Norfolk makes strides with New Jersey-based crime intervention group | WTKR-TV
NORFOLK, Va. – The senseless mass shooting in Norfolk’s Young Terrace neighborhood left the community shattered and broken.
Since then, grassroots groups like Guns Down have been working with kids in the community to stem the lingering trauma.
“A lot of the neighbors are still afraid when I talk to them,” said Guns Down President Clay Marquez. “Every time there’s a shooting that’s close that may be across the street or something, it triggers something.”
The ongoing trauma is why the Newark Community Street Team has narrowed its efforts on the neighborhood, labeling it a crime hotspot.
The New Jersey-based organization just finished the first round of training with anti-crime groups like Guns Down to enhance their crime-fighting techniques. Known as intervention work, the Street Team teaches the mentors how to resolve disputes in troubled neighborhoods by working with teens and keeping them from going down the wrong path.
“I think a lot of the skills and gifts the folks hold that do this work is intuitive,” said Newark Community Street Team President Aqeela Sherrills. “One of the things we get to do is overlay some of the more strategic and professional practices to combine with it, so it makes them even more effective.”