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US police keep using ‘violence interrupters’ amid rise in violent crime

Thursday, 12 August 2021 10:10 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 12 August 2021 10:10 AM ]

Baltimore Police investigators stand outside a home where officers shot and killed a man. (File photo)

US authorities will continue to scale up the use of high-risk individuals, known as violence interrupters, to address the rise in violence in the city of Baltimore.

Police Commissioner Michael Harrison told Washington Post on Wednesday that police will use violence interrupters “to protect other people who are at high risk of either being a victim of a shooting or murder or the perpetrator of a shooting or murder.”

“It has worked in many places,” he said, adding that “we will continue to use even in this new violence prevention plan.”

Violence interrupters are individuals, who work alongside law enforcement to help defuse gang violence such as retaliatory killings by acting as negotiators.

A sharp increase in violent crimes in Baltimore, has prompted authorities to announce an expansive five-year violence reduction plan for the city.

“The majority of what we're seeing are people who are settling their conflicts with violence, with gun violence, and are enacting their violence against other people,” Harrison said.

Harrison also admitted “Baltimore's any different from the rest of the country.”

Chicago police officer fatally shot, another injured

A shooting incident has left an officer killed and another critically injured in Chicago, Illinois, amid a spike in gun violence across the US.

The rise in violent crimes, including gun violence, have seen an alarming surge in the US in recent years.

At least 233 people were killed and 618 were injured by gun violence in more than 500 shootings across the US during the July 4 weekend.

In the first five months of 2021, gunfire killed more than 8,100 people in the US, accounting for about 54 lives lost per day, according to the Washington Post.

This year, the number of casualties, along with the overall number of shootings that have killed or injured at least one person, exceeds those of the first five months of 2020, which finished as the deadliest year of gun violence in at least two decades, according to the US media.

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