Uptick In Deadly Violence Renews Push For Peace In Newark

NEWARK, NJ — For Sharif Amenhotep, the recent uptick in deadly shootings in Newark is personal.

Last year, Amenhotep – who is well-known for his anti-violence activism in New Jersey’s largest city – experienced the type of sorrow that he’d been fighting against all his life, when his teenage daughter, Sanaa, was abducted and murdered in South Carolina. Now, amid mounting reports of fatal shootings in Newark, Amenhotep and other community leaders are hitting the streets to show that residents are pushing back against the violence … and that there is love in their hearts as they do so.

Over the past few months, Newark has been seeing a grim wave of gun violence across the city, including a drive-by shooting that wounded nine people, a mass shooting that injured four teens, and fatal shootings that have claimed the lives of several Newark residents and others who live outside its borders, including the owner of a corner grocery store.

It’s not a direction that many Newark residents had been expecting the city was headed in.

Newark public safety officials have said that overall violent crime in the city has been waning over the past few years, with the exception of 2021. Last year, former Public Safety Director Brian O'Hara said that during the last three years the city has seen its lowest number of murders in six decades.

"You would have to go back to [John F. Kennedy], when he was president in the early 60's, to get three similar years that compare to what we have seen here in this city over the last three years," O'Hara said.

Newark police have been adding patrols in neighborhoods with a “high concentration of crime” and have boosted the number of Shooting Response Team and Criminal Intel personnel by 30 percent. But a big part of the year-over-year drop in crime has been credited to the city’s renewed approach to public safety.

Once known for corruption and racial profiling that led to an infamous federal consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Newark Police Department has seen a wave of change in recent years.

In 2021, the city reallocated 5 percent of its police budget to create the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery, which provides social services to residents in an effort to break the cycle of violence. Read More: Newark Will Take $12M From Police, Reinvest In Social Services

The city also graduated its first class of 10 social workers along with 67 Newark police recruits that year. "We cannot arrest our way out of violence and trauma," Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery director Lakeesha Eure said, echoing a call that many community activists had been making for decades. Read More: Newark Police Recruits, Social Workers Graduate Side-By-Side

In recent years, police officers in Newark have been undergoing training that aims to remedy past problems and "de-escalate" potentially deadly situations. It's been working, top public safety officials say – no local cop fired a shot in 2020.

• See related article: Newark Cops Rescue Suicidal Teen: 'Hold On, Brother, We Care'
• See related article: Newark SWAT, Police Use Sensitivity To Avert Tragedy, Officials Say

Newark police are also collaborating with the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery, Newark Community Street Team and Newark Street Academy, and other community groups in an attempt to stop the violence before it begins – which has been paying big dividends, some say. Read More: Healing From Violence: Newark Youth Find Refuge At 'The Hubb'

The recent rise in violence has reignited cries for action from many Newark residents, however.

In July, activists held a "Stop the Violence" march and rally that stopped at several shooting and murder sites in an attempt to unite the community. Organizers said the protest was held to express their outrage with an "uptick in senseless violence" across the city. Read More: Newark Residents Decry Recent Shootings, Hit Streets In Protest

The Brick City Peace Collective and the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery planned to continue the campaign to “rally and unite the city” on Thursday with a gathering at on Springfield Avenue and South 20th Street – a protest dedicated to Amenhotep and his late daughter, who would have celebrated her 17th birthday that day.

Organizers will be joined by the Newark Community Street Team and The Newark Street Academy, who will canvass the area with trauma relief and intervention resources.

Other groups have been speaking out against the recent tragedies in Newark, including the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, which many residents still remember for their historic, 155-week protest against violence that launched in 2009.

Even though several criminal justice experts have pointed to the “groundbreaking success” of Newark’s new approach to policing, the violence – when it happens – is still a “collectively felt trauma” for those neighborhoods, organizers with the coalition told Patch.

Here are some of the other ways that city officials, residents and activists are pushing back against the pain.

CITYWIDE ‘PEACE WALK’

Earlier this week, Mayor Ras Baraka announced that he is calling for local business owners to close their doors and join a “Citywide Peace Walk” at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 20.

The walk, themed “Newark Forward Minus Violence Equals Our Future,” will commence at Chancellor Avenue and Aldine Street in the South Ward, and wind its way over a 13-mile course through all five of the city’s wards, finishing up at West Side High School, which is well-known for its lauded “Lights On” program, which has seen praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. Read More: Newark 'Lights On' Program Provides Shelter From Violence For Students (VIDEO)

Participants can walk, run, jog, ride bicycles, roller-skate or use scooters. Residents can join the walk at the following locations:

• South Ward: Chancellor Avenue and Aldine Street
• East Ward: Pennington Court
• Central Ward: New Community (14th Avenue and Bruce Street)
• North Ward: Waterfront Recreation Center on Grafton Avenue
• West Ward: Ivy Hill Park
• Special Event: West Side High School (Ending Location)

“Acts of gun violence are the biggest threats to our collective future and are an unrelenting public health crisis in our country,” Baraka said.

“What we have seen in Newark and cities across the country is tragic, horrifying, and intolerable,” the mayor added. “We need business owners, families, and all of our community organizations to join us on this walk as part of our comprehensive strategy to end violence in our neighborhoods. This is a call to action to bring peace to our city and move Newark forward into our promised future.”

‘24 HOURS OF PEACE’ WITH QUEEN LATIFAH

In September, Essex County native Dana Owens – otherwise known as Queen Latifah – will host the city’s latest “24 Hours of Peace” event.

The event will begin at 6 p.m. on Sept. 2 and continue until 6 p.m. on Sept. 3. It will take place on Springfield Avenue between Bergen and Blum streets.

Latifah isn’t the only celebrity to lend their star power to the effort. Previous "24 Hours of Peace" events have attracted support from the likes of Snoop Dogg, Talib Kweli and Big Daddy Kane. Read More: Snoop Dogg Says Stop The Violence In Newark For '24 Hours Of Peace' (WATCH)

VIOLENCE INTERVENTION PROGRAMS NEED FUNDS: ADVOCATES

Meanwhile, other community members are trying to call attention to a “dire need for funds” after the Attorney General’s Office discontinued funding for hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs (HVIPs).

Speaking during a news conference on Tuesday, members of the New Jersey Violence Intervention and Prevention Coalition requested that the state immediately release $10 million of federal American Rescue Plan funds to pay for HVIPs in the Garden State.

In addition to gap funding for HVIPs, the coalition also called on Gov. Phil Murphy to release an additional $80 million to fully fund Community-Based Violence Intervention programs and HVIP’s through 2025.

• See related article: NJ Invests Record $10M To Help Nonprofits Fight Gun Violence

“With the loss of this funding, intervention programs will have to lay off our teams and stop the life-saving work that prevents repeat and retaliatory violence,” said Daamin X Durden, executive director of the Newark Community Street Team.

“We hope that American Rescue Plan dollars can be used immediately to support community-based intervention work to prevent these shut downs,” Durden said.

• See related article: Dreams Of Peace Endure In Newark Amid Wave Of Gun Violence

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