LANSING — A diverse group of politicians, police, activists and other community members held its first publicized meeting Wednesday in a sweeping gun-violence prevention initiative modeled after a nationally recognized strategy founded in Omaha, Nebraska nearly two decades ago.
Lansing Mayor Andy Schor and activist Michael Lynn, who have often been at odds with each other, sat side-by-side in a conference room after the Lansing Empowerment Network held its first in-person meeting for the Lansing 360 Gun Violence Prevention Collaborative.
Lynn, Schor and other participants said the initiative has the potential to drastically reduce violence over time.
“The city is fully on board,” Schor said. “This partnership is incredible. This takes a little bit of time. We’re all here to make sure it works.”
“It won’t be a straight line,” said Willie Barney, who founded the Omaha Empowerment Network and created the Omaha 360 model. “It’s not easy. There are going to be some difficult days. We’re 18 years into it and we have difficult days still.”
Barney said he was “incredibly impressed” by the Lansing 360 team, which he said is working in “a collaborative and aligned way.”
The Lansing Empowerment Network and the Lansing 360 Gun Violence Prevention Collaborative have been in the works for more than a year. Participants had been meeting in smaller groups over video before Wednesday, when the entire group met for the first time at the Foster Community Center. The group plans to meet every Wednesday.
The effort is modeled after the Omaha Empowerment Network and Omaha 360 Violence Prevention Collaborative, which has been credited with a 73% reduction in gun crime in northeast Omaha during the summer months between 2007 and 2019. The percentage of African-Americans with a bachelor’s degree rose from 16% to 22.2%, and African-American poverty rates fell from 31.5% to 22.8%, Lansing officials said.
The U.S. Department of Justice has recognized the framework for community-based violence intervention, they said.
Lansing is among several U.S. cities to try the Omaha approach.
“(The Lansing Empowerment Network) has adopted this proven model to strengthen local Community Violence Intervention (CVI) efforts, focusing on creating safer neighborhoods, through collective action and cross-sector collaboration,” the group said in a news release.
The initiative aims to build “a safer, more connected Lansing by facilitating collaboration across various sectors of the community, from law enforcement to local organizations,” it said. That means attacking the cycle of poverty that greatly contributes to the cycle of violent crime, officials said.
Backus said violent crime this year is down slightly from last year, but long-term changes in violent crime trends are ultimately the goal of the effort.
Lynn, Schor, Barney and Lansing Police Chief Rob Backus were among a smaller group that met with reporters after Wednesday’s meeting.
Schor said the city sent a delegation to Nebraska to get a closer look at the Omaha initiative. Lynn was there, as well.
The city has kicked in $125,000 to get things going.
Lynn is a former Lansing firefighter who has sued the city and frequently been at odds with Schor and other city officials in recent years. Schor said Lynn “put out the olive branch” and “I said, ‘Let’s do it.'”
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj.
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weve ha d good stategy, now working grass roots up and top down.
The Lansing 360 Collaborative weekly meetings have already served as a critical platform for exchanging real-time, actionable information between community leaders, law enforcement, and local organizations.For more information about the Lansing Empowerment Network and its violence prevention efforts, please visit www.lansingempowermentnetwork.or
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Sweeping initiative to reduce gun violence picking up steam in Lansing
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