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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., opened up his press conference in front of the Southwest Community Center in Syracuse on Monday morning with a rhetorical question: “Why are we here?”

“We’re here for a very simple reason,” Schumer said. “Like so many communities across our state and the country, we are facing a wave of gun violence.”

Schumer voiced his support for the Community Violence Intervention Initiative from the U.S. Department of Justice, which was announced on April 19. The approach emphasizes community-centered initiatives to reduce violence, according to the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Assistance. Schumer wrote in a press release that the initiative aims to combat gun violence “at its root” by increasing community trust, identifying high-risk people and utilizing evidence-based intervention.

For Schumer, the idea is simple.

“Before a gang forms and they start shooting each other, we go to the kids and say there’s a better way,” he said.

Schumer was accompanied by Syracuse religious and community leaders at the press conference including Larry Williams, the CEO of Syracuse Community Connections. The organization provides resources including family planning to drug education, according to its website. SCC provides services to predominantly Black low-income residents and communities in Syracuse.

Williams said that since 2020, guns have surpassed car crashes as the most common way that young people in the U.S. die.

“It’s an issue,” he said, “but it’s a preventable issue.”

During the press conference, Schumer highlighted Syracuse’s rate of gun violence. While from 2012 to 2019 the city had an average 15 people killed by gun violence per year, 25 were killed in both 2020 and 2021.

“Syracuse is experiencing its back to back worst years of gun violence in the last decade,” Schumer said.

Schumer also said federal funding for community-based initiatives to combat gun violence in the past has been either nonexistent or inconsistent.

“But today I’m announcing that that is changing,” he said.

The Crime and Violence Initiative received its first $50 million in federal funding this year. Schumer said this is not enough. Going forward, he said he’ll be demanding that the CVI program receive at least $250 million annually.

“It’s not a ceiling,” he said. “I want ($)250 million to be the floor.”

Schumer said that he’s working with Syracuse’s mayor’s office to make sure part of the money goes to programs in Syracuse.

Syracuse Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens also voiced her support for CVI during the press conference. She said CVI provides an alternative for young people involved in gun violence.

“You can’t ask a young person to put the gun down if you’re not offering them something else,” Owens said.

Gun violence, Owens said, doesn’t have a universal solution or one group that can solve everything. The police have the ability to identify guns and those who are perpetuating violence, but that is not the whole issue, she said. Community members, she said, have the ability to engage in prevention and intervention.

Schumer said that the Syracuse Community Connections “Should Never Use Guns” program shows what CVI work can look like. The SNUG program utilizes outreach workers and “violence interrupters” who themselves have experienced violence to stop conflicts in the south and southwest neighborhoods of the city. The SNUG program specifically targets people in Syracuse ages 13-22.

The senator said during the press conference that organizations in Syracuse will have the ability to apply for funding to implement CVI programs. Organizations that have a track record of success, such as Syracuse Community Connections, will have preference in the selection process, he said.

Schumer said that programs similar to CVI helped him when he was growing up in New York City.

“I hung out on the streets, but my high school was open,” he said. “And I was there every night playing basketball and making friends, and there were a couple of teachers there … and they guided me. It was very, very important in my life.”

Published on April 26, 2022 at 1:19 am

Contact Kyle: kschouin@syr.edu | @Kyle_Chouinard