NYC NOW - July 11, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Many residents in the Hudson Valley are sleeping at temporary shelters or with loved ones after heavy flooding over the weekend Plus, the federal monitor overseeing New York City’s jails says the Adams administration should be held in contempt for conditions at Rikers Island. And finally, WNYC’s Samantha Max sheds light on a new program in Brownsville that aims to break the link between domestic violence and community violence.

Good evening and welcome to NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre for WNYC. We had about a dozen people last night, which they were totally awesome. Everybody took care of everybody. This community is so loving. We just had everything that we needed right at our fingertips every minute. We begin in the Hudson Valley, where some residents of Highland Falls are sleeping at a temporary shelter

or staying with loved ones after catastrophic flooding filled basements, washed away roads, and left some without homes. Milagro Castillo's apartment flooded Sunday night. Now she's staying with her daughter while a cleaning crew goes through her home. She says once they finish up, she'll find out if she can move back in. Castillo says for now she's just waiting to find out more. Local officials are assessing the damage and offering assistance to people whose homes took in water. They're hoping for federal funding to help with repairs.

Highland Falls is among the hardest hit places alongside Fort Montgomery and West Point. In New York City, the federal monitor overseeing city jails is recommending a judge consider holding the Adams administration in contempt for failing to make safety fixes on Rikers Island. WNYC's Matt Katz has more. Monitor Steve Martin used images from surveillance footage to document horrific incidents from recent weeks in which correction officers lost control of detainees. In one incident, a detainee blocked an officer. from intervening in a group assault on another detainee. Martin's recommendation that the court initiate contempt proceedings is based on his conclusion that the city is violating the 2015 consent decree

that led to his monitorship. He said all measures of violence and officer use of force are far worse now than they were then. A contempt finding could mean fines against the city, but also paved the way for a federal takeover of the jails, has defense attorneys and some elected officials have called for. Stay close. We'll hop over to Brooklyn after the break.

Thousands of New Yorkers are arrested each year on domestic violence charges. Many of those people later go on to be charged with gun crimes. But the two forms of violence are rarely treated as connected issues. A new program in Brownsville is trying to change that. WNYC's Samantha Max has the story. About a dozen teens in Brownsville, Brooklyn, are sitting in a a circle of plastic chairs and talking about birth control and flirting and how they would handle different situations that might lead to violence.

Each of them has a history of both gun violence and domestic violence, either as a victim, a witness, a perpetrator, or all of the above. And now these teens are struggling to manage the trauma. They're here to talk about why they've turned to violence in the past and how to avoid it in the future. I didn't want to go to it. Facilator Javan Lomax asked what the group would do if an older man hit on their younger sister. Anybody disrespects my little sister. She's 15.

They would die. He's 40. She ignores him. He's going to die. Sometimes you're going to die. This teen's immediate impulse is to kill someone who inappropriately hits on his little sister. Lomax pushes back. Now we're killing somebody over there.

I hear. The response might seem extreme, but Lomax tells me this is what the circles are all about, talking through feelings, even really intense ones, and then figuring out how to dial them down. What about instead of smoking and what about instead of listening to drill music or reggae? What if we talked about it? What if we actually say what was going on? Wow, that's crazy, right? We never tried that.

Let's try it. The meetings are part of a pilot program called Heal the Ville, which brings together groups of teens and young. young men who are likely to be victims and perpetrators of both domestic violence and street violence. Participants get a $75 stipend for each session. Milamik says the goal is to give the participants a space to talk through their traumas and to help one another find healthier, safer ways to handle their emotions. Getting them to think about that, realize what does it stand from? What is that harm? Who's the first person that hurt you? Where did that start? And then what can we do with that?

What are some other outlets we could do? Otherwise, Lomike says they're likely to take out their aggression on the people they love. I'm going to harm those close to me. If I don't have that therapy, if I don't have that outlet, then my mom's here or my girl's here. Somebody got to get it. Somebody got to get this frustration. Healdaville is one of the only programs of its kind that focuses on the connection between domestic violence and community violence.

Program manager Deshaun Almond, known in the neighborhood as Bigga, says, says most people don't realize how much street violence is caused by relationship issues. You may hear it on the news if somebody get killed or something. Oh, they were street rivals. No, they wasn't. That was his brother-in-law. He was gone with his sister or cousin or something. He did something that be the real story.

Bigga says heal the bill aims to prevent that kind of violence by teaching participants how to talk things out. That's what we happen in circles. Like this, you get to learn to communicate not only with your fellow man, but with your mate. Several studies have found links between violence against romantic partners and violence on the streets. Researchers say they share common risk factors, including poverty, past exposure to violence, and norms about male aggression. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez says his office recently conducted a survey, they found about 20% of people with pending gun charges in the borough have also been arrested for

domestic violence in the last five years. Those cases include both intimate partners and family members. If we care a lot about reducing violent crime in our community, we have to start dealing with family violence and intimate partner violence in the home because we believe them to be precursors to the type of gun violence that we're seeing in communities. Assistant District Attorney Michelle Kaminsky leads the office's gender-based violence division. She says victims often, often feel let down by the court system. The main thing they want is for their partner to get help, so they'll stop causing harm. We don't have anything in the system to address that. We bring cases in court. We're holding people accountable for their criminal behavior. The Brooklyn DA's office

has been an early supporter of Healdaville and says the program can provide a different way to keep the community safe. They hope it gets more funding to scale up. And New York City is moving in that direction. A few years ago, officials committed to spending $3.3 million on voluntary services for people who hurt their partners. And the city now runs its own free program, though it doesn't focus on the connection between domestic violence and community violence. Longtime social worker Louis Zuckman says the city should have more programs that do, like Healdiville. The perpetrator has also been traumatized, so it's interesting. Zuckman says he tried a similar approach decades ago.

to help men who were abusing their partners and kids. He brought these men together in what he called a father's group, where they could talk openly about the challenges they were facing as dads. They didn't realize it, but the program was really a healing circle, a safe space for people with shared traumas to open up. It worked. Within a matter of weeks and months, they were telling the truth to each other. And they helped each other stop doing what they were doing.

And every one of them had a history of being abused themselves. Zuckman says it was one of the most powerful programs he's ever been a part of, but that it was discontinued decades ago. The victims of trauma and the perpetrators of trauma are the same, and they can heal it themselves. And they're the best people to heal themselves and heal each other. A heal-the-ville participant named Antoine says coming to meetings has helped him to process his traumas and his history of domestic violence.

He has not to share his last name because of his court record. Antoine lost the close friend in 2008 and then a brother in 2014. He says it took him years to grief, especially his brother. But before this, I just was living for him. I was just doing, and that's being selfish instead of letting him rest. That's being selfish. I'm crying, me crying being hurt for him is being selfish because he can't hurt no more. Antoine says he never went to therapy, and he's had a hard time managing his emotions in the past.

A few times, Antoine was arrested for domestic violence. Then he says he had a baby who he didn't get to see for eight months. The healing circles have helped Antoine to mend his relationship with his former partner. He says he doesn't get annoyed as much anymore. And he knows when to end a conversation before it turns into an argument. I guess I've been moving different because out of the blue, she just hit me and was like, you want your son. And it's the first weekend I had him by myself.

Now Antoine is smiling. He says he just wants to put his child first these days and stop falling. into the same patterns. That's WNYC's Samantha Max, who reported this story in partnership with The Trace. That's a non-profit newsroom covering gun issues in America. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day.

We'll be back tomorrow.