One of the most visible supporters of violence prevention work in Washington D.C., Council member Trayon White, Sr. was arrested and charged with bribery. The FBI has accused White of accepting cash payments in exchange for agreeing to pressure D.C. government employees to award certain contracts centered largely on violence interruption work and work with the city’s most at-risk young people. “I can’t really describe how devastating this is,” said Terrance Staley, the executive director of the violence interruption group Alliance of Concerned Men. The relatively small community of people who work on what’s often called “community violence intervention” — non-law enforcement efforts to respond to violence and prevent it from happening in the first place — has been hit hard by the news. They fear the allegations of corruption in the violence interruption field could cast a shadow over their work and end up punishing many for the mistakes of a few.
The Democrat who was first elected in 2017 was the council member they most frequently saw at vigils, at funerals, at the D.C. jail and at community events in the Ward 8 neighborhoods where gun violence is a persistent problem. For decades, D.C. has given government funding to nonprofits working with people at risk of committing gun violence. That work started expanding and becoming more formalized in 2017 and 2018, when two D.C. offices launched violence interruption programs. The indictment against White focuses on his relationship with one organization, which had contracts through the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, among others. While the indictment does not name the companies, several details in the affidavit match public records associated with the local nonprofit Life Deeds Inc., whose president and CEO has not returned phone calls requesting comment. It remains unclear whether White was actually effective in persuading D.C. officials about contracts.
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