Amid a spike in homicides since the Baltimore riots in April, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake earlier this week pointed to a bright spot in efforts to reduce violence in the city: Safe Streets, an effort of the Baltimore City Health Department which hires mostly ex-offenders to stop violence in four Baltimore neighborhoods. It claims in reducing homicides in those areas. The Cherry Hill site where Safe Streets works hasn’t had a fatal shooting in a year.
We wanted to understand what Safe Streets’ interrupters are doing right and whether it could bring peace to gun-ravaged areas of the city. We sit down with Greg Marshburn, an Outreach Supervisor for Safe Streets at its Mondawmin site in West Baltimore, and Dante Barksdale, an Outreach Coordinator for Safe Streets, to talk about stopping violence in Baltimore.
