Where murders and violent crime are concerned, people can be impatient.
So when Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke’s 3-year-old Violence Reduction Initiative (VRI) doesn’t appear to be achieving the expected results, voters with a municipal election coming up in March begin looking around and elected officials start modifying their messages.
The upshot is the VRI, initially offered as a way for – according to then-public safety coordinator Paul Smith – “young black men to stop shooting and killing young black men,” has been relegated to the cliched “another tool in the toolbox” for local law enforcement. And at least one elected official says the strategy may be on the way out.
Berke might feel differently, but his signature initiative may have been oversold as the answer to violent crime. He never used the word “answer,” but the rollout seemed to at least assure it would reduce violent crime over time. How much time was never precisely identified.
Three years into VRI’s implementation, shootings in 2016 were the highest they’ve been since the mayor took office. Homicides in 2016 were the most since 1997.