Skyline High School Shooting: Youth ALIVE! violence interrupters may face budget cuts amid Oakland shooting incident
Violence interrupters are often among the first to arrive at shooting scenes to help de-escalate the situation and prevent any retaliation.
That's what they did last week at Skyline High School after a student was shot.
Now, the program is under threat due to budget cuts.
Last Wednesday, one student was shot and two were arrested at Skyline High School in Oakland.
One of the first responders on scene was a violence interrupter.
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"Talking to our community-based violence interrupters to see, do we understand if there any sort of retaliation that might happen that we can get in front of? So, we can stop the violence in the moment? But a lot of the work happens in the days after that, and into this week," said Dr. Joe Griffin, the executive director of Youth ALIVE!, which works on violence prevention and intervention at Oakland schools.
Because this is an active investigation, Griffin is limited in what he can share about their investigation into Wednesday's shooting. But often, their work includes reaching out to victims, suspects, and their families and peers.
"Some of the things that we try to do is to make sure that this don't know go farther, like land on the streets. We try to find who the shooter or the victim knows. Maybe somebody older that they listen to that we can go and talk to," said Doral Miles, who has worked as a violence interrupter for the past nine years.
And those are not easy conversations, said Miles, especially with the family of a gunshot victim, who may want revenge. Part of his work is to reach out to the greater community for leads and sources. Without getting into details, Miles says their teams are having success following last Wednesday's shooting.
"I can share a little bit. it is working. We are still working on the whole situation. These types of situations take time. It is just not an overnight fix," Miles said.
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Griffin says violence prevention is the behind-the-scenes program that keeps schools and the streets safe. But city and school district budget cuts are a big threat for next year.
"When violence prevention programs are successful, violence doesn't happen. So, that doesn't make the news. But this year alone, we have had over 60 successful conflict mediations that didn't lead to future violence in our school settings alone," Griffin said.
But OUSD is facing a $100 million structural deficit. Youth ALIVE! faces cuts that could end years of progress in building up the program. Griffin said he's looking for ways to keep the program afloat.
"We are dedicated to finding our way on campus and to being there for our young people, when we are there. If that is not OUSD who can fund it, we just got to find the right partners to keep us there," Griffin said.
OUSD budget discussions are going on over the next few months.
