BengalNews Reporters
According
to Sean Mulligan, legislative aide to
Councilman David Rivera,
the Niagara District has been working with the Buffalo Police Department to
ensure that arrests are being made and the affects of gangs on the West Side
are decreasing.
“We
work directly with residents who will call about high levels of violence in the
area and this information is then passed on to the police department in order
for them to start conducting investigations,” said Mulligan.
The
Niagara District also works with the Department of Citizen Services through a
program called Save Our Streets. Within that program, Operation Clean-Sweeps
holds day projects where people are involved to clean up particular streets where violence,
poverty and housing code violations are prevalent.
“So far
we have done three clean sweeps in the Niagara District this year to make the
West Side a safer and more appealing area to live,” said Mulligan.
“We
sponsor the Grant Street Neighborhood
Center and
other programs that provide safe places for children with an effort to keep
them off of the streets and away from the violence,” said Mulligan.
Six
organizations including Stop the Violence Coalition collaborated to form the
Peacemakers Gang Intervention Program. This program is aimed to uplift the city
and put a halt to the chaos and violence that has placed Buffalo in the
rankings for being one of the most dangerous cities in the nation.
Pastor James
Giles of Back to Basics Outreach Ministries Inc. on changing
the attitudes about violence on the West Side:
According to Murray Holman, executive director of Stop the Violence Coalition, out of the 41 homicides reported this year, half of them occurred on the West Side.
The
diverse backgrounds and mixed cultures within the West Side bring a very
different and complex form of violence. As a result, certain gang members who
come to America are bringing more hateful tactics and ways to commit violent
crimes from their cultures back home.
“Unlike
other gangs throughout the city, different crimes and homicides committed in
the area are not being reported,” said Holman. “People within these communities
remain introvert and only speak out against violence during times of desperation.”
At a VOICE-Buffalo Inc., meeting held on Oct. 28. Pastor James Giles, president and CEO of Back to Basics Outreach
Ministries, a program also in collaboration for the Peacemakers Gang
Intervention Program, expanded upon ways to prevent the eruption of violence
within the city.
“We
came up with an initiative to come together and expand ourselves throughout the
community because violence is always a step ahead of us,” said Giles.
Mayor
Byron Brown also expressed his support of the Peacemakers Gang Intervention
Program that creates awareness about violent acts and provides preventative
measures within the city by allocating $78,000 towards it.
“We
will follow the examples of successful programs in Providence and Boston and
will come up with a program tailored towards specific needs for the City of
Buffalo,” Brown said. Edited by Jessica Chetney
The statement that Buffalo was named the tenth most dangerous city in the nation has sparked an interest whether this report is in fact true. At the VOICE-Buffalo meeting, Mayor Byron Brown stated that he believed the article was inaccurate because from 2005 to 2011, the rates of homicides have decreased 17 percent. Pastor James Giles and Murray Holman have also expressed their disagreements with these statistics. Both agree that the programs provided by organizations such as Stop the Violence Coalition and Back to Basics Outreach Ministries, were not factored into the statistics and these programs play a crucial role in violence reduction within the city. -- Chanice Johnson and Jennine Taberski
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