Shootings are on the rise in Battle Creek: A look at the numbers and what's being done

BATTLE CREEK — On a Thursday afternoon inside Northwestern Middle School, Damon Brown gathered the attention of the class and smiled.

He wasn't there to deliver a lecture. No, Brown was there to listen.

Walking around the classroom, the 45-year-old Battle Creek native asked individual students to share their rose, something good that's happened to them in the past week, and their thorn, something that's not going particularly well in their life.

"This is a safe place," Brown told the class. "What is said in this group stays in this group. Y'all can express your real feelings in here."

The conversations are just one of many ways Brown works to build relationships with students through his nonprofit Re-Integration to Support Empowerment (R.I.S.E.), relationships Brown says are all the more important given the rise in gun violence, particularly among youth, in Battle Creek.

Three gun-related homicides have been reported in the city so far this year after only four occurred all of last year — and it's only May.

Brown has lost friends to gun violence. He's been shot at on multiple occasions. A scar from a bullet wound is still visible on his wrist.

Now, he's doing everything he can to connect with youth, helping them to solve problems and face adversity without resorting to violence.

"We’re seeing kids younger and younger resort to violence as a way to solve their issues," Brown said. "I used to be one of these kids and I didn’t have anybody (to turn to), you know what I mean? So we’re trying to fill that void."

Building capacity and emphasizing relationships as shootings climb

Sitting inside his upstairs office at the Battle Creek Police Department, Interim Police Chief Shannon Bagley says it's tough to pinpoint an exact cause for the recent uptick in shootings.

In 2022, the department reported 92 shootings, four resulting in fatalities and 13 resulting in injuries. The department responded to 64 shootings in 2021, five of which were fatal and 18 that resulted in injuries.

Through April of this year, BCPD has reported 39 total shootings resulting in three deaths and six injuries. BCPD shooting statistics include instances of reported shots fired with evidence of a shooting occurring but with no injuries reported.

"What you’re seeing here in Battle Creek is being played out not just in the state but all over the country," Bagley said. "You’re coming out of COVID, you’re looking at increased crime, your violent crime is spiking."

Bagley said crime was already trending upward locally before the pandemic temporarily slowed the adjudication process. The Calhoun County courthouse was closed in March 2020 for about a year, with trials and select hearings suspended, while other proceedings continued remotely online.

"Courts weren’t functioning on all levels, the adjudication process was not functioning at the level at which it historically had so there were individuals that weren’t being incarcerated ... Or not to the degree or level in which (they normally would be)," Bagley said. "Without a doubt, I would attribute some of (the increase in reported shootings) potentially to this, but it’s so new, I don’t know what percentage to put on it."

As shootings have increased, the department has also been tasked with bouncing back from historically low staffing levels experienced during the height of the pandemic. At one point, BCPD was down to only 34 patrol officers (they typically staff 48), which prompted many officers to work considerable overtime.

In March, Bagley indicated the department had 17 new hires in training and would likely need to hire an additional six to eight officers in August.

"I think part of it is as we start to come out (of COVID), and the process now regains traction and we start firing on all cylinders, I think that will help," Bagley said. "We’re starting to get more (officers), build capacity here so that we can get more touches with community interaction and officer foot patrols and sharing information."

The department has received a federal grant for eight Community Outreach and Problem Solving (COPS) officers and hopes to have that team up and running by early summer. Those officers will specifically focus on building relationships within neighborhoods, identifying and helping connect residents with the best resources to solve problems.

"I’m pretty excited about the future," Bagley said. "There’s some things that we’re going to be able to do that (the department) just hasn’t been able to do in years from a capacity standpoint."

Building relationships with the community will remain an emphasis throughout the department. BCPD doesn't want to "arrest its way out of problems," Bagley says, but rather connect at-risk individuals with the necessary resources to turn their lives around.

"We want to give you an opportunity," Bagley said. "The idea is whether you’re a juvenile or an adult, we are here to give you an opportunity to stop this behavior and here’s the resources to do it, we’re here to help. If you don’t, there obviously are consequences.

"If you have questions, call us," Bagley continued. "We are here, we are a resource for this community. Yes, our primary function is to serve and protect this community and that is foundationally what we’re going to do. But we will work with anybody to help plug them in to the right resource so that we can help them."

Community efforts to curb gun violence

Asia Graham wants to bring an end to gun violence in Battle Creek, but she knows she can't do it alone.

Growing up in the Cereal City, Graham experienced the violence in the Washington Heights and Park Hill neighborhoods firsthand. She lost her brother and several friends to gun violence.

"Now that I’m older, it’s still going on, it’s still happening," Graham explained Wednesday. "I just feel like more awareness needs to be brought to it."

In an effort to spark the conversation, Graham hosted "a forum against gun violence in the community" at Washington Heights United Methodist Church in December. The experience was bittersweet, she said.

"It felt good to see the community, to see people come out to support it," Graham said. "But on the other end, the reason why we had to get together for this (was sad)."

Graham intends to facilitate more public conversations around gun violence in the future. It's an issue that needs to remain on residents' minds, she said, rather than fade into the background.

"It’s really sad to know that somebody’s life has been cut so short to a pointless act, it just doesn’t make sense, it’s senseless murders," Graham said. "I just hope it gets better here."

Brown has had his own run-ins with the law.

As a teenager, he was a gang banger with a group of neighborhood friends that called themselves GBL (Gangsters By Law). Later, the Battle Creek native was arrested for selling crack cocaine as part of a federal drug sweep in 2001.

He spent 10 years behind bars before getting out in 2010. In 2012, he returned to prison for an additional two years after violating his parole.

"I tell people like the two years that I went back on violation was harder than the 10 years because I knew better," Brown said. "It just crushed me, I felt like a moron. Here it is, I’m back in the same situation again after I did all that time."

Emerging from that prison stint, Brown was intent on change. In 2017, he launched R.I.S.E. with a focus on reducing violence and trauma caused by traumatic childhood experiences while also helping young people and families in Battle Creek "rise up" from despair and restore relationships with communities, systems and people.

"I’ve always been fascinated with the story of the phoenix, how the phoenix basically crashes and burns and recreates itself," Brown said. "That’s what I did with my life, that’s what I did with the nonprofit organization … I went to prison, what came out of that, what emerged out of that was something much greater, that's the concept of R.I.S.E."

The nonprofit currently feeds 750 families through monthly food distributions and has installed several free Ring doorbells in an effort to curb crime. Brown and his team also visit Northwestern Middle School, Ann J Kellogg Elementary and Verona Elementary multiple times each week to work with students, with a focus on social emotional learning, conflict resolution and cognitive behavior therapy.

Additionally, R.I.S.E. leads after school programs that offer tutoring, games and free meals for kids.

"Somebody has to carry the torch, man," Brown said. "I’ve lost a lot of people, been through a lot, somebody has to tell the story. If I’m still doing the same things and I’m not here, then all of this was in vain. I refuse to let the pain be in vain, that’s what keeps me going."

Contact reporter Greyson Steele at gsteele@battlecreekenquirer.com

This article originally appeared on Battle Creek Enquirer: Police, community take action as shootings rise in Battle Creek