Violence Interrupters

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser is proposing a small increase in the police department’s half-billion-dollar budget for the coming fiscal year, which includes money to hire additional officers to help confront the rising number of homicides.

D.C. leaders have hired Violence Interrupters to help fight the District's wave of violent crime. WUSA 9 looks at who is fighting to "Cure the Streets."

WASHINGTON — Walking some of D.C.’s most dangerous streets, a yellow T-shirt-clad team of ex-convicts and former gang members are being paid to root out and mediate problems in neighborhoods before they escalate.

Emotions ran high in a room full of people who gathered last December to talk about the spike in homicides in D.C.

They’re on the front lines, talking and listening to those who might be close to pulling the trigger.

The boys, barely in their teens, were angry. A young man they knew had been shot dead.