LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Office for Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods (OSHN) requested more money from Louisville's Metro Council to create a new data analyst position.
At Monday's Metro Council Budget meeting, OHSN Director Paul Callanan explained the position would be used to track all of their programs including their interruption sites created through “Pivot to Peace."
“We know why they're angry, we know why they are upset, we know why they are in pain, and we are able to address the trauma they are going through,” Pivot to Peace’s Tonika Bacon said.
According to a press release, interruption sites were designed to stop “planned violence and to mitigate against retaliatory shootings.” There are five total now in Louisville:
- Portland neighborhood – No More Red Dots
- Shawnee neighborhood – Interfaith Path to Peace
- California neighborhood – The Louisville Central Community Center
- Smoketown neighborhood – YouthBuild Louisville
- Russell neighborhood – West Chestnut Street Baptist Church
Quinones Corniel, the gun violence program manager at Pivot to Peace, said the ones in the Shawnee, Russell and California neighborhoods are new.
The release explained the “violence interrupters” at the sites are “credible individuals with deep neighborhood connections.” They’re tasked with traveling their neighborhoods and “disrupt when possible and engage prevention and intervention.”
One of the interrupters at the Louisville Central Community Center, Kevin Fields, said they “are prepared to respond to incidents of violence in as they occur within the combines of the California neighborhood."
"We have a period of time right now where our city unfortunately in the last couple of weeks had, what will be defined as, mass shootings where we had an incident where four or more people were shot," Callanan said.
He said the data analyst would not only keep track of general statistics from each program but would also “determine whether those projects are successful or are they achieving their desired outcomes.”
Metro Councilmember Anthony Piagentini encouraged them to create the position too.
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