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RIT working on ways to prevent retaliatory gun violence in Rochester

RIT

Research on gun violence from the Rochester Institute of Technology is helping to form a new program to cut retaliatory shootings in the area.

RIT’s Center for Public Safety Initiatives (CPSI) is forming a program - Community Engagement to Reduce Victimization - to determine whether a victim of street crime was involved in a dispute, and whether that dispute could escalate with gun violence.

Irshad Altheimer is the Director of that Center and an associate professor of criminal justice. He says many disputes don’t come to the attention of police or people don’t cooperate with them.

"For this new project, we're trying to see if we can find ways to use community partnerships to intervene in violence, or to prevent retaliation in circumstances where it may not be possible to law enforcement to intervene."

The way to program will work is, starting in January, area shooting victims brought to Rochester General Hospital will be connected to a team member from pathways to peace onsite. They will run a risk assessment to determine if the dispute has a high risk for retaliation.

A project manager will determine the best course of action, which could be working with the victim, family and friends, or even moving the victim to an out of town hotel to help de-escalate the dispute

CPSI has been tracking shootings in Rochester for the past five years; they say 60% of shootings that occurred in Rochester between 2010 and 2013 were linked to retaliatory disputes.

The program will start working with area shooting victims taken to Rochester General Hospital in January. 40% of area shooting victims are brought to RGH.