City and law enforcement officials are clamping down on gun violence in Boston, where homicides are occurring at twice the rate they did last year.
Mayor Michelle Wu and Police Commissioner Michael Cox announced Tuesday that Boston was selected for a new “Violence Reduction Center Cohort,” a weeklong training program for law enforcement, community leaders and service providers that aims to reduce gun-driven homicides in cities.
Despite the need for such a program, buoyed by statistics from the Boston Police Department that show 11 homicides have been committed this year, far outpacing the five that occurred by this time last year, Wu insisted that the Hub is still “one of the safest large cities in the country.”
“But I am here to emphasize that historic lows are not good enough when it comes to public safety incidents,” Wu said at a press conference in the Tobin Community Center in Roxbury, which followed the first sessions of a multi-day workshop that concludes on Friday.
“We are committed to eradicating violence in our communities, in every neighborhood, in every part of our city,” the mayor added. “And we know that we can only do that if we are following and working alongside and (are) really targeted in our approaches.”
The new program, hosted by the University of Maryland VRC, will allow Boston to draw upon expertise from across the country, while laying the groundwork for pursuing and implementing “proven strategies that our community and city have identified will stop violence,” a press statement from the mayor’s office said.
Cox spoke about the need to evolve as a police department, which he said involves partnering with different city stakeholders to “do all we can to reduce gun violence,” while responding “appropriately to today’s issues and problems.”
In addition to more than doubling figures from 2022, homicides outpace the five-year average, of 9.5, by this point in the year. Cox said there has also been a spike in robberies, 177 compared to 146.
“From a law enforcement perspective, we are always here to support, with the traditional tools that we have, but those tools have never proven to totally win out and solve problems and issues,” Cox said.
Similarly, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden spoke of the need for community involvement in intervention strategies for violence reduction, an area where he asserted Boston has historically been a national leader.
“Criminal legal reform and advancing public safety has to happen together at the same time,” Hayden said, pointing to trauma’s role in crime. “If we don’t do both at the same time, we will never achieve the goals that we strive for.”
Clementina Chéry, who founded Louis D. Brown Peace Institute after her 15-year-old son was killed in the crossfire of a gang-related shooting 30 years ago, said there can’t be a discussion about peace within the city without responding to residents directly impacted by gun violence.
To that end, the city also announced a community-led “Healing Tour,” which will launch in the coming weeks and stop in neighborhoods most impacted by violence, convening “residents and municipal leaders who need the most intervention to address long-standing issues centered on the root causes of violence,” Wu’s office said in a statement.
James Hills, who hosts a local radio show, said community members, police officers and service providers will visit four neighborhoods on three separate occasions, with a focus on improving each area’s quality of life.
“The purpose of the healing tour — yes, we’ll name the issues and we’ll name our trauma and what we’re dealing with,” Hills said. “But we want to get back to the village, and the city has demonstrated with, where they can, the systems and structures that need to be dismantled there, their commitment to supporting that.”