By Chip Brown Lee
In his more than three decades of working to reduce violence in Buffalo, New York, Pastor James Giles has seen it all — the spikes and the reversions to the mean; when it’s “popping off” and when it’s quieter than usual.
Giles is a self-described credible messenger — someone who was part of the problem before turning his story around years ago. He now leads a team of violence interrupters known as the Peacemakers, with stories similar to his own. And, as for many of America’s prevention and intervention workers, his job got a lot more complicated in 2020. Like nearly every city across the country, Buffalo saw a spike in gun violence that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2021, homicides in the city — most of which were committed with firearms — jumped some 43 percent.
In the last year, many cities have seen the spike subside. But the drop in Buffalo, Giles said, is “unheard of.”
The Trace