“Hostility” at Gun Violence Prevention Alliance meeting could lead to loss of DOJ grant

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A presentation from Cure Violence Global to the Alachua County Gun Violence Prevention Alliance on December 11 led to a heated discussion about whether the organization reached out to the City of Gainesville before obtaining a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for violence prevention efforts in Gainesville; after the meeting, Cure Violence Global said they intend to “graciously bow out of this partnership.”

Cure Violence Global treats gun violence as a contagious disease

At the meeting, Alachua County Executive Liaison for Public Safety and Community Relations Carl Smart introduced representatives of Cure Violence Global (CVG), which he said is internationally recognized for their approach to dealing with prevention and intervention with gun violence issues. He said, “They treat it as a contagious disease,… as a health crisis, and both our City Commission, as well as our County Commission, has declared gun violence as a health crisis, and so we’re treating it that way.” He said he was excited about news of an award that CVG has received from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Dr. Monique Williams, CEO of CVG, said her organization had applied for a DOJ grant for capacity-building for community-based organizations via an intermediary organization (CVG). Williams said her organization would provide grants of up to $250,000 to community-based organizations to facilitate violence prevention work within specific jurisdictions.

History of CVG’s engagement with Alachua County

Williams said Pastor Gerard Duncan asked CVG to come down to Gainesville and make a presentation on their model, so they attended a joint meeting of the Alachua County Commission and Children’s Trust of Alachua County (CTAC) in May. At that meeting, County Commissioner and CTAC Member Ken Cornell made a motion for CTAC to provide up to $250,000 in one-time funding, specifically to Cure Violence Global, and the County Commission asked their staff to “explore and put together the budget needs for implementing the Cure Violence model in Alachua County.” Both motions passed unanimously.

According to Williams, CVG started working on a draft contract with Alachua County (our public records request for that draft contract has not yet been fulfilled), and one of the County’s requests was for CVG to help identify funding opportunities for the City relating to violence reduction. Williams said, “And so, you know, I just reached out to the Commission to see if they would be interested in being a partner so that we could help bring resources to the City, because that was one of the number one requests. And so that’s how Gainesville ended up being one of the organizations that we included in the grant for support.”

Williams said CVG is “funded to support up to five community-based organizations, with actual funding, between two cities.”

Cure Violence Global’s model

Williams said the “theory of practice that we’re using here is community health development,… essentially a community-driven process that focuses on improving population health and strengthening nine separate but interrelated dimensions of capacity through three phases – assessment, planning, and implementation – and with community health development, the approach seeks to improve the health and well-being outcomes of a community… as it relates to violence by building the capacity to identify and address the issue in ways that have evidence associated with them.”

Williams said CVG will assess local community-based organizations, help build a plan of improvement for them, and create an implementation plan. She continued, “Ultimately, we’re looking to strengthen the community’s capacity for community violence intervention and… decreased rates of violence.”

CVG Chief Program Officer Brent Decker explained more about CVG’s model: “We’re really trying to move away from some of the ideas like ‘bad people that need to be punished’ and really think about this in terms of science and understanding it as a health problem with a health solution… When we talk about ‘violence behaves like a contagious disease,’ like an epidemic, we really mean it and understand it this way.” He said stopping epidemics requires interrupting the transmission, preventing future spread, and changing group norms. 

Decker said Interrupters are “folks that have come from the community, have deep ties with the community, and have a level of credibility; they’re able to engage the community to find out about conflicts as they’re brewing and step in to prevent it before it happens or… prevent retaliation.”

Outreach Workers do the long-term work of preventing future spread, and the third component is changing group and community norms around the acceptability of using violence. 

CVG’s presentation was followed by presentations from other national organizations that partner with CVG. The full video of the meeting can be seen here.

Smart: Nobody knew about the grant award before the meeting

After the presentations, Carl Smart clarified that the County does not have a contract with CVG: “We’ve talked about bringing you in for doing an assessment and some training for organizations, but we never did get into a contractual situation. But we’re looking forward to learning more about the grant award and how we go forward from here.” He said everyone at the meeting was hearing about the grant award for the first time, and the City and County Commissions “actually would make the final decision on how we move forward.”

Curry: “I have yet to have a conversation with anybody from Cure Violence Global”

Gainesville City Manager Cynthia Curry congratulated CVG and the other organizations on the grant award and also congratulated “the Gainesville community,” as well as Charlottesville, VA, the second city that CVG listed in the grant application. 

Curry continued, “The City of Gainesville was not knowledgeable of the fact that Cure Violence Global had included it in the grant proposal… We weren’t asked for a letter of support. We weren’t asked any questions around being included in the proposal… I just think that this process worked a little bit backwards… I will just reiterate that we’re happy to be a part of this because resources are resources… but it’s just important that… I have yet to have a conversation with anybody from Cure Violence Global… The way this came about was interesting.”

Williams: “When there was a conversation around the City, we were told that the City was doing its own thing.”

Williams said Pastor Duncan had reached out to CVG and then CVG made a presentation to the County Commission and Children’s Trust. She continued, “Carl, to your point, there was not a completed contract, but I was speaking to the back-and-forth that we were doing on the contract for the assessment that never got completed because we came to the point of talking about including the County in this proposal opportunity.” She said the Scope of Work in the draft contract requested that CVG help the County look for resources for gun violence prevention work, “and so this was me finding an opportunity… to bring resources… When there was a conversation around the City, we were told that the City was doing its own thing.” She said CVG’s work is “mostly focused on community-based organizations” instead of governmental organizations.

Curry responded, “You were told something very incorrectly. The City has engaged in this space 150% from the beginning, and I’m not quite sure where that narrative started, Pastor Duncan, about the City not being interested, and that is a problem.”

Curry continued, “I want it on the record that the City has never made a comment… We have to be a part of this. There’s no way we cannot be a part of this. And so I’m just concerned about the narrative that’s being created here.”

Pastor Duncan: “I take full responsibility”

Duncan said he took “full responsibility… I apologize again, Madam City Manager. I should have come directly to you and informed you specifically what was happening.” He said he had spoken with a City staff member about a letter of support and “should have reached out to you directly… But again,… I never heard City Manager Curry… say that you did not want to work with CVG.”

Curry said she wanted to make the point that both the City Manager and County Manager were unaware that CVG’s proposal had included either Gainesville or Alachua County. 

Alachua County or Gainesville?

In response to a question, Williams clarified that the grant was awarded, and Alachua County was named in the grant. 

John Alexander from the City Manager’s office said, “Just for the record… [the grant] doesn’t say Alachua County; it does say Gainesville, Florida… In grants-world, that signifies the City of Gainesville because when we do our grants, they are distinct between Alachua County versus the City of Gainesville… Congratulations on the award.”

Rep. Yvonne Hinson said, “I honestly think if you could change that to Alachua County, it will be a much better used resource than focusing on the City. I don’t know how you’re going to do that… One of our difficulties as a community, in not only collaborating but in obtaining certain grants, has been the diversity of our county… We have so many hot spots that we haven’t been able to zero in on a certain zone or district in order to get a DOJ grant, quite frankly, so I must commend you for getting that grant. If you got it for the County, it makes a lot of sense, but if you got it for the City, you might want to try to change it to the County; that’s my two cents.”

Williams said again that the grant was written for Alachua County, although it used data specific to Gainesville. 

Duncan: “Nothing but great things” about CVG

Duncan said he had spent four days in Chicago, and “I heard nothing but great things” about CVG.

City of Gainesville Gun Violence Intervention Manager Brittany Coleman said she was “definitely looking forward to having further conversations about how that model fits into what the City is doing because I think there is absolutely opportunity to partner.” She said she had never been contacted about a letter of support for the grant but added, “I am grateful that you all are going to be coming and that we can have an opportunity to actually talk and hash out what this can look like.”

The meeting ended with Williams promising to connect with the County via email.

Email from Williams: “Given the hostility encountered, we believe it is in the best interest of all parties for Cure Violence Global to graciously bow out of this partnership.”

The next day, Williams sent an email to County Commissioner Anna Prizzia, Smart, Coleman, and representatives from the Children’s Trust and Santa Fe College. In her email, she expressed gratitude for the discussion but wrote, “However, I feel it is necessary to address the events during the meeting…. From the outset, we sought to foster collaboration and inquired about city partnership. The city was aware of the motion put forward by the County Commissioner’s and Children’s Trust Boards for us to begin work in Gainesville, as they were present during the motion while we were on site in Gainesville. At that time, we were informed that the city was not interested in participating, so we proceeded with the partners who approached us and prioritized their understanding of the local political climate.”

Williams said CVG had secured $4 million in funding for violence prevention efforts, “and we are bringing this support at no cost to the city… Unfortunately, the tone and conduct of city representatives during the meeting were deeply concerning. Their actions not only mischaracterized our intentions but also created an unnecessarily hostile environment for our national partners, who generously offered their time and expertise. As an internationally renowned organization, we value collaboration and mutual respect in all partnerships. It was disheartening to be treated as adversaries despite our efforts to bring substantial resources to the region.”

Williams concluded, “Given the hostility encountered, we believe it is in the best interest of all parties for Cure Violence Global to graciously bow out of this partnership. We respect the importance of unity in addressing community challenges, and we do not wish to proceed where our presence may inadvertently create division.”

Email from Prizzia: “It is beyond disheartening to receive this email and to have our community to not only lose significant funding for work on Gun Violence, but also to be embarrassed on a national stage”

In an email forwarding Williams’s email to others, Prizzia wrote, “It is beyond disheartening to receive this email and to have our community to not only lose significant funding for work on Gun Violence, but also to be embarrassed on a national stage for our inability to coordinate and collaborate.” CTAC Executive Director Marsha Kiner responded, “This is devastating… I am hopeful that the project can be salvaged.”

Email from Curry: “It is unfortunate that group discussion in a meeting of the Gun Violence Prevention Alliance… was misinterpreted.”

Curry wrote that she had sent the following response to CVG:  “The City of Gainesville welcomes all partners in the continuing effort to reduce gun violence in our community… It is unfortunate that group discussion in a meeting of the Gun Violence Prevention Alliance, a partnership formed in order to explore these issues, was misinterpreted. It is the responsibility of city leaders to gain a deeper understanding of the CVG process and the city’s involvement. Although collaboration with the City of Gainesville did not take place earlier in the timeline, city leaders remain interested in learning how this model may dovetail with existing local collaborations and anti-violence efforts.”

Curry also sent out a timeline of the City’s interactions with CVG, including a link to a recent article about an Officer of Inspector General report that found a lack of oversight in Jacksonville’s contract with Cure Violence Global; the City of Jacksonville pulled funding for the program in March 2024.