Local Groups Unite to Offer Violence Prevention Strategies
Kellie Dillon expresses support for the violence prevention collective. (Karim Saafir photo)
A consortium of local and regional violence prevention leaders recently united to offer proven violence prevention strategies to residents of impacted neighborhoods throughout greater Los Angeles.
The organizations, connected by their advocacy for criminal justice reform, held a press conference on April 21, to announce their intention to form the Southern California/L.A. Peacekeepers Collaborative (SCLAPC).
ADVERTISEMENT
Dr. Aquil Basheer, executive director of the Brotherhood Unified for Independent Leadership Through Discipline program (BUILD), founded SCLAPC to share knowledge and lessons learned from decades of working on inner-city streets to mitigate disagreements among individuals and groups.
called homies unidos. it recruits reformed gang members to become mentors all in an attempt to stop at-risk teens and young adults from joining gangs. programs like this one have been amazingly effective in cities across the country in reducing violence. in october of 2008, the federal government indicted 24 men in l.a. on racketeering charges. one of them was alex sanchez, the head of homies unidos. sanchez was the only person tied to homies unidos in the case. after a lengthy political battle he was released on bail early last year, still never convicted of any crime. there s the fact that mr. sanchez and homies unidos, as the name might suggest, work with predominantly latino gangs, and the gangsters portrayed in the ad are black. and alex sanchez, to top it off, said that janice hahn never gave homies unidos a dime.