On Friday night, LA’s Professional Community Intervention Training Institute, headed by Aquil Basheer, graduated 35 newly-trained and certified “community peacekeepers/violence prevention specialists” including the first ever all female intervention team in the nation, a small, happy cluster of whom is pictured above.
City Council Member Tony Cardenas, LA City Fire Chief Millage Peaks and other officials, plus several hundred community members were gathered at the African American Firefighters Museum at 14th and Central Avenue to cheer on the graduates.
It was a genuinely inspiring night.
I’ll have the full story later in the week.
Glad to see this happen FINALLY!!! There has been a host of denial among the anti-gang ranks of the explosive growth of girl gangs throughout the country SINCE the mid-1990s. Hope these sisters get the real support they need, because the ‘misnomer’ has been that they had to ‘only’ reach boy gang members…and girl gang members have been climbing up the ladder of violence and pain. Crime does NOT discriminate as an employer! Can hardly wait to see the story!