Violence prevention efforts continue in Minneapolis after second mass shooting in 2 weeks

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: A barrage of bullets in South Minneapolis sent eight people to the hospital last night. Minneapolis Police say five of the victims are boys under the age of 18. Another was an 18-year-old, along with a man and a woman in their 40s. The shooting happened in front of a grocery store near East Franklin and Chicago Avenues.

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BRIAN O'HARA: We have information indicating that at least two gunmen fled from the scene on foot northbound on Elliott Avenue from Franklin Avenue. We believe that at least one assault weapon was used in this incident. We're asking for anyone with information to contact the Minneapolis Police.

CATHY WURZER: That was Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara. He told KARE11 that 41 shell casings from three different calibers of ammunition were found at the scene. No arrests have been made. It's the second mass shooting in Minneapolis in 10 days. A total of 14 people who were shot or grazed and one person who died.

And when those victims go to the hospital, there's now a network of support helping them get back on their feet and making sure they don't end up shot and in the hospital again. It's called Next Step. It's a partnership between the city of Minneapolis and Hennepin Healthcare, North Memorial, and Abbott Northwestern Hospitals. Joining us is Kentral Galloway, the Director for Next Step. Welcome to the program.

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: And that shooting last night, Kentral, six of these gunshot victims were at HCMC, that's a level one trauma center that gets a lot of gunshot victims. So walk us through what happens with Next Step from the time the victim shows up at the ER to the time they're discharged?

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: So what happens, I have a team who will respond directly into what we call, the stabilization room, where they're brought in by the ambulance. And then they will start to connect with the patient if the patient is able to conversate or wait til the nurses and doctor staff have said the person is medically stable, and that's where we start having the conversation about what happened to them, who's going to show up to the hospital for their family so we can go out there and connect with their families, let them know what's happening inside of the hospital so that they know that their loved one is getting equitable treatment as they're coming up to respond to the event that just took place.

CATHY WURZER: Is there any special things you have to do for some of the younger patients who are victims of violent crime? I mean, four of these victims, gosh, they were in their teens.

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: Well, I think the most thing is also building their relationship with their parents, letting their parents know how we can support them as they're supporting their child. So we're building a relationship not only with the child but also with the parent because you have to make sure you're supporting the parents so that they can support their child through this healing process as they understand what happened to them because their lives are forever changed and will never be the same once they leave the hospital.

CATHY WURZER: I think people don't understand that. You can heal physically, right? It depends on the injuries, but as you say, you're never going to be the same. Is that physical and mental?

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: Correct. Maybe you'll here physically, but you still won't heal-- you won't be what we per se normal. And as far as the mental and social aspect of it, yeah, your life has changed forever. You will never go-- you'll have a new normal.

CATHY WURZER: How do you make that clear to a young person?

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: You just try to just, again, support them and let them know because really folks are sitting in the hospital thinking, why did this happen to me? What did I do wrong? And you just have to reassure them that they didn't do anything wrong and that they can overcome this and there's a different path to make sure that they don't end up in that same situation again, and just helping them heal. So you have to help them think long-term because right now when they're in the hospital, they're thinking short-term or they're thinking-- because their safety net has been shattered and you have to help them put that back together.

CATHY WURZER: You mentioned safety net. Do you help some of these individuals literally find a safe haven after an injury?

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: Yes. So in every situation it's different, but we do help with that. We help folks sometimes if the shooting took place at their house and they just can't go back to their house, we help them find a different spot to live, but that takes time. We have relocated folks to different parts of the city, to different parts of Hennepin County, to different parts of Minnesota, to even out of state. So every situation is different, and we just try to figure out what best works for that particular family or patient.

CATHY WURZER: I got to say, when you think of a hospital, ER and someone being brought in with a gunshot injury, you don't think of it as a place to help the person get housing assistance or other support like that, even a job, right, because you deal with job assistance too. I mean, you deal with everything. Is that the key parts of the work?

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: That's some of the work. The key part of the work is building a relationship with the folks and letting them re-humanize them because they're coming in and they're traumatized. And sometimes our hospital systems retraumatize them. So we're there to disrupt their retraumatization and re-humanize folks, and help get rid of that stigma so that they can understand that their lives are valuable, that they do matter, and start to build that, again, like I said, that safety net and support for them knowing that they have an advocate inside the hospital because the health system is challenging in itself, and letting them know that they have an advocate inside of that health system.

So it really is the relationships that we build with folks because that relationship is lifelong lasting as long as they need their relationship because like I said, their lives are changed forever. And yes, being able to provide some of the short-term financial ability that we can, or providing them opportunities to go get their education, or help give support for their mental health or anger management that they experience through their traumatic event, that does help, but like I always say, the most special part is the relationship that we build with them because being shot is not normal.

So we have to help folks understand that they're going to get a not-normal response when they show up to the hospital, including their family. So we're there to make sure that folks don't go back outside in the community to do something irrational because something happened to their loved one, and provide a space where they can heal, and get some understanding about what's happening to their loved ones inside of the hospital.

CATHY WURZER: I'm glad you said that getting shot is not normal because I think some of us think in this society, it's almost normalized given how much it happens, right? And when you get to the hospital, the response is not normal either.

You mentioned stigma. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that when the victim gets to the hospital? What about-- what kind of stigma are you referring to?

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: So that's one thing. You'll hear from my team, we probably won't ever say the word victim, we say survivors, because the word victim already has a stigma to them of folks who feel like they're weak, they can't recover. So we use the word survivor to bring up resiliency to folks so that they are able to hear our message as we're speaking to them.

And the stigma that comes in is people who are survivors of a violent crime, there's just like-- they're usually saying they're gang members, or that they were in some type of criminal activity, or they were somewhere where they shouldn't have been. And the truth be told, that's usually not the case. It's usually just innocent bystanders who are going by their daily life.

CATHY WURZER: So I got to ask you, because you're working here and you get to talk to people, you see things, you hear things, what the heck is going on with so many of our young people being shot at or doing the shooting? What do you think is at the root of this?

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: Well, there is a large-- that's a huge question, but I would say, generational poverty, generational lack of investment in communities of color. I would say access to firearms for folks who don't need it. We had COVID where people were locked in their houses for a while. We had the murder of George Floyd. We have a lot of folks who are out there hurts. I always say hurt people hurt people. And we as a community have to figure out how do we help people heal because then healed people heal people.

CATHY WURZER: All right. I appreciate your time here. Thank you so very much.

KENTRAL GALLOWAY: Yes, thank you for having me.

INTERVIEWER: We've been talking to Kentral Galloway, Director for the program called Next Step.