The city of Buffalo has grappled with a string of violence over just the last week, causing concern for residents and community leaders alike.
A domestic violence incident on Tuesday left a Buffalo police officer and a suspect with serious gunshot wounds, two people across Monday and Saturday were shot on or near Walden Avenue, and police say on Saturday a man on Broadway stabbed an officer with scissors and a box cutter before being shot by police himself.
Pastor James Giles has served Buffalo's East Side community for more than 25 years with his Back to Basics Ministries. At their core, Back to Basics seeks to curb violence through grassroots initiatives.
The group mentors at-risk youth, provides crisis outreach through the Buffalo Peacemakers, and works with people being released from prison with reentry support services.
Giles spoke with BTPM NPR's All Things Considered host Steve Cichon about what's behind the string of violence on Buffalo's streets, who says rather than the usual "warmer weather brings violence" trope, this is reflective of something larger.
Below is a transcribed excerpt of their conversation.
PASTOR JAMES GILES, GUEST: The only difference between this year that I see, because warm weather does [effect violence], but if you notice, we didn't have that problem two years ago. We didn't have that problem last year and we had record low numbers in terms of violent acts, violent shootings, homicides, as well as people getting hurt by gunshots.
This year what's different is the state of affairs, the way the society is operating now. You know, there's a lot of tension. I'm talking a lot across the nation, it's not just city of Buffalo. Across the nation there's a lot of uneasiness. There's a lot of tension that exists within amongst the people, amongst the residents, amongst the communities around this because of the struggle that they're put in, because of the uncertainty of what's going on.
A lot of people are angry, more frustrated, more agitated, and more easily agitated. So when you mix that with another culture that handles their business with gun play, then this is what you're going to have, right?
You're going to have a more likely chance of conflict happening, and unfortunately, sometimes in these communities people handle their business with gun play. 'I get mad' or individual says something that I don't like, and then they come back and shoot them, or they come back and hurt them, or they want to stab them. So you got that going on.
In addition, you got an elevation in mental health that's also going on simultaneously now, because there are cutbacks in mental health programs, cut backs in mental health services. As a consequence, you got more people that are not operating with a good mindset, and which are subject to do anything, and sometimes prone to violence.
So all these elements together is creating a dynamic where it looks like violence is on the rise. Yes, that's true.
The thing that I observe, but I'm observing it only because I believe it's got a lot to do with the state that the nation is in right now — it's just so much uncertainty, so much tension, so much anxiety. And people are angry, they're frustrated. Before they may have taken it a little bit, but they're not taking anything now.
STEVE CICHON, HOST: Someone who who can't talk to the people directly involved, someone who doesn't have access to people in that community. Somebody just wants to help. What's one big thing that they should think about doing, and one maybe smaller thing that they should think about doing?
GILES: The big thing that we encourage people to do: support what it is that we do, support the MAD DADS, support Stop the Violence Coalition, support Most Valuable Parents, support the Peacemakers.
Most donations, they could never pay us to do what it is that we do, but support those who support those organizations that are struggling to provide programs. Because the more that we can do in this area, the less chance and less likelihood you're going to have eruption into at least youth violence, right.
So, through the support, some of the smaller things that can be done is in like when we have special programming, special projects — come and join us, come and volunteer your time. There's a mentoring component to what it is we do, and there's individuals that are struggling in school that we would like to help and don't have enough tutorial base to be able to do that, and some individuals are angry and frustrated because they're dropping out of school, those kind of things.
There's always something to do, but as I said, just the support of organizations that are doing this. Because trust me, if we were not doing this to the level that we are, our city will be a mess, and it's not a mess.
We're going through a little trend right now. I think this trend that we're going through right now, it's a conditional one, and not necessarily the way things are. I think this will change.
Now it is getting hot, we are going to have some violence, violent trends coming in, and that's what's going to happen this summer. They're going to be trying to get these pop-up projects, because they're longing for something to do, something to do recreationally, something to do entertainment-wise. They're longing for that kind of stuff. And if we can make that a constructive experience for them, it's going to be less likelihood that we're going to have to be attending funerals, or somebody going to be hospitalized, or somebody just going to be hurt.
