COVID-19 sidelines Durham’s violence interrupters as shootings surge in the Bull City

The coronavirus has sidelined Durham County’s team of “violence interrupters,” the City Council learned Thursday, a week after two shootings injured 10 people, including a 12-year-old boy who died this week.

Bull City United, a team funded by the county Department of Public Health, works in the community to de-escalate tensions and prevent potential shootings.

“Because of COVID, the county really shut down their violence interrupter operation,” Mayor Steve Schewel told the council. “We saw the Bull City United folks (Wednesday) at the vigil, but, by and large, they haven’t been intervening because of COVID-19 and ... knocking on doors and those kinds of things, and I think that’s been a big problem for us.”

City leaders attended a vigil Wednesday night for Tyvien McLean, 12, of Durham. The boy died this week after a bullet flew through an apartment window while he was at a party at the Cornwallis Road public housing complex. Two other children and seven adults were injured in the shootings at two Durham locations July 14 and 15.

Durham police have not announced any arrests or whether they have any suspects in the incidents.

Shootings in the city were already on the rise this year.

The Durham Police Department reported 418 shootings as of June 27, up from 315 over the same time period last year.

On Thursday, City Council member Mark-Anthony Middleton called on Durham leaders to expand violence interruption and repeated his support for ShotSpotter, surveillance technology that uses acoustic sensors to tell police the location of potential gunfire.

“Tell me why that’s not worth $500,000, or whatever it costs, the possibility of saving the lives of Black children who are being trained like soldiers to duck and cover, to get into a bathtub, to get off of their bikes and hide behind trees like they’re in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Middleton said.

Middleton proposed the city purchase ShotSpotter last year, but Police Chief C.J. Davis did not ask for it in this year’s budget and not all council members support it.

Middleton also said the city needs to “muscularize” police investigative services to stop repeat shooters, and move more quickly to appoint members to the community safety and wellness task force whose bylaws the City Council approved in March.

The Durham Beyond Policing coalition, a group that has called for diverting police funding to other needs, last year asked city leaders to create the task force instead of hiring more officers. The task force membership will include experts in different fields, as well as people who have been convicted of crimes.

“People in this city are absolutely heartbroken, and we are tired, and we are not under any illusion that we’re doing everything that we can do as a city,” Middleton said. “I don’t think we can police our way out.”

City leaders across the country are facing a public reckoning to slash police budgets after a series of Black people, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, were killed by officers in the last few months.

Efforts by The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun to reach Bull City United and the Health Department for this story were unsuccessful as of Friday afternoon.

Short- and long-terms strategies

Other council members said they were open to working with Middleton to provide city funds for violence interruption.

“We need to need to figure out how we keep programs like (Bull City United) going during this period,” said Mayor Pro Tem Jillian Johnson, “because we know this pandemic is is going to be here with us for a long time, and I’d hate to see these kinds of programs completely go away.”

Council member DeDreana Freeman, like Middleton, also wants to see a more immediate response to the shootings last week that includes both short- and long-term strategies.

“Whether it’s ShotSpotter or violence interrupters or any other great idea that comes forward that hasn’t been tried, I’d be willing to try because I am just sick of losing children in this community,” she said.

But Schewel said he did not want to make a decision about ShotSpotter until he had more information about it.

“I‘m not going to make an argument right here for or against ShotSpotter, but I do think that the evidentiary information is important, and that’s also true for violence interrupters or whatever else we try,” Schewel said.

Davis said at the meeting that she is shocked that so many young people have seen gun violence these last few weeks.

“I wholeheartedly agree that if we could find other support mechanisms to assist in this overwhelming burden of trying to intercept gunfire, even if it’s from community sources ... the Durham Police Department would be mostly appreciative,” Davis said.

The council’s discussion came after Durham’s racial equity task force recommended city leaders offer reparations to people affected by systemic racism and implement policies to address discrimination in housing, education and the criminal justice system.

The council also voted Thursday to make Juneteenth, a day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, a paid holiday for city employees.

More police officers, bigger police budget

The council last month approved $70.3 million for the Police Department for the 2020-21 fiscal year, up from $67 million last year. The council also earmarked $1 million last month to fund services as an alternative to policing.

The council also approved six new police officers in March, costing around $420,000 annually, to replace positions transferred to the Gang Unit in December.

Last year, Davis said she wanted to hire 72 officers over three years. City Manager Tom Bonfield’s proposed budget recommended 18 new officers for the current fiscal year, but the council rejected it in a 4-3 vote. Mayor Steve Schewel then proposed a compromise of nine officers, which the council also rejected 4-3.

After last week’s shootings, Davis said in a press conference that police need the community’s help to remove guns from the streets.

“We are moving resources around and, you know, trying to get our community to assist and provide information, especially about illegal gun activity, legal gun sales and even stolen weapons, to get some of these guns off the street,” she said.

Durham police did not answer questions from The N&O about any further responses they may have planned to fight recent gun violence. A police spokesperson would not clarify what Davis meant by “moving resources around.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 2:33 PM.