SEATTLE — Seattle city leaders say they are looking to community violence intervention groups when it comes to combating gun violence after the mass shooting in Seattle.
The collective of those groups told KIRO 7’s Brandon Thompson how they plan to do it, while also actively helping those affected by last Sunday’s shooting at the Seattle Center.
These organizations say the data shows they’re already making a difference.
“I’ve had to bear the weight of so many crying mothers,” said Shantel Patu, co-founder of Urban Family.
When tragedy strikes, this is the group that responds to the community nearest to the violence. All of them come together, working with families to heal, and trying to prevent retaliation.
“This is not an incident where all of a sudden now we’re in shock... and we’re suffering because of this incident. This is one of multiple incidents that we deal with on a regular basis,” said Dominique Davis, founder of Community Passageways. “This is a bigger tragedy because it happened at an event that we’re not used to things like this happening at.”
Davis’ organization was called out directly by city leaders after Sunday’s shooting as support for survivors, but all of these organizations come together to work with families and try to prevent retaliation.
For example, when two teenagers were killed near Rainier Beach High School last year, “We gathered all of his friends, his closest friends, and took them out of town for a few days,” said Paul Patu, co-founder of Urban Family. “These are kids that would, if left alone, would think of other alternatives to get their get back. But we have them; we’re able to kind of release some of the pressure of the moment and give them perspective on, instead of thinking about why he died, how can you live for him.”
But dealing with the aftermath isn’t all they do.
The coalition calls themselves the ‘first first responders’ for what they try and do to prevent shootings and gun violence.
That was on display just one night before the Bite of Seattle shooting — at the city’s Torchlight Parade.
“Our teams have been working Torchlight for many, many years. Prior to us working Torchlight, it was dangerous,” explained Paul Patu.
“We know who the players are... where they’re at,” added Dominque. “Like, ‘You guys go talk to them, you guys go talk with them...’ because you got the relationship with those guys over there.”
They say they can build those relationships because many of them walked in the path some of these kids are heading down.
“We were those kids, right? If you looked at all of our criminal history, with the exception of my wife, we all went down that same path,” said Paul.
While they say it’s hard to track the shootings they’ve prevented, reports this week from King County prosecutors show success: A 61% drop in youth violence cases this year from last.
“We’re tracking these things in community and being strategic about our engagement,” said Marvin Marshall, executive director at Freedom Project Washington.
Eddie Purpose, founder of Progress Pushers, added, “The focus is so much on the negative... but there’s so many successful exits of so many young men and young women who are now self-sustainable in so many different ways.”
Shantel tells us that they’re often getting these kids involved in sports, showing up to games, being advocates for them at school, whatever they can do to provide that one-on-one mentorship.
“Because we show up and we’re consistent, we get enough respect. And we give enough respect till we get respect back,” she added.
Yesterday, KIRO 7’s Brandon Thompson reported that several of these organizations say they are not being paid by the city, preventing them from doing the work to heal their neighborhoods. However, they tell us they believe that the five years they had uninterrupted funding is what led to the recent drop in gun violence.
As more traditional contracts are likely in their future, the organizations say they hope that local leaders don’t pit them against each other, just as they’ve learned how to work together.
SEE ALSO: KIRO 7 Investigates: Following the funding paper trail for gun violence groups in Seattle