Lake County will start a community-based initiative to stem gun violence, including the hiring of 10 “violence interrupters” who will be tasked with trying to head off shootings before they happen.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart announced the Gun Violence Prevention Initiative (GVPI) Friday at a kickoff event and news conference at the Waukegan courthouse with speakers and attendees that included local, county and federal officials.
The initiative will be funded by $1 million in COVID relief money, and will be, according to the state’s attorney’s office, a “multi-prong approach to saving lives and reducing violence.”
Rinehart said his office will field proposals from community-based organizations interested in operating the anti-violence program. The program is in response to escalating gun violence in local communities and across the country.
“Locally and nationally our hearts have been breaking,” Rinehart said. “From those tears of rage, we must step forward into the light urgently, aggressively and single-mindedly toward solutions on the ground.”
A key component of the initiative will be the hiring of 10 or more “violence interrupters,” who will be focused on reducing gun violence in gang-troubled areas in Waukegan, North Chicago and Zion.
The interrupters will be people from those communities who will have an ear to the ground and will have frequent contact with gang members, and will work to defuse potential violence, speakers said.
Marcus McAllister, a Lake County native who has a consulting business and has trained violence interrupters, will serve as a consultant to the GVPI. He said at the event that he was elated to see his hometown leaders taking new initiatives against gun violence, and he is glad to be playing a role.
“I get called on all the time from cities across the country,” McAllister said. “I always said I’m tired of going to everyone else’s city, I want to do something in my own background.”
He said local communities possess the resources to stem violence.
“Credible messengers are there,” McAllister. “Yes, we can save lives and yes, we can mediate conflict.”
McAllister said reducing violence in underserved areas will also require holistic solutions, like job placement, therapy services and violence survivors groups.
“No one person has all the answers — we have to work at this collectively,” he said.
Rinehart said his office will be asking community groups to submit proposals to administer the initiative, and that training could begin soon for the violence interrupters.