How Fort Worth Is Reducing Shootings

Pastor Rodney McIntosh knew something had to change in Fort Worth, Texas. Drawing inspiration from the Advance Peace model in Richmond, California, he launched Violence Intervention and Prevention Fort Worth (VIPFW) – a program that's transforming how communities address gun violence by focusing on individual.

VIPFW's success lies in who they hire: respected community members who once contributed to neighborhood problems and now dedicate themselves to solving them. These "neighborhood change agents" possess a unique blend of street credibility and professional commitment that allows them to reach people traditional authorities cannot. As one team member explains, "You literally have to be able to be around young people and know how to toe the line, be an example for them but still be so close that they don't lose that level of respect they have for you."

Unlike programs that check in occasionally with at-risk individuals, VIPFW maintains daily—sometimes multiple daily—contact with participants enrolled in their peacemaker fellowships. This relentless engagement creates unprecedented support systems for young people navigating trauma and limited options. The program incorporates education on emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and mental health awareness while providing opportunities to experience life beyond neighborhood boundaries.

Fort Worth recorded zero gang-related shootings during the first six months of 2023, compared to 25 in the same period the previous year. By recognizing that those driving violence aren't broken beyond repair but overlooked and unresourced, VIPFW demonstrates that targeted, relationship-based interventions can break even the most entrenched cycles of violence.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Fort Worth's Approach
• 1:02 Neighborhood Change Agents' Mission
• 3:43 Selecting the Right People
• 7:33 Building Trust in the Community
• 9:59 Mental Health and Trauma Support
• 12:47 Daily Engagement and Results

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

In the fight against gun violence, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Every city is different and therefore every model must be adapted. In this episode, we're taking you to Fort Worth, texas, where Pastor Rodney McIntosh has seen success with a strategy based on advanced peace. At its core is the idea that those driving the majority of shootings aren't broken beyond repair, but rather overlooked and unresourced. Around the nation, gun violence is destroying families and weakening communities, and it's becoming a leading cause of death for young people. We know that in nearly every city, only a small number of people are driving most of the violence. An approach called group violence intervention, or GVI, identifies those individuals and engages with them directly, trying to offer them a way out before the violence occurs. It's not just about stopping the shootings. It's about building a community where everyone feels like they have a shot at hope.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Violence intervention models that target violent groups, like GVI, have seen success by aligning three groups Law enforcement, community leaders and supportive services. The focus is tackling the group dynamics driving the majority of shootings in a community. But in Fort Worth, pastor Rodney McIntosh says his community needed a more individual-centered approach. So instead of focusing on violent groups, he and his team zeroed in on individuals, those most at risk of shooting or being shot and started working with them one-on-one. His group is called VIPFW, which stands for Violence Intervention and Prevention, fort Worth. Pastor McIntosh explains that the approach is based on a model that started in California called Advance Peace.

Speaker 2: 1:54

So in 2020, we went to Richmond, california, looked at Advance Peace, saw the way they were doing the CBI work. We also took a trip to San Antonio, looked at a program called Stand Up SA and saw how they were doing the work and I just kind of you know, I saw the way Advance Peace did it and who they targeted and how specific they were about the demographics and the group they were trying to get to. I just kind of decided that this was the program we needed to bring to Fort Worth. Worth, but my passion for continuing to do it, of course, like so many others in this room, just previously being involved in a group of gang violence or just in the gangs in the streets, but also I lost a brother in 2017 to gun violence and then in 2020, right when we were getting ready to really start this, I lost a young cousin to gun violence. So that's kind of what got us there and got me to this place.

Speaker 1: 2:46

The men and women of VIP Fort Worth come from the same neighborhoods that they now serve and they want to lift up the same neighborhoods that they once caused chaos in.

Speaker 2: 2:55

We started just kind of reaching out to people we knew and then just to see if they would be willing to give back and help repair what we destroyed. Most of the guys that you see that's from the east side of Fort Worth. We either grew up together we're in the same games or either been knowing each other, like me and Blow, been knowing each other since we was probably 11 or 12 years old, so it was the guys around me, man. We continued to plug along and try to do this work and then they started, as we were given the funding, to kind of expand over the time.

Speaker 1: 3:26

They are known as neighborhood change agents. They identify high-risk individuals and enroll them in peacemaker fellowships. These fellows receive mentorship, daily check-ins and opportunities for travel and personal growth. The fellowship is designed to pull them out of the cycle by surrounding them with trust, opportunity and relentless support.

Speaker 3: 3:52

They know who we are. We're authentic ourselves. So we've been through what they're going through and came back.

Speaker 2: 3:59

So we, just, like I said, we try to show them something different, A lot of the young men that they may be working with. They probably at one point, you know, been around with their fathers or knew their mothers. But, man, I'll never forget a statement we had a young man we were mentoring. The mother reaches out, we meet and we're having a conversation and you know, we told her we got you, we got your son. And she says, man, I didn't even know men like y'all existed and I can't meet any. No more. Right? And so as you start to help people, children, you start to help people's sons, and that just becomes just a respect factor, right.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Change agents help mediate conflicts, with the goal of de-escalating tense situations and preventing retaliatory violence. Pastor McIntosh says that the work succeeds because it's rooted in the community, not imposed from outside.

Speaker 2: 4:49

Each person here. Honestly, man has a unique skill set but they also have the ears of certain people in certain areas. Honestly, like man, he may not say much, but if we understand everybody in this city, probably, if you're on the east side, don't go talk to this dude, right, everybody in his house. You wanna go see what Blow got to say? Or this and that man, and we joke all the time. He may be like Mr Westside, he been here and come on his whole life. So you get these people that's so ingrained in a community.

Speaker 2: 5:19

But in this dealing with these young people already so that it does not become a task, and trying to get to them, you can't just go and pick somebody. Because I think what some of these problems may fail and this may sound, you know this may sound crazy to say right, you have to pick somebody that's so close to the streets that if somebody from the outside looking they may think they in the streets, but then that person also. But then you also have to pick somebody that they can be that close but know how to walk into a room and represent the organization well, handle they self well, not get caught up in scoundrels or different things. So that's what I'm saying. We say incredible. You literally have to be a comedian to do this job. You literally have to be able to be around young people and know how to toe the line, like be an example for them, but at the same time and you have to still be able to be so close to where they don't lose that level of respect they have for you that your voice can still have the power it needs so that they can, so that they will listen to you, can mediate conflict when it happened. So I and he just made me think about that, cuz that was another thing I knew.

Speaker 2: 6:22

We had to find people that was literally respected, right, that when they speak, nah, man, people are gonna listen. You gotta find that champion. Seriously, you first gotta find that one person that'll champion this work, because I never make light of it. There's gonna be backlash, there's gonna be ridicule, like whoever decides to start this work, because most people don't think.

Speaker 2: 6:45

You know they just hide who looms. Are they hiding thugs? They give a job to ex-gay people have been to prison like man. Why would we invest in them like man? So you got to find somebody that's willing to. You know I said it's not willing to, has thick skin, that's able to take everything that's gonna be thrown in a man walk, walk in humility right, but that also is respected amongst and not just the streets, though you have to find somebody that's gonna be able, that's gonna be respected in any room that they walk in. Yeah, and I think, like being a pastor kind of helped me in that place, and I'm not saying it has to be a pastor, but you have to find somebody that's like invested in their community, that they so desires to see their community and their city better.

Speaker 1: 7:27

The team also makes it clear that they are not the police and their job isn't to lock people up. They're there to focus on being a constant presence in the lives of people who need it.

Speaker 2: 7:39

We dealt with it enough. Just people in the community, man them, dudes, the police. We got a young lady here that works right now. I'm going to put her on the spot, but if you asked her when we were asking about her son, she was like man, I don't care who it is, og, whoever I'm like they police, they're asking all these questions.

Speaker 4: 7:54

So it was hard enough just to get into the community with people thinking that and saying that my son showed up and said he had a mentor and I was like, look where you get a mentor from the post office. I just swore that they was undercover police Just trying to come in like a best friend and play. No, you don't have them into a know-who, you know. But the sincerity and the results that I work now and the fear that I hear from me, like they heard they not worried about the politics, they not worried about the, they really worried about saving young men's lives, they really about getting right there, like jump in front of bullets, like pull up.

Speaker 4: 8:41

No 911 calls you can't call. It's the scenes that you can't call the police to, it's the people that the police cannot call to get a statement from. You know what I'm saying. They carry most of the weight. So when you got somebody that's sincerely willing to just stop that every conversation you have with these people is saving somebody's lives and it don't matter statistically, it don't matter none of that.

Speaker 2: 9:09

We have no police involvement. They do their job, we do ours and, at the end of the day, I think we all have the same goal right. At least I would hope that we all, and I believe that they want our city to be safe. We want our city to be safe. We're just a different tool now used for public safety.

Speaker 3: 9:27

We're not trying to send them to jail. We're trying to get them some help. We're trying to change their thought process and eventually change their life.

Speaker 2: 9:34

So for lack of better words. As my mentor would say, we caught the young people, so you can tell us no, today we'll see you, tomorrow you can tell us no for four months.

Speaker 1: 9:45

Violence prevention work also includes leading group classes on emotional intelligence, conflict mediation and mental health and taking the fellows outside their neighborhood so that they can see a different world.

Speaker 2: 9:58

We're big on the conflict mediation, emotional intelligence as well as emotional maturity. We just had a conversation the other day about mental health crisis. Mental health crisis, yeah, it's like if you're in the middle of a mental health crisis, so we do. There's no specific curriculum, it's just like man. We kind of just pick a topic and some people may say, man, that's different. But nobody talked to us about none of this stuff. I didn't hear about emotional intelligence growing until I started doing this work and I had to look. Nobody never told me what an ace was. I didn't know nothing about no adverse childhood experience. Like we didn't talk because we talked trauma with them. You know, like, because a lot of times people look at these young people and think, man, you know that they evil, they wicked, nah, they dealing with trauma. Like man, can you imagine growing up in the neighborhoods they grew up in, right, and then you expect them to thrive? Food deserts, shutting schools down. You know what I'm saying. Like absentee fathers, like man, it's just like, of course, we have to be under drug-infested communities. Now, most of the things I just said, literally, if you look on the list for trauma ACEs, it could be covered under that right. And they said if you have more than four of them, man, then you really need to get help. Man, we watched these young people had to grow up in these communities dealing with all of those ACEs and all of this trauma. So, man, we just try to have different conversations. Sometimes we come in there too, just be an athlete, we just let them talk, right. Most of the time we kind of let them lead the conversations. But, man, we're starting to realize that they look forward to it, cuz now they got what they're called and we have a class. Man, I need them. Man, it's like therapy to me. What makes us different as well, even just advanced peace, our motto, why we believe it works, is, like you heard Ox say, either phone call or face to face.

Speaker 2: 11:53

I've had the privilege of being in different circles nationally now and I've heard how they talk about how they engage, you know, the young people. And again, nothing against any program. But I've heard some they talk about how they engage young people, and again, nothing against any program. But I've heard some people say, yeah, we said once every three weeks or once every two weeks, three times a month or this or that. Now I mean, these dudes literally got a caseload and they talk to each one of their guys two or three times a day. So when you say, how is it done? How do we make this change? How do we get them invested, like this mother said, she, like her son, just came home and I got a mentor and he was really cause they I've seen face times where we talking and they, it's the engagement, her right that doing that like such a neat.

Speaker 2: 12:31

When you ask about how do y'all do it now they literally are consistently engaging a demographic or group that nobody ever engaged in most cities they call them the one percentage. You know, know they say it's only really 1% of the population that's driving the most of the violence. Well, that 1% needs to be engaged by somebody. Right, that is what CVI work does. Cvi work goes right to that 1% and everybody may not do it as many times as us, but we go right to that 1% and we start to engage them.

Speaker 2: 13:01

And I always ask the question times as us, but we go right to that 1% and we start to engage them and always ask the question can you imagine being a young man who never had resources, never had anybody talking to you, never had anybody actually even seem like they was concerned with your well-being, waking up the next day after you meet your mentor, the NCAA, and then now, all of a sudden, you got this constant earth in your voice. It's beautiful, man, to do this work. When you get to that place to work, before they do something, they call you just to let you know that's where they at, because they really call and say, bro, I need some help. I don't want to do this, but this is how I'm feeling. These are the men and women that talk young people down on a day-to-day basis to save the city of Fort Worth millions of dollars.

Speaker 1: 13:37

In the first six months of 2023, fort Worth had zero gang-related shootings, compared to 25 in the same period the year prior. The notable turnaround is widely attributed to the relentless street-level outreach and mentorship carried out by VIP Fort Worth. Pastor McIntosh says he feels the work speaks for itself and has the respect of the city.

Speaker 2: 14:03

We have difficult moments right now, you know, dealing with funding issues, but I even believe, like leadership in this city has gotten to a place where they know that they, you know, they know and believe that this program is a necessity for the city of Fort Worth.

Speaker 1: 14:18

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