Groups hope to curb youth violence outreach:

Outreach groups and pastors meet to help prevent tragic incidents.

Pastors, street-outreach teams and family members of victims tend to gather in the aftermath of a new killing to call for an end to youth violence.

On Saturday, no recent outrage served as a motivating force. But at a community cookout northeast of downtown Denver, organizers including the Rev. Leon Kelly — a figure in Denver anti-gang efforts for decades — said that was the point.

Denver’s northeast neighborhoods have seen recent drops in crime. He hopes to keep it that way through the summer, a time when youth violence often increases along with temperatures.

Kelly’s group, Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives, launched the first weekly event of a new effort to bring neighbors together to find ways to occupy youth and reduce gang activity. The East Side Community Partnership includes churches, community groups, and the Whittier and Cole neighborhood associations.

“For three months, starting the 1st of June to the end of August, we’re trying to orchestrate something like this every weekend, somewhere in this neighborhood, so that we can come together,” Kelly told more than 50 attendees outside St. Charles Recreation Center, 3777 Lafayette St.

The first event drew a modest crowd. Organizers plan to stage more community events, barbecues, block parties and community service days in coming months, perhaps joining forces with existing events.

Last year, strategies by Denver police and gang intervention groups were successful at bringing the violence under control, with gang-related killings dropping by more than half.

But a few months ago, gang violence surged for a time, police said, pointing to a need for vigilance.

“I think the biggest challenge is just engaging each other,” even among neighbors, said Daloyd Reynolds, 45, a gang-outreach worker with Kelly’s group. “I can sit in my house and text you, but we don’t come out and talk to each other.”

While children played kickball nearby, Andrea Grimes, 52, said she came “just to honor those who were lost these last few months” to senseless violence.

Her son, Johnathan Morehead, was among them. He was gunned down April 27 while visiting friends at East 16th Avenue and Uinta Street. His murder is unsolved.

“It all needs to stop,” Grimes said. “What are you gaining from taking people’s lives? … I hope you live every day with those visions in your head — I want you to see these people that you’re victimizing.”

As Kelly looked out Saturday afternoon, he saw many familiar faces — fellow gang-outreach workers, several family members of murder victims and supporters of anti-violence initiatives.

But he would like to see the occasional community members and neighborhood youth who stopped by for burgers Saturday grow in numbers in coming weeks, and expand in diversity.

“Am I satisfied with it?” he asked about the community representation, speaking into a microphone. “No, to tell you the truth, I’m not. Because I know that within this community, there’s enough to fill up this park three times over.”

Gathering people to talk about reducing violence is a challenge, he said, when there hasn’t been a recent incident to rally the wider community and spur demands for accountability.

“Now if we talk about holding folks accountable,” Kelly said, “that has been, certainly, my vision of this effort: Who do we hold accountable from our neighborhood, our community? If the community don’t take care of their own — don’t police their own — then who will?”

Jon Murray: 303-954-1405, jmurray@denverpost.com or @Jonmurray