminal past. It's part of why this work means so much to him now.
"My passion for this work started while I was in prison, because to me doing this work is like a form of retribution, me giving back to the community because I was a part of destroying the community at one point in time," Murray said.
Working with Murray and V.I.P., Calton said he's able to learn from his mistakes and work toward a better future.
"They teach us every day, you might be wrong in something, but just because you're wrong about something don't mean that you're the worst person on earth," Calton said. "You can learn."
McIntosh said being able to give their mentors that grace is one of the consequential parts of their work.
"As much as everybody else may overlook them and think that they're the worst people in our city, there's a group of men that do this work that'll look at them like, 'Nah, man, I love you and value who you are right now, but I also value who you can become,'" McIntosh said.
When the CBS News Texas I-Team first spoke with McIntosh in May, he employed 21 mentors. Since then, the ARPA funding has run out, and he's had to let go of 10 of them.
V.I.P. is not the only group currently facing budget issues. In April, the Department of Justice canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that included $169 million for community violence intervention programs. And earlier this year, the group Dallas Cred ceased operations due to budget issues.
For now, United Way, the City of Fort Worth and V.I.P. are still working together to help cover the nonprofit's budget shortfall.
"Honestly, I feel like if more people come across this program in the right manner, I think this will be something that will save a lot of our future to come, like the next generation," Calton said.