Minneapolis outreach teams look to interrupt cycle of violence

MinneapolUS thinks outreach and preventative measures will help decrease violence in the city of Minneapolis.

There are moments when a night can go either way, teetering on the edge of peace and unrest. 

As protestors gathered in front of the 5th Police Precinct last Tuesday night, after former officer Derek Chauvin was released on bail, Minnesota State Troopers were preparing to move in and make arrests.   

In the middle of it all, between police and protestors, was Muhammad Abdul-Ahad and his outreach team of violence interrupters in orange shirts, known as MinneapolUS.   

“We’ve got to make a line here,” said Abdul-Ahad to a dozen team members, attempting to lock arms and form a line at 31st Street and Nicollet Avenue, between protestors and troopers.   

“We are trying to help you guys,” pleaded Abdul-Ahad with one of the troopers.  

“If you want to help, get them (protestors) to go south on Nicollet,” replied the trooper.   

Many of the protestors appeared to listen, as Abdul-Ahad encouraged them to move out of the area.  

Minutes later, after repeated orders to disburse, State Troopers arrested 50 demonstrators.   

The 18 members of the MinneapolUS team were briefly detained but remained undaunted.   

“It’s a touchy situation,” said Abdul-Ahad.  “We did what we could under the circumstances.” 

MinneapolUS volunteers

Volunteers work with both victims and perpetrators of Minneapolis violence in an effort to break the cycle.

Street Wise & Ready 

Just a couple of months on the job, MinneapolUS is beginning to learn the promises and perils of this type of work, an ambitious attempt to change the city’s narrative of public safety.  

Currently there are four teams of 15 to 20 street outreach workers for MinneapolUS, with two teams focused on North Minneapolis, and two teams focused on South Minneapolis, along East Lake Street, and the area around 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, where George Floyd was killed last May.  

The outreach teams make contact with people who are both the victims and perpetrators of street violence, building trust and connecting them with various social services.   

Their goal is diffuse conflict before the shooting starts.  

Before they arrived at the 5th Precinct, the MinneapolUS outreach team had patrolled Nicollet Mall downtown, a corridor along East Lake Street, and a homeless camp in Uptown.   

With clipboards in hand outreach workers tried to connect people to a variety of social services like housing, food, and chemical dependency treatment.  

Some of the seventy members of MinneapolUS, who are contract employees with the City of Minneapolis through various neighborhood groups, have previously been incarcerated or have experience with gangs.   

Police officers are often suspicious of outreach workers with any kind of criminal background.   

“Some of the people working with us are people they (police) were chasing and arresting a decade ago,” said Sasha Cotton, director of the City of Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention.   

“We are here for all the right reasons and our goals are the same. We want safe communities.  The process is just different,” said Cotton.   

MinneapolUS outreach workers

In an effort to break the cycle of violence in Minneapolis, these MinneapolUS workers are trying to connect victims and perpetrators of violence with resources available to them.

‘The Optics Matter' 

Abdul-Ahad said most police officers appreciate their role.  “They actually call upon us.  They say, ‘Where are the guys in the orange shirts. We need their help.’” 

The outreach teams must also strike a delicate balance.  They need to have on the ground street intelligence about gang activity and retaliation, but they can’t be perceived as snitches working with police.  

“The optics matter,” said Cotton.  “People can become confused and feel like they’re set up.  And we don’t want people to feel like that.  We are here to work on behalf of the people,” she said.  

Abdul-Ahad was released from federal prison three and half years ago after serving a decade for a non-violent drug crime.  “It was a drug conspiracy case without any drugs,” he said.   

From a federal prison in Illinois he took a bus back to Minnesota with another outreach workers, Ra Sekou P-Tah, who served 20 years in prison for a non-violent drug crime before his sentence was commuted by President Obama.   

“That day I got out I made a promise to always be there for you, and you for me, and that’s why we are here today,” said Abdul-Ahad.   

Both men say they’ve noticed a change in the street dynamics, with younger offenders committing homicides and car jackings.   

“You see yourself in those juveniles faces,” said P-Tah.   

“I’ve known people that were bad that I aspired to be like under the limelight of drug dealing. So that was what inspired me. I don’t want that for the kids coming up today,” said P-Tah.  

The outreach teams of MinneapolUS will coordinate their work with two other programs in the city’s Office of Nonviolence, previously profiled by the FOX 9 Investigators.    

Group Violence Intervention-Project LIFE is an effort to target services to chronic offenders and gang members.  

Next Step is a hospital-based intervention program that involves social workers at HCMC and North Memorial who reach out to crime victims to break the cycle of retaliation.   

All three initiatives are based on programs with track records in other cities and are being modified for the dynamics in Minneapolis.   

Since the killing of George Floyd, Minneapolis has witnessed a spike in shootings, homicides, and violent car jackings.   

In many cases, the suspects are teenagers.  

“They’re bored,” said Adbul-Ahad, who noted that many community centers are closed and after school sports and events are cancelled.  The streets became their playground.   

“Whatever’s going on kids want to be part of it because there’s nothing else to do,” he said.  

Cotton believes there are multiple factors responsible for an uptick in violence crime.

The pandemic saw people at the lower rung of the economic ladder lose jobs and hope.   

Hundreds were also released from Minnesota jails and prisons without a safety net.   

“We’ve been looking at all the dynamics of 2020,” said Cotton.  “And it does feel a little bit like the perfect storm.”