GREENSBORO, N.C. — The City of Greensboro set an all-time record of murders, last year.
An event took place to help stop the violence. WFMY News 2's Nixon Norman was there to learn about the progress police are making so far this year.
The event is hosted by the city's Office of Community Safety, it's called Greensboro Peace on Purpose.
Division Manager of the office, LaTisha McNeil said, that it's called 'public safety' for a reason. That the burden doesn't only lie on police but the community as well.
"We all have a part to play to advance the public safety ecosystem in Greensboro. Public safety is a community responsibility, you know, for too long we have relied on just on our law enforcement partners to be focused on crime reduction but really it's us as a community, it's providing services for people preventatively, we need to intervene before we have to interrupt," McNeil said.
In order to combat gun-violence and violence in general, McNeil said people need to start caring about people. She said if you see someone going down the wrong path, intervene if you feel comfortable.
"Being aware of people in their community who may be on a pathway to committing crimes, and actually offer alternatives for folks, you know, it's really about finding pathways to do something different," McNeil said.
It is the mission of the city's Behavioral Health Response Team, intervening in the lives of vulnerable community members, such as those facing mental health issues, substance abuse and homelessness.
BHRT Team Lead, Erin Williams said people can often think of them as perpetrators but really, they are often times victims of gun violence.
"They might be vulnerable because they're not connected to this reality, they're operating in different ways. It's hard to have employment, it's hard to have housing, it's hard stability when you have severe mental illness, so a lot of times they might be unhoused, they might be staying where they can and so, those factors often might put them more at risk," said Williams. "Nobody is immune to violence, we've certainly had clients that we've worked with who have been murdered in gun violence situations in the past number of years, so we're touched by it, we have folks that we are making referrals to, Arthur's Violence Prevention Program, so we're just trying to support each other because the work is shared."
Already this week, GPD has dealt with one deadly shooting and eight armed robberies.