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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Shootings dropped in Lansing, but untangling why is complicated
Police ballistic markers stand besides a child's chair and bicycle at a crime scene in Brooklyn where a one year old child was shot and killed on July 13, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by) This story was published in partnership with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence. As gun violence surged in cities across the country after the start of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, shootings rose even more steeply in Lansing, Michigan. The worst period came in 2021, when the rate of fatal shootings reached 20 per 100,000 residents, two points higher than the national rate. 'That wave was so devastating,' said Marlon Beard, a community activist in Lansing whose 17-year-old son, Marshawn, was shot and killed in 2021. 'We all kind of asked ourselves what we can do about it.' In response, city officials and community groups raised enough money from federal grants and the city to establish a local Advance Peace program, a national violence intervention method that identifies known shooters, with support from the police, and enrolls them in an 18-month fellowship. By late 2022, violence interrupters hit the ground in southwest Lansing, mentoring, conducting skills training, and providing job opportunities to 15 participants. Within months, police data showed a decline in shootings. To better understand the program's efficacy, Advance Peace leaders commissioned a study by the Michigan Public Health Institute and Michigan State University. The study, published in March, found a 19 percent decrease in all shooting incidents from October 2022 to September 2024. More specifically, it found a 52 percent decline in fatal shootings and a 10 percent decline in nonfatal shootings. A program that works directly with shooters in Lansing is finding success — and police support But the overall drop also coincided with a national decrease in gun violence as the pandemic receded. Determining how much of the decline was due to intervention and how much it reflected national trends remains a key part of the puzzle in understanding gun violence trends in Lansing and similar cities. The end of the pandemic also heralded the federal Build Back Better Act, which included $5 billion for community violence intervention work, along with less direct funding that strengthened the social safety net that is crucial in many communities with disproportionate rates of gun deaths. That widespread funding anchored programs like this one. The first 18-month Advance Peace fellowship started in late 2022 with 15 fellows on the southwest side, where shootings were most prevalent. Fatal shootings and nonfatal shootings fell by 38 percent and 32 percent, respectively, in that area. But the drop in fatal shootings was greater in the three sections of the city where Advance Peace didn't have an initial presence, raising questions about the program's influence. The southwest did, however, have the largest reduction in nonfatal shootings compared to the other areas. According to the Lansing study, Advance Peace effectively engaged with the people most likely to pick up a gun, who were identified through family members, friends, other activists, law enforcement, and people recently released from jails and prisons. More than 90 percent of participants no longer use guns to go on the offensive, said Paul Elam, the chief strategy officer at the Michigan Public Health Institute and a key member of the team that implemented the program in Lansing. Elam later took a step back from street-level engagement to join the research team. 'We have evidence that this works,' he said. 'We have the evidence to prove that a public health approach works.' Joseph Richardson, a gun violence researcher and professor at the University of Maryland, said the Advance Peace model can be successful, but more data is needed to show that the program was driving the drop in shootings. 'There were significant reductions in fatal shootings where they weren't doing their work,' Richardson said, but added that continued research of community violence intervention programs is crucial to better understanding 'the role a CVI group plays locally. That's how we learn what steps need to be taken to implement the work properly.' The second fellowship, which covers the entire city, started in July 2024 and will continue working with 55 fellows until December, when the Trump administration's termination of $169 million in grants for violence intervention and community safety programs leaves cities like Lansing to scramble for alternatives. Half of Advance Peace Lansing's funding comes from federal grants, and its leaders are now strategizing about how to raise enough money to sustain the organization's 22-person staff and $3.5 million annual budget. 'If you remove that intervention piece, gun violence will go up again,' said Michael McKissic, who runs Mikey23, a nonprofit gun violence prevention program that trains young people in trades like construction, plumbing, and electrical work. 'We need that intervention. Our organization can't do that, other organizations can't do it. You need those individuals who are going to go in and show them the error of their ways.' The study showed that fatal shootings decreased by 19 percent more in Lansing from 2022 to 2024 than they did nationally — when gun violence was already dropping across the country post-pandemic. But the city's rate of nonfatal shootings fluctuated, ending with a 15 percent decline in 2024. Richardson said this is the kind of discrepancy that requires more analysis, but that continued research will be more difficult after the cuts from the federal government. Elam and the other authors of the study said gun violence prevention has always been an uphill battle, and hope the promising declines don't cause leaders to disengage with gun violence prevention. They also emphasized the positive feedback they've gotten from residents who say their boots-on-the-ground work has built trust, as well as city leaders, police, and the fellows themselves, most of whom are under 18 years old. 'We can talk to them,' one of the 16-year-old fellows told The Trace, referring to Advance Peace's credible messengers. 'They care about us, they're there for us.'
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Former Squad members claim Democrats wanted $10 trillion Build Back Better bill
Ex-Squad Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman claimed that Democrats had originally wanted to pass $10 trillion in spending as part of former President Joe Biden's doomed Build Back Better (BBB) Act. "We were at ten [trillion] and then it went down to six and down to three and down to 1.7, I believe," Bush said on the "Bowman and Bush" podcast on Mar. 14. The two were reflecting on the collapse of Biden's ambitious Build Back Better Act, which called for hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in "social infrastructure" programs such as universal childcare, an expansion of the child tax credit, climate change initiatives, and low-cost housing. "We wanted to make sure that the climate investment was there because many of the groups were saying this isn't enough on climate… so I was getting attacked for not asking for more," Bush said. The former members of Congress each lost Democratic primaries to more moderate opponents prior to the 2024 general election. They said they held out on voting for Biden's infrastructure bill for "months" in order to couple it with Build Back Better so that one couldn't pass without the other. But according to the two ex-reps, the federal investments in the BBB Act kept going "down, down, down." The progressives' efforts ultimately failed, in their telling, with the Democrat-controlled House voting to pass the infrastructure bill separately from Build Back Better, and no vote scheduled for the latter bill. The House passed Biden's infrastructure bill in November 2021. Read On The Fox News App Bush recounted a tense meeting of the House Progressive Caucus in which Biden called in to plead with the lefty reps to pass his infrastructure bill despite their demands for a vote on BBB not being met. Musk Threatens To Sue After Democrat Ex-rep Jamaal Bowman Calls Him A 'Nazi' And 'Thief' During Tv Appearance "Mr. President, I'm a no. I'm not going to vote for this if we don't have the infrastructure bill, if we don't have Build Back Better being voted on at the same time," Bush allegedly told Biden. When Biden implored her to "trust your president" that the Build Back Better Act would one day be passed, Bush claimed she gave the president a flat "no." BBB, which was valued at nearly $2 trillion, ultimately failed to pass due to objections from centrists such as then-Sen. Joe Manchin, Bowman, who lost his primary to Rep. George Latimer, D-N.Y., faced controversy in his district, which encompasses parts of Westchester, for numerous anti-Israel statements which critics alleged crossed the line into antisemitism. Biden's 'Build Back Better' Is The Very Definition Of Cradle-to-grave, Big-government Dependency Bowman at one point said there was "no evidence" Hamas raped Israeli women during their barbaric Oct. 7 attacks (he later reversed course on that claim), and has frequently referred to Israel's war against the terrorist group as a "genocide." He was also censured by the House for pulling the fire alarm during a 2023 spending vote. Bush, whose husband was recently charged with defrauding the government to the tune of $20,000 in fraudulent PPP loans, blamed the American-Israeli activist group AIPAC for her congressional loss and lashed out at pro-Israel groups during her concession speech, saying they "radicalized" her and vowing to take revenge. "As much as I love my job, all they did was radicalize me — and so now they need to be afraid," Bush article source: Former Squad members claim Democrats wanted $10 trillion Build Back Better bill
