LYNN — In response to two subsequent shootings that claimed the lives of two teenagers and injured three others in the last week of 2023, Mayor Jared Nicholson’s office is consolidating local and state resources in one of the City’s largest violence-prevention initiatives to date.
In the coming weeks and months, Nicholson said the City will host meetings between local youth service organizations, such as Lynn Youth Street Outreach Advocacy and Roca, to organize new collaborative strategies for curbing gang violence.
“We all recognize this is a huge priority for us and we need to do everything we can to put a stop to this violence,” Nicholson said. “A lot of (this initiative) is about rallying folks that are either already doing this work or want to either do more or join the effort. We’re really thinking about how we can build on what we have going and expand the work, and in new and meaningful ways to try to reach folks.”
The City, Nicholson said, is also planning to resume its gang-prevention research at North Shore Community College, which is funded by the Commonwealth’s Shannon Community Safety Initiative grant and seeks to identify and address emerging causes of gang violence.
Additionally, Nicholson said he hopes to launch the Lynn Calm Team, a planned unarmed mental-health task force that would respond to incidents as they arise and offer mental-health resources on-scene. He added that the city also plans to expand the Department of Community Development’s summer-job program.
“We are hoping to hit the ground running later this year, (the Lynn Calm Team) is a team that will draw on professionals with a skill set that’s in high demand. We’re going to take the time we need to get it right so that this launch is successful, and part of that is making sure that we are able to identify the right folks for the position,” Nicholson said.
As part of a multi-pronged approach to violence prevention, the Lynn Police Department has been working around the clock to ramp up its gang-enforcement efforts and youth outreach with the city’s schools, places of worship, and organizations.
Police Chief Christopher Reddy said that because the two shootings are believed to have been targeted attacks tied to gang activity, the department has added an extra officer to its Gang Unit, increased its street patrols, and partnered with Lynn Classical High School to ensure an officer is stationed at the school every day at dismissal time.
“We blanketed the city in an effort to increase visibility, engage in gang suppression, and disrupt any efforts for further harmful activity,” Reddy said. “The first week we did that with the assistance of the State Police and made arrests of four separate individuals who had illegal firearms.”
Reddy added that the department has also ramped up its investigative efforts for unsolved gang-violence cases and made strides toward its community-outreach efforts. He said officers have assisted Roca and LYSOA with their youth services, and have even met one-on-one with family members of at-risk students.
“We work with the schools not only on security issues, but also just to exchange information. There are students who sometimes have mental-health or behavioral-health issues and we connect them with treatment resources. We’re also there just to share information on how we can address concerns of the school,” Reddy added.
The Police Department, Reddy said, is also seeking potential grant funding to increase patrols focused on gang suppression, expand opportunities for positive engagement with youth, and increase its visibility in the community.
The department also assisted with programs at Roca, an anti-violence nonprofit that provides counseling, job training, and general guidance to young people who are at risk of crime or incarceration.
Last year, the nonprofit, which Nicholson described as “a great partner” to the City, joined forces with the Department of Public Works for a workforce-development program in which at-risk youth can work for the City, gaining useful employment and trade skills.
On Tuesday morning, five youths participating in Roca scoured the streets of Lynn cleaning catch basins.
Roca Director Joseph Furnari, who has been with the nonprofit for seven years since he left his role as a supervisor for the Essex County Sheriff’s Department, said that employing young people to serve their community comes not only as a benefit to the community, but to the young workers.
“It’s an educational tool to give them an opportunity to get out there and learn skills necessary to be prepared to go to the next step for a living-wage career track,” Furnari said. “These young people typically have not held positions or long-term employment, so this is a great opportunity for them to go out with one of our crew supervisors, who works alongside them to teach them, to coach them, and have them learn skills about being a team member and an active member of the community.”
Nicholson applauded all of the entities that are working to make the city safer.
“We have a tremendous community here that is rallying to amplify the efforts to try to eradicate this violence, from my colleagues in government and City Council, the School Committee to the Police Department and our external partners, the state-level community organizations,” Nicholson said. “I have been very encouraged by the readiness with which folks are answering the call for us to step up the efforts.”
