6/5/2026 -- Some cutback on problematic violence interrupter programs
- The DOJ Funding Squeeze: The Department of Justice systematically canceled or heavily cut over $800 million in public safety and violence-prevention grants to hundreds of organizations nationwide.
- The Policy Pivot: Federal authorities explicitly justified these historic cuts by stating that public safety priorities are pivoting away from unvetted intervention groups and shifting back toward prosecuting criminals and funding traditional law enforcement.
- University Interventions: Cities like Durham are bypassing standard grassroots non-profits to contract directly with specialized academic groups, such as the Violence Reduction Center at the University of Maryland.
- Environmental Policing (DICE): Cities like Dallas, Newark, and St. Louis are pivoting to the Data-Informed Community Engagement (DICE) model. Instead of relying on individual street outreach workers, these programs use advanced quantitative mapping to identify environmental risk factors—like blighted properties and broken lighting—to alter physical areas where crime clusters.
- Minneapolis Overtime Surges: Following scandals like the 21 Days of Peace street shooting shootout, the city pulled its funding contract from the group. Concurrently, the Minneapolis Police Department went significantly over budget by tens of millions of dollars—driven heavily by massive overtime spending to put more physical, traditional officers back onto the streets.
- Chicago's Target Enforcement: While Chicago continues to debate community funding, the city has focused on heavily coordinated, specialized law enforcement responses. For example, the expansion of the Chicago Police Department’s Robbery Task Force led to drops in vehicular hijackings and robberies, signaling a return to traditional, targeted enforcement.
- Strict Administrative Hubs: Cities are forcing non-profits to use integrated digital hubs and data-sharing software to track exactly what outreach workers are doing hour-by-hour.
- Mandatory Government Chains of Command: Rather than allowing non-profits to operate independently, cities are increasingly placing these initiatives directly under the oversight of formal government health departments or local police divisions to enforce background screening and active warrant checks.
2025-03-17
The city of Minneapolis withdrew its request that a controversial pastor’s nonprofit get a nearly $650,000 violence prevention contract on the same day two violence interrupters who have worked for the pastor were charged with multiple felonies in a shootout after a community barbecue last week. The Rev. Jerry McAfee’s nonprofit, Salem Inc., was among six entities chosen by the city’s Neighborhood Safety department to be awarded violence interruption contracts under a program called MinneapolUS.
Salem Inc. was slated to be considered Monday afternoon by a Minneapolis City Council committee for one-year contracts, with a two-year renewal option, when city officials suddenly changed course.
After news came out Friday that Salem Inc. was among the groups selected for the contracts, some council members expressed shock, especially in light of McAfee’s outburst at the council last month, which many viewed as threatening.
Then came more news late Friday that some of McAfee’s employees were involved in the north Minneapolis shootout. Several community groups scheduled a news conference Monday morning to oppose the new contract, and some council members released statements of dismay. Public safety commissioner Todd Barnette defended the decision Friday, saying public comments don’t factor into the selection process. But by Monday morning, Neighborhood Safety department officials were withdrawing the request for action on all of the contracts, saying they’d likely submit a new one on March 25 that will not include Salem Inc.
Jared Jeffries, chief of staff for the Office of Community Safety, told a council committee Monday that the office was “reviewing events that have occurred” since the violence interruption proposals were evaluated, but refused to elaborate, saying “the data is non-public.” 70 shots reported
Monday afternoon, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Kashmir Khaliffa McReynolds and Alvin Anthony Watkins Jr. with multiple felonies after a backyard cookout in north Minneapolis erupted in gunfire. According to court and police records, McReynolds and Watkins allegedly fired dozens of bullets from the sidewalks and alleys on the 3600 block between Queen and Penn Avenues in north Minneapolis last week. ShotSpotter activations recorded 70 rounds fired.
Both men were charged with reckless discharge of a firearm within city limits. Watkins was charged with being a felon in illegal possession of a firearm and McReynolds was charged with illegally giving a firearm to a convicted felon.
McReynolds is a violence prevention worker for one of McAfee’s other nonprofits, 21 Days of Peace, McAfee has said. Watkins was quoted as being a violence interrupter with the same organization by KSTP in January 2023.
On March 10, police were dispatched after the ShotSpotter activation. They used surveillance video and audio to recreate the scene.
A barbecue in the backyard of a home on Penn Avenue had just wrapped up when shots were fired. Within eight seconds of those shots, McReynolds was seen lying on his stomach near a tree stump on Penn Avenue. He was firing his gun, a Ruger-5.7 pistol, video and audio surveillance in the area showed, according to the charging document.
Around 40 seconds later, McReynolds began firing again. He then yelled at Watkins to “grab my chop,” a .22-caliber pistol, from his backseat. McReynolds ran to Queen Avenue and began firing again. Shortly after that, Watkins began firing multiple times from McReynolds' other gun. Both men then left the scene. The shots from McReynolds and Watkins were all fired within about 90 seconds of the initial shots. During the investigation, McReynolds, 35, told police he had been standing near the grill when he saw two people near a garage begin shooting. He initially said he laid on the ground then jumped up and walked between cars and houses to target his shots in the direction of muzzle flashes from the garage.
Video evidence contradicted that statement, and McReynolds later admitted he never saw the shooters and was shooting in the general direction of where he believed the shots were coming from.
McAfee told the Star Tribune on Friday that McReynolds was wearing a bulletproof vest and was struck by bullets after people came out from behind bushes and began shooting at 21 Days of Peace workers. Violence interrupters working for the city aren’t allowed to be armed, McAfee said, but he said they were working on a state contract, they were off the clock for the day and that McReynolds was a “legal gun toter.”
McReynolds told investigators he knew he should have stopped firing his gun once the other shooters stopped but “his adrenaline was going.” He told investigators he planned to shoot anyone who ran from between the houses where the initial shots had been fired. When asked if he knew he had a duty to retreat and not fire, McReynolds said he did not. Watkins was not allowed to possess a firearm because of past convictions, including third-degree drug possession, two convictions for being a felon in possession of a firearm and three convictions for second-degree assault. McReynolds has no felony convictions in Minnesota.
A warrant was issued for Watkins' arrest. McReynolds was being held in Hennepin County jail on $100,000 bail with a first court appearance set for Tuesday.
City Hall consternation
The selection of McAfee’s nonprofit for a violence interrupter contract had already caused consternation at City Hall because McAfee interrupted a February council committee meeting and went on a five-minute rant when the council briefly considered temporarily moving some violence prevention programs to Hennepin County. McAfee is pastor of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and operates nonprofits that have done violence prevention work for years. The church won a nearly $306,000 city contract last year to do a “community trauma and de-escalation initiative,” and 21 Days of Peace received $3 million from the state in 2023 for violence prevention work.
9/24/2025
A “violence interrupter” working with CeaseFire Chicago has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for a string of violent and brazen carjackings that left one victim shot and others threatened at gunpoint.
The first carjacking occurred in the drive-thru lane of a Dunkin’ Donuts. Jamari Edwards got into the passenger seat of a man’s car, pointed a gun, and ordered him out. As the victim walked away, prosecutors said, Edwards asked the victim why he was not scared, then shot him in the leg. Moments later, Edwards circled back, frisked the wounded man at gunpoint, and took his wallet and phone before driving off in the victim’s car.
Two days later, Edwards confronted another driver outside a gas station convenience store. He pressed a gun into the man’s back then frisked him for valuables and the keys to the vehicle.
Later that same week, Edwards and an accomplice targeted a woman sitting in the driver’s seat at the same gas station. Edwards pointed a gun at her head and told her to get out of the car before he would blow her brains out. When she hesitated, he yanked her out by her necklace stealing her purse, wallet, and phone, then fled in her car.
It was also noted during the court proceedings that Edwards worked with the anti-violence group CeaseFire as a “violence interrupter,” which is described as an organization “dedicated to stemming the violence that permeates through certain portions of Chicago.”
Over the past few years, numerous employees of CeaseFire and other similar organizations have been arrested and/or fired after being accused of violent crimes across the city. Just within the past few days, Illinois Governor Pritzker was pictured with a “peacekeeper” who at the time was wanted in four states on active criminal warrants and shortly before the individual allegedly participated in a fatal smash-and-grab burglary. Also, three workers, who supposedly worked to end gun violence in Chicago, were charged with illegally carrying guns while they were already on bond for other felony gun cases. One of the men’s cases included allegations that he shot at two people.
This is not an issue unique to Chicago as similar stories echo among “violence interrupters” in other cities like Minneapolis where two workers with 21 Days of Peace were recently arrested in relation to a shooting that occurred in March, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota. NRA-ILA reported on more of these instances here: Delusional City Leadership – Criminals Are Making Our Cities Safer!
Beyond that, the ongoing political in-fighting over funding and oversight is further unraveling the scheme, including in Minneapolis and the District of Columbia.
https://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/gun-nation/another-chicago-violence-interruptors-violent-career-interrupted-by-a-long-prison-sentence/
1/11/2024
A Bronx anti-gun violence director who was trafficking narcotics on the side was sentenced Thursday in Goshen to 10 years in prison after admitting to a secret double life. Michael Rodriguez, 49, was the head of Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence when he was arrested by law enforcement in Orange County in July – just days after an interview with News 12 The Bronx in which he spoke about “bringing peace to the community” during an event for at-risk youth.
“It’s ironic someone who is an advocate against gun violence ends up getting arrested for having two guns in his house and is part of a major distribution drug ring,” said Judge Craig Brown during the sentencing. Rodriguez was busted under a multiagency sweep dubbed “Operation Hide in Plain Sight,” that rounded up 14 other defendants who Rodriguez is accused of supplying fentanyl-laced drugs. Officials say Rodriguez agreed to forfeit the proceeds of the drug ring – a car and cash - as part of a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and criminal possession of a controlled substance in October and will serve five years' post-release supervision when he’s released from prison.
More Upstanding Members of AntiViolence Group
The ex-con who was busted last month on gun and drug charges in a Big Apple subway station works for a taxpayer-funded anti-violence organization that deals with youngsters in the Bronx, law enforcement sources said.
Jermaine Greene — a member of Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence, which advocates for safer communities — was allegedly carrying a loaded ghost gun and a bunch of drugs when police say he tried to slip through an emergency exit at the Fordham Road station in the Bronx on March 28.
When officers stopped the 42-year-old, they found him with a 9mm Polymer80 gun with a dozen live rounds in his waistband, police alleged at the time.
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