Negus Vu grew up in the 1990s and remembers hearing gunshots every night on Detroit's West Side. “I grew up in a gang neighborhood, gang-related neighborhood,” Vu, 42, recalled. “I definitely was surrounded by violence. I became desensitized to it because it was an everyday thing." As a grassroots leader of The People’s Action — a nonprofit that works to improve the lives of low-income Detroit residents — Vu witnessed the same desensitization he experienced, especially among young people. During the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of homicides increased by nearly 19 percent in 2020. There were 1,994 homicides in the city from 2017 through 2023; about 90 percent of victims were Black, and 90 percent were by gun. Vu and others pushed the city to fund community violence intervention. They were responding to the city’s decision to install gunshot detection technology and wanted to ensure the police weren’t the only resources deployed, The Trace reports.
Violence in those hotspots has since been dramatically reduced, according to city officials, thanks in part to Vu and groups cooperating with the city through a program called ShotStoppers, launched in 2023 by Mayor Mike Duggan. (ShotStoppers is separate from the similarly named ShotSpotter surveillance technology.) It provided six organizations with funding to autonomously implement their own community violence intervention strategies in specific areas. By the end of October 2024, the city recorded a 45 percent year--year drop in homicides in areas where ShotStoppers was implemented, versus 18 percent in places without it. Detroit ended 2024 with 203 homicides, the lowest number since 1965. The city could lose the $10 million initiative, funded with federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act, the Biden-era’s economic stimulus package set to expire this year. It’s unlikely to be renewed as President Trump’s takes steps to cut relief packages. Though some states — such as neighboring Wisconsin — will continue funding similar programs by taking matters into their own hands, Michigan is in limbo. The initiative contradicts Trump’s calls for punitive enforcement and prosecutions.
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