MIAMI — The Circle of Brotherhood, Dream Defenders and several other local grassroots organizations want Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to fund their initiatives aimed at reducing gun violence.
Representatives from several of the groups gathered in the shadow of the Stephen P. Clark Center Friday to demand at least $30 million, or 6% of the $500 million owed to cities within Miami-Dade as part of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, be devoted to their programs.
“We represent a healing and justice coalition of organizations individually that have been overlooked and underfunded when it comes to dealing with the root causes of violence in our community,” said Lyle Muhammad, executive director of The Circle of Brotherhood. “We’re not going to arrest our way out of this situation.”
The organizations offer a number of services including counseling, classes on bandaging gunshot wounds and youth programming. Together, members of the coalition envisioned something similar to the Newark Community Street Team. Founded by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka in 2016, NCST consists off locals who are trained on how to essentially police their own neighborhoods, an effort that has led to record lows in homicides for four consecutive years.
Elected officials need to “do a critical appraisal of the funds that they’ve already gotten to decrease the amount of gun violence in the neighborhood” and ask themselves “has it worked,” said Dr. Armen Henderson, Dream Defenders’ director of health programs and a University of Miami physician. “And the answer, in my opinion, is no.”
The coalition’s formation follows a rather bloody Memorial Day Weekend in Miami-Dade. At least seven people were killed and more than 30 injured in a string of shootings that began last Friday. One shooting in particular made national headlines after several individuals opened fire on a crowd attending a concert at El Mula Banquet Hall in Northwest Miami-Dade. Three people died and more than 20 were injured.
Incidents like these won’t be solved by increasing police presence but rather funding community-based alternatives, says Henderson.
“We have to get to the root cause of why gun violence occurs in a neighborhood,” Henderson explained. “They are grossly underfunded, elected officials are not listening to community-based solutions (and) public safety is different when it comes to dealing with people in urban communities.”
Although Levine Cava has said her “Peace and Prosperity Plan” will include efforts to prevent at-risk youth from going down the wrong path, the details have been scarce as it’s still being finalized. Even so, activists said Friday they doubted the plan will go far enough.
Two known parts of the plan — the increased funding for police to monitor social media and expansion of summer programming for teens in the juvenile-justice system — didn’t sit well with Tina Harris, vice president of Touching Miami With Love.
“These programs are not going to target youth that are pulling out AK-47s and spraying down parties and banquet halls,” Harris said. “Those youth are not interested in coming to a program for eight hours a day.”
The real solution lies in tasking formerly incarcerated individuals who can “relate” and “get to the root of the issues that are happening on the street” with reaching out to the youth, Harris continued. “All you’re doing is perpetuating a system that’s going to continue to lock Black and brown individuals up.”
After the violence of Memorial Day weekend, Muhammad and others made it clear that they don’t want gun violence to become the next “political football.” Now, they maintain, is the time to do something different.
“We are vetted community organizations that are trusted by the community,” Henderson said. “And if that’s the case that the money is coming and it can be designated toward these type of programs, then let us do our work.”
