Activists form teams to curb rising violence
NASHVILLE — When Rasheedat Fetuga became a teacher, she worked hard to help protect her students, many of them poor and from a nearby housing project. When one of her favorites was shot and killed at 16, she stood at his funeral and vowed to do more.
That was the beginning of the Gideon’s Army violence interrupters, a small group that works in predominantly Black North Nashville to defuse tense situations before they become violent.
Their primary focus is a 228-unit housing project formally known as the Cumberland View Apartments but more commonly referred to by its nickname, Dodge City, for the amount of gun violence that has historically occurred there.
The violence interrupters include Hambino Godbody, who grew up in Cumberland View and still has DCP (Dodge City Projects) tattooed on the back of his left hand.
“We’re the cure to the violence in real life. We know we are because we cured ourselves first,” he said.
Violent crime has spiked nationwide after plummeting in the early months of the pandemic, with many cities seeing double-digit increases in gun violence. President Biden’s administration has sent strike forces to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington to help take down gun networks.
Smaller, grassroots efforts in communities across the country are trying alternative strategies to curb violence, recognizing the fallout from decades of “tough on crime” policies that criminalized a generation, leaving them with fewer resources and opportunities than ever.
That includes violence interrupter programs such as Gideon’s Army or Cure Violence Global, which started in Chicago and has branched out to other cites. The groups differ in philosophy but share a common goal of improving life in their communities.
Some of what Gideon’s Army does might fall into the category of typical community organizing and social work: providing food and clothes, holding community cookouts and Easter egg hunts. But there are also the instances of Godbody wrestling a gunman to the ground or stopping a robbery in progress.
“He was able to get the guy that got robbed to calm down and not want to come back and retaliate,” fellow violence interrupter Chef Mic Tru said of Godbody. “He got the guy that did the robbery to return the stuff he stole, and they made amends.”
“He didn’t need a gun. He didn’t need a badge,” Tru said. “He just used his words.”
Sheyla Delgado of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center has studied Cure Violence programs in New York City for the past decade and says they do improve public safety. Shootings and gun violence declined in the neighborhoods that had Cure Violence programs, she said.