Author: Vinny Vella

For five glorious Sundays this summer, there was peace in Chester.

In places like the William Penn Homes and Chester Apartments, where children are often encouraged to stay indoors, shut away from the threat of gang violence, it was finally safe to play outside during the height of what is normally the most dangerous time of the year.

Roving carnivals nicknamed “Sunday Fun Days” were organized and held in Delaware County’s lone city, in areas that had weathered a surge in violence in recent years. A few bounce houses, some water ice, and communities breathing sighs of relief were rewards for keeping the peace, and motivation to continue that trend.

The parties, according to Geo Stockman, the lead gun violence interventionist with Making a Change Group, came during one of the safest summers on record in the city: Not a single fatal gunshot was fired in Chester during that time.

It was a result that local police and county prosecutors say they have been working toward these last few years, through a combination of advocacy work and interventions by groups like Stockman’s.

“This opened up the neighborhoods. It gave them a reason to say, ‘Let’s try something else, people are really looking out for us now, maybe we should put this down,’” Stockman said. “People are always telling people to stop doing something without offering them something in this place. So that’s what we did this summer. We offered them something in its place.”

The block parties were a new addition to the programs offered by the Chester Partnership for Safe Neighborhoods (CPSN), an initiative launched by the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office in 2020.

The program takes a holistic approach to combating gun violence, targeting teens and young adults at risk of committing crimes and offering them services, mediation, or counseling before they resort to violence.

In its five years of operation, CPSN has seen a 65% reduction in shootings overall and a 74% reduction in fatal shootings. And since the summer, only two fatal shootings have been recorded in Chester, which prosecutors say still puts the city on pace for one of its most peaceful years on record.

“Violence comes from a place of, of hopelessness, of despair. Just anger, resentment, and feeling like you’ve been left behind, like nobody cares,” Stockman said.

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He spoke from experience, as a lifelong Chester resident who spent time in prison for mistakes made on the streets of his hometown.

“That’s what makes what we do so effective. Most of us want to be stopped, but nobody stops us,” he said. “Nobody takes the time to say, ‘I’m gonna be the one to calm you down.’ It really only takes somebody with a clear mind that they understand to say, ‘Nah, that ain’t it.’”

Stockman said he and his team have successfully mediated 130 disputes between rival neighborhoods in the last two years. They settled petty arguments, usually started on social media, that were clearly heading toward a violent conclusion.

“This is a small community, so your reputation goes further than just the neighborhood you’re from,” said Gregory “G-Code” Graves, who works with Stockman.

Graves said the anti-violence messaging works because it’s coming from people the intended audience can identify with.

“We’ve been through the vetting process in all these neighborhoods, so even if it’s a little hesitation at first, it doesn’t take a great deal of persuasion to get them to come to us,” Graves said. “And we come in with meaningful things that’s going to help the situation.”

For District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, those results are exactly what he envisioned when he brought CPSN to the county five years ago, building it on models used successfully in other cities, including Boston.

And he is confident that the program will continue to thrive without him, as he runs for a county judgeship in the Nov. 4 election.

“People have bought into the strategy. They’ve seen it work now, and they just wanna keep it going,” he said.

Stollsteimer said making Chester safe was one of his priorities when running for district attorney in 2019. Similar programs, he said, had failed before because of a lack of buy-in from officials.

This time was different — Mayor Stefan Roots became a fixture at the Sunday Fun Day parties.

Roots said the weekly parties presented a rare opportunity for residents to meet the people making decisions that affect their everyday lives. And, in turn, allowed him and other officials to have open, honest dialogue with people living in communities most affected by gun violence.

The conversation flowed naturally, he said. No pressure. No pretense.

“This is something that’s never, never happened before,” he said. “The relationship between the city and the county is really welcome. And the results are showing themselves.”

Roots said he lost count of how many residents came up to him at the parties to talk about their own efforts to curb violence in their neighborhoods. People, he said, who told him that the block parties, and the gun violence interventions that preceded them, were a welcome sigh of relief.

“They told me that, sometimes, they don’t want to be ‘the man with the cape.’ They want to go on and have a life, too,” Roots said.