After a violent Monday in Greensboro that saw three homicides, residents are coming together to speak out against gun violence. Their hope is that the city will take a new approach to reducing the number of shootings.
Members of the East Greensboro community have been working on finding solutions since last year when 42 homicides were reported in the city. They want Greensboro to adopt a program called Cure Violence, which addresses violent crime through a disease prevention model. Guilford County is currently undergoing an assessment to determine if it meets the program's criteria.
CJ Brinson is an organizer in East Greensboro. He says he wants to hear new conversations about black violence in the community.
“My hope is that we change that narrative, that we move away from this political jargon that paints black people out to be more violent than other communities," says Brinson. “And really start using this approach as identifying violence as a health issue, a public health crisis.”
According to Cure Violence, the program identifies and trains neighborhood leaders to promote peace, which they say can result in significant drops in violent crime.