FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. — The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office is creating a "Juvenile Intervention Investigative Team" to help deter violence in Forsyth County and Winston-Salem.
"This eight-man unit is a team that’s going to be designed to not only get intelligence from the school resource officers but also with the collaboration of the city specialized units to combat these hotspots of these juveniles (wherE) are actively committing these crimes," said Henry Gray with the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office.
The team was the idea of Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough due to the rise in violence in the community, especially involving young people.
"A lot of this came out of the cry of the community," said Sheriff Kimbrough in April.
The Sheriff hopes this team could prevent something like the Mount Tabor High School shooting in September 2021 from ever happening again.
"We hope to intervene and never have another September 1 (Mount Tabor High School Shooting) by intervening, gathering information that we come across, some of the systems that we have in place already, couple that with an investigative team, couple that with information in real-time having a unit that can go out there in real-time, said Kimbrough in April.
Kimbrough said an example could be a potential school threat on Snapchat that comes in the middle of the night. This team would be the ones to respond.
Sheriff's Office officials said it's important the team not just focus on residents of the county but work with the Winston-Salem Police Department to help prevent youth crime.
"At the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office we know that city issues become county issues and vice versa, county become city issues, so we are responsible and empowered and committed to serve both the city and the county," Gray said.
The team could get started as early as May depending on if the county commissioners approve the start date. It is being funded through the American Rescue Plan Act.
WFMY News 2 reached out to the North Carolina Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for a comment on the new team:
"The Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is appreciative of programs throughout our communities and state that help sway juveniles from entering the criminal justice system. We will continue our work with any youth on whom we receive delinquent complaints, and appropriately resolve these cases through community program referrals, diversion plans and contracts, community supervision and secure custody where necessary to protect public safety and provide the services needed to help ensure youth have no future involvement with the criminal justice system.
North Carolina has seen an increase in violent crimes in the past few years in both the adult and juvenile populations. We are grateful that Governor Roy Cooper has proposed funding in his latest budget proposal to educate youth on the dangers of gun and other serious violence, as well as provide resources to assist in curbing youth violence, protect our communities and bolster law enforcement to keep North Carolina families safe."