‘Change the narrative’: A new crew of ‘interrupters’ aims to curb the violence in McKeesport
The McKeesport Violence Prevention team meets in the basement of the Healthy Village Learning Institute on July 12. From left: Richard Garland, Keith Murphy, Angelique Menifee, Khalil Perdue and Shyvaz Huggins. (Photo by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource) Armed only with “the juice,” a new team takes the public health approach to violence prevention to a small city … Continued The post ‘Change the narrative’: A new crew of ‘interrupters’ aims to curb the violence in McKeesport appeared first on New Pittsburgh Courier.
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The McKeesport Violence Prevention team meets in the basement of the Healthy Village Learning Institute on July 12. From left: Richard Garland, Keith Murphy, Angelique Menifee, Khalil Perdue and Shyvaz Huggins. (Photo by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource)
Armed only with “the juice,” a new team takes the public health approach to violence prevention to a small city that saw five homicides last year.
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A driver of a white hatchback rolled down the window and stuck his head out into the hot August air.
“Another shooting?” he asked, nonchalant, as if he had just requested the score of a youth baseball game or inquired about the likelihood of rain.
Yellow tape was strung between a stop sign and a fence, and stretched across the street blocking traffic to the remainder of Versailles Avenue in McKeesport. Behind the tape, a detective peered through the window of a silver slightly-rusted SUV. The upholstery of the front passenger’s seat was stained a deep red.
When the driver pulled away, Keith Murphy turned around. His hat was pulled low over graying dreadlocks, and his eyeglasses tinted to adjust to the bright sun. “That’s perception right there,” he said with a soft, exasperated chuckle. “He said it so casually. And that’s what we’re faced against.
“How do we change the narrative and perception in McKeesport?” Murphy continued. “It can’t be ‘another shooting.’”
The scene was less than half a block away from the Healthy Village Learning Institute. In its basement, among a vast collection of African artwork and cultural artifacts, a fledgling program to prevent violence in the Mon Valley city of 19,000 had recently taken form.
Helmed by Richard Garland, director of the Violence Prevention Initiative at Pitt’s Center for Health Equity, the new initiative seeks to address the violence in McKeesport by treating it as a disease – one that can be transmitted among a community and, with tireless effort and the right individuals involved, perhaps interrupted. Among the freshly minted crew of “interrupters” is Murphy, who operates the Healthy Village as a “place of hope, health and healing,” and supervises the team’s day-to-day operations.
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