RACINE \u2014 The brother is talking like he wants revenge. The brother, 23, was saying things like \u201cThat\u2019s my little brother\u201d and \u201cnobody has ever done anything to him without me doing something about it\u201d after his 21-year-old brother was shot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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![\"Nakeyda](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/journaltimes.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/6\/0b\/60bdd844-1813-11ed-b53e-271bd6e22807\/62f2ab2e76b34.image.jpg?resize=150%2C325)
\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> <\/p>\n Haymer<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n For Nakeyda Haymer, those words are triggers. They set off alarm bells. \u201cThey may be thinking about violence,\u201d about seeking and carrying out revenge violently. Haymer has made it her role to be an interrupter in those moments. To break up negative, potentially dangerous, thoughts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhen we look at the science, we see that sticky solutions work best,\u201d Thomas Abt, a Harvard-educated former public school teacher and ex-prosecutor considered a national leader in violence reduction research, said in a 2020 TED Talk. \u201cTo put it bluntly, you can\u2019t stop shootings if you won\u2019t deal with shooters. And you can\u2019t stop killings, if you won\u2019t go where people won\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Haymer is willing to go where the killings happen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She knows how to intervene and to talk to those freshly traumatized because she\u2019s gone through it. Her big brother was murdered in 2017. She remembers the anger. The sadness. The feeling like she needed to do something even when there was nothing that could be done. Her brother was gone<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf that trauma or those thoughts are left with nothing positive to follow them, he (the 23-year-old) may have people who come and confirm those negative things,\u201d Haymer said. \u201cSo I want to be the one to intervene right now and tell him: \u2018That\u2019s not the way. I\u2019ve been there. I\u2019ve experienced those things. But, instead of going that way, I chose to do this instead to honor my brother. That\u2019s why I\u2019m before you today.\u2019 I\u2019m letting him know: because I did the right thing I\u2019m here talking to you; if I had done the wrong thing, my family would have lost me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Right now, she volunteers through the nonprofit Voices of Black Mothers United by actually responding to scenes of crisis \u2014 like shootings \u2014 and finding the loved ones of those hurt. That’s how he came to connect with the 23-year-old whose brother was shot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When she gets a call or sees on Facebook there was a shooting in Racine, she goes to the block where it happens. She finds the family. She tries to be the first person to support them, before someone who might encourage revenge can plant a bad idea in their ears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Otto<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Haymer can stop someone from committing a shooting before they even pick up a gun. She\u2019s a \u201cviolence interrupter,” said Hope Otto, Racine County human services director.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Racine County government has formalized a full-time, first-of-its-kind position inspired by Haymer\u2019s work and based on Abt\u2019s research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Haymer is a frontrunner to be hired as the county’s first Violent Crime Reduction Coordinator<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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