Philly Truce app mediators taking calls to help reduce violence fox29.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from fox29.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Two longtime friends got together to create the Philly Truce app, which allows residents to anonymously provide tips of brewing conflicts in their neighborhood and connects people with trained mediators to help resolve the issue.
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Longtime friends Mazzie Casher (left) and Steven Pickens created the Philly Truce app, aimed at mediating neighborhood disputes before theuy erupt in violence. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Mazzie Casher and Steven Pickens haven’t personally lost anyone to gun violence. But they grew up together in the 1990s, when Philadelphia routinely recorded more than 400 murders a year, and don’t want to see that history repeat itself.
Pickens said they decided to take action in October after learning about another fatal shooting in West Philly that left a young man dead.
He felt overcome with despair.
“It was basically just pouring out at that time like, we have to do something,” said Pickens, 46, an emergency medical technician.
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