'Violence interrupters' at 3 Minneapolis high schools work to provide safety, build relationships

Eight men in matching blue T-shirts circled the streets surrounding Minneapolis North Community High School just before the final school bell rang on a recent afternoon. They took note of idling cars and loitering teenagers — anything they could find that might signal trouble.

The men, many of them North alumni, were working as "violence interrupters" hired to help keep the peace in the blocks around the school in the hours after dismissal. Their work is a part of a new program to ensure students at three city high schools are safe as students leave school grounds. It is born out of partnerships with Minneapolis Public Schools and the city's Office of Violence Prevention.

As students filed out of the school, the men fanned out to greet them, often with a smile and fist bump.

"It's one thing to be standing on a street corner to be that visual deterrent," said Jamil Jackson, the leader for the interrupters at North. "It's a totally other thing to have a relationship with the kids and be able to have conversations with them."

That trust, Jackson said, has proved especially important in the wake of the recent killings of two 15-year-old metro-area students: Jahmari Rice was shot and killed outside his Richfield high school Feb. 1. Deshaun Hill, a sophomore at North High, was found with a gunshot wound Feb. 9 near the intersection of Golden Valley Road and Penn Avenue N., just blocks from the school. He died the next day.

"It's hard to watch our kids deal with this trauma and become numb to it because it's so consistent," Jackson said. "It's hard to watch them lose their innocence."

The Office of Violence Prevention expanded the interrupter model last year after debuting in late 2020. In December, the school district partnered with the city to hire teams of eight interrupters and station them each afternoon at North, Patrick Henry and South high schools. The district this month decided to extend the program through the end of the school year at a cost of $150,000.

The program doesn't bring the interrupters into the school buildings They patrol the surrounding neighborhoods from about 3 to 5 p.m. But that could change as the program grows, leaders said. Many of those on Jackson's team were already involved inside the schools through his organization, C.E.O (Change Equals Opportunity), though. Jackson is also the basketball coach at Patrick Henry High School.

"Violence interrupters are really designed to be trusted individuals from the community who have those relationships and that credibility," said Sasha Cotton, director of the Office of Violence Prevention, which oversees the teams.

Their mission is to be on the lookout for brewing conflicts and then find ways to intervene before any violence erupts.

The success of such programs can be hard to quantify, said Jason Matlock, the school district's director of emergency management, safety and security.

"Measuring prevention is a difficult thing," he said. "But the staff at the sites feel good about having that extra support, and we know that kids feel better when they have trusted adults there for them and able to intervene."

Khadija Ba, a senior at North, lives just a block from school but often drives to class avoid any potential violence. Having a team of interrupters made up of recognizable faces and leaders of color have made her feel safer, she said.

"We have to lean on our community more than we lean on police," Ba said. "And these guys treat us like family, so it's easier for us to lean on them."

Matlock and Jackson know that to some, the crew in the matching blue shirts may be perceived as security guards brought in after the district did away with its school resource officers.

"That's not our role," Jackson said. "We're here not from a punitive standpoint but from a relationship-building standpoint."

Matlock agreed. He said the interrupter model aims to protect students in a preventative way, rather than just a reactionary one.

"The schools can't be everywhere," he said. "Folks like [Jackson] have their finger on the pulse and know what's going on."

Jackson and the leaders of other teams meet weekly to discuss various situations. The interrupters, who are paid about $30 an hour, sometimes talk about an ongoing dispute between students. Sometimes, they share tips about which teens are looking for jobs and how they might be able to help them.

"This could be a model to help bring community back," Jackson said. Still, he said the program is just a start.

"Our violence is what is highlighted in [north Minneapolis], but there's a lot of beautiful things and people here, too," he said. "Every day, I wake up hopeful that our youth will see that narrative win."