Latest news with #peacemakers
CBS News
07-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Miami gun violence prevention nonprofit protests federal funding cuts: "People over politics"
More than 100 supporters rallied in front of the Circle of Brotherhood nonprofit in Miami on Wednesday to protest what they said is the "defunding" of programs to curb gun violence. Last week, CBS News Miami reported that the U.S. Department of Justice notified the Circle that it was ending a $2 million grant program. The Circle has a group of workers called "peacemakers," who interact with children in local schools to prevent conflict. They serve as a neighborhood patrol, with boots on the ground to stop crime, gun violence and offering alternatives. Lyle Muhammad, the Circle's executive director, told CBS News Miami he was barely able to pay his 50 employees and would be running out of money. Moms Demand Action spoke out against the cuts, while other supporters called on the federal government to restore the funding. "They are not just numbers — they are saving lives," said one speaker at the podium. "We demand people over politics." "The school board was invited to be here and nobody showed," added Holly Zwerling, the president and CEO of Fatherhood Task Force South Florida, a nonprofit that increases the role of fathers in children's lives. In an email from the Justice Department, the Circle was told their funding was ending "because it no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities. Instead, they would focus on law enforcement protecting children and victims of trafficking and sexual assault. Speakers called on church groups and others to step up and raise money to keep the Circle work going.
CBS News
07-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is pressed to spare civil rights-era "peacemakers" program from closure
Top House Democrats on Wednesday are asking Attorney General Pam Bondi to spare a civil rights-era office that has frequently been referred to as the "peacemakers program." An internal Justice Department memo reviewed by CBS News last month said President Trump's appointees are considering closing the Community Relations Service, which was created as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The mission of the office is to be "America's peacemaker," tasked with "preventing and resolving racial and ethnic tensions, conflicts, and civil disorders, and in restoring racial stability and harmony." In a letter sent Wednesday to Bondi and the Justice Department, more than two dozen House Democrats wrote, "We strongly urge you to abandon any plans of dissolving the work of the Community Relations Service." The letter, which included Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Education Committee, said the Community Relations Service combats violence and city unrest. The letter says the office's "work also kept places of worship safe after a series of high-profile attacks in recent years." Though created during the mid-20th century, the Community Relations Service was expanded under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in 2008. The Community Relations Service does not investigate or prosecute crimes and has no law enforcement authority, and according to the Justice Department, its services are both confidential and free of charge to communities that accept or request them. In 2021, the agency said of its mission that it sought to help realize Martin Luther King Jr.'s "inspiring dream of a vibrant, all-embracing nation unified in justice, peace, and reconciliation." The House Democrats who are pressing Bondi to spare the office from reductions wrote, "We are aware that during the previous Trump Administration there was a similar effort to abandon the valuable work of the Community Relations Service by recommending its elimination in budget proposals and reducing staffing." The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CBS News. The Community Relations Service worked to ease rising racial tensions after the 1997 fatal police shooting of a Chinese-American man in Rohnert Park, California, in Akron, Ohio in 2022 after the shooting of a Black man by police and deploying twice to Minneapolis during the trial of Derek Chauvin after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 in Minnesota. "We would find and stop brush fires, before they became forest fires," said Ron Wakabayashi, a former regional director of the Community Relations Service. Wakabayashi told CBS News last month he fears the nation will be at greater risk of unrest, boycotts and lawsuits without the agency's Community Relations Service deployed regionally across the U.S..
