By Mike Sherry
KHI News Service
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Doctors can help reduce the shootings and killings that plague Kansas City, according to the leader of an international violence-prevention group who visited here this week.

Dr. Gary Slutkin is an epidemiologist who argues that violence is a public health concern and similar to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS and the plagues of medieval Europe in that violence tends to beget more violence. His organization Cure Violence is based in Chicago.

Slutkin said doctors need to step up as “credible messengers” to persuade policymakers to adopt more effective responses to violence. The Cure Violence approach to the problems relies on prevention, mediation and close interaction with the likely “carriers” of violence in a specific neighborhood. In short, it mimics the public health approach to preventing and containing infections.

The group’s results have earned it accolades in Chicago and elsewhere.

“Not advocating means really allowing the continuation of what is going on right now,” Slutkin said, “which is lack of success, a lot of punishment, a lot of imprisonment, a lot of ineffective and really outdated solutions.”

Slutkin talked about the group’s methods Wednesday evening at the offices of the Metropolitan Medical Society of Greater Kansas City on the Country Club Plaza. The audience of about 30 people included local medical students.

The next night, Frank Perez, national director of Cure Violence, spoke to a crowd of about 60 people at a community forum at the offices of the Kansas City, Mo., Health Department at 2400 Troost Ave.

Slutkin founded the organization nearly two decades ago. Cure Violence now has partner groups in 15 U.S. cities and in several countries, including England, Iraq and South Africa. Its partner in Kansas City, Mo., is Aim4Peace, a health department program that was started in 2008.

Dr. Lancer Gates, president of the medical society, said its members likely would heed Slutkin’s call to action.

He said the society has a history of taking up community causes, such as helping start the Community Blood Center of Greater Kansas City.

Doctors, he said, could spread the word to public officials and police. And, Gates said, they could take the message to their patients.

“Knowing something like this, having this information,” he said, “we have time with patients and families to talk about these things.”

Programs such as Cure the Violence and Aim4Peace use trained violence “interrupters” to help defuse tensions in a neighborhood and discourage violent retaliations.

Aim4Peace covers a swath of the city stretching from the Missouri River on the north to southeast areas near Independence and Lee’s Summit, but generally east of Wabash Avenue.

According to crime statistics, the area worked by the Kansas City Police Department’s East Patrol Division accounted for about 40 percent of the city’s 106 homicides last year. Homicide totals in the so-called East Patrol area have been the highest among the police department’s six patrol zones for each of the past five years. East Patrol stretches from the Missouri River on the north to southeast areas near Independence and Lee’s Summit, but generally lies east of Wabash Avenue.

Aim4Peace has focused on one of the four sectors in the East Patrol, according to Tracie McClendon-Cole, Aim4Peace director. There, she said, the seven homicides tallied last year were about half as many as in previous years.

Thanks to a new $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, the program will expand into two more sectors.

Aim4Peace covers only about a third of the most violent part of the city. If the program could beef up its coverage to perhaps 80 percent of that section, McClendon-Cole said, it could cut the city’s homicides by nearly half.

Aim4Peace takes into consideration a neighborhood’s overall circumstances. Its efforts include a life-skills program that works to prevent school delinquency and dropouts. The group also teaches job readiness and anger management.

It has a Hospital Prevention Program in conjunction with Truman Medical Centers, where workers respond to gunshot and violence-related traumas. By working with emergency department staff, Aim4Peace workers are able to contact residents thought to be most at risk of being involved in future shootings.

The crowd at Perez’s Thursday night talk explaining the Cure Violence approach included neighborhood leaders, clergy and health care workers.

He implored the church leaders to become more involved in stopping gun violence.

“It’s fantastic you are saving souls,” he said, “but I need you to help me save some lives. I need you to come out of those temples, those churches, those synagogues … and work in your own communities. Don’t be afraid of these young people – get them involved.”

The Rev. Wallace Hartsfield, pastor emeritus of Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 2310 E. Linwood Blvd., said he agreed that clergy could do more.

“We can’t wait for someone else to come in,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kansas City, Kan., resident LaVita Gassoway said she hoped Aim4Peace could expand to her side of the state line.

“We really need this program in Wyandotte County,” she said, “because we have a bad problem with retaliation murders.”