Berrien County commissioner Chokwe Pitchford has earned the backing of Benton Township in his effort to curb gun violence in the community.
On Tuesday, Township trustees voted to support Pitchford in his application for funding from the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative. If successful, the grant would secure $2 million from the U.S Department of Justice.
In April, the Berrien County Board of Commissioners voted against applying for the grant after a heated discussion from both board members and members of the public, so Pitchford decided to the lead the charge and apply for the grant with help from an unnamed community organization.
Pitchford said in May that the program creates an executive committee that inherently tracks community violence and addresses specific ways to prevent it, as well as builds a mentorship program that rebuilds the idea of “it takes a village to raise a child.”
“One of the things I campaigned on pretty heavily was addressing violent crime,” Pitchford said, during a March Benton Township meeting. “I don’t believe our police forces can be tasked with attempting to arrest our way out the problem. It will come from the community banding together with resources to address an age old problem. I plan to coordinate state, federal, local resources to address this issue, but I’ll need wisdom, experience, and this community to get it.
The initiative aims to curb violence in communities by focusing on high-risk individuals, gun violence, specific violent crime problems, as well as the historical and structural challenges that often result in community violence.
Read the letter of support from Benton Township supervisor Cathy Yates below:
Reducing the level of violence in Berrien County is an urgent priority. This need is especially urgent in Benton Harbor, Benton Charter Township, and Niles. These areas are experiencing some of the highest violence rates in the state of Michigan.
In order to lower the rate of violence in our communities, we need evidence-based interventions. This grant will go a long way toward helping us to identify such interventions and tailor applications to the needs of our most at-risk communities.
Benton Charter Township strongly support this application to the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative. The need is great and the time is now to devise and implement evidence-based measures to lower the amount of violence in our communities.
Yates added the support for the grant application does not include any financial commitment.
