Arrests Expose Rift Between N.Y.P.D. and ‘Violence Interrupters'

For years, New York City has employed a two-pronged approach to reducing gun violence, relying on the police and on publicly funded conflict mediators known as violence interrupters. But the February arrests of two interrupters has caused simmering tensions with the police to boil over and threatens to undermine a key part of Mayor Eric Adams’s approach to curbing shootings and murders. The two sides share a fundamental goal, despite their different methods. Where officers have the power to arrest, interrupters rely on street credibility to steer people from crime. Over the past year, interrupters say officers have cursed at them, shoved them out of the way, and arrested them for minor offenses. Then, on Feb. 9, two members of Save Our Streets, a longtime anti-violence group, said officers had handcuffed them after they tried to calm a man being detained for drug possession. Still, a swarm of officers dragged them to the ground, according to video of the arrests, with some punching and kicking one of them. ‘I just felt so helpless,’ he said in an interview. In the video, one of the interrupters can be heard saying, ‘Calm down,’ to the young man who was detained by the police. ‘It’s all right. Calm down. Calm down.’ ‘That’s it. Calm down, man.’ ‘Calm down. Y’all running for nothing. Calm down.’