In its latest push to contain a recent surge in violent crime in the Bronx and other outerboroughs, New York City is spending nearly $2 million to deploy “mobile trauma units” featuring counselors and peacekeepers – or what the city calls “violence interrupters” – to try and calm worried locals and work with local gangs to try and reduce incidences of violence, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The buses will begin making their rounds in January 2019 as they seek to provide “trauma relief” in neighborhoods that are begging for relief of a different kind (namely, from crime). Though we imagine the ex-gang members the buses will deploy as counselors trying to convince street criminals to “do the right thing” and turn straight will be equally as effective as a few more cops on the beat.
But as one councilwoman who pushed for the “mobile trauma units” reminds us, tending to the “emotional well-being” of crime victims and their families is a task for which police are ill-suited. The issue has received far more attention in the wake of the death of Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, a 15 year old who was dragged out of a bodega by gang members and fatally stabbed with knives and a machete last month after he was mistaken for somebody else. (Zero Hedge)