GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Three people were found dead blocks away from each other in Grand Rapids earlier this week, all in the span of a few hours. The victims were later identified as Anayia Rodriguez, Malik Eubanks and Darryl Yarber.
All this week, neighbors and officials have responded to this tragedy as the community grieves.
Dr. Patrick Carter, M.D., with the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention says this shooting is merely a sign of the times.
“We know that firearm injuries, firearm violence has been increasing, especially interpersonal violence, as a cause for these types of homicides,” says Carter.
He says interpersonal firearm violence has been on the rise nationwide since before the pandemic.
“We know there’s a cycle of violence,” adds Carter. “Oftentimes portends additional incidents in the future. That retaliation is a key driver of some of these incidents.”
Dr. Carter says changes need to be made for events like Monday to become part of the past.
“Efforts for prevention are really focused on: How do we break that cycle? How do we interrupt that cycle?” says Carter.
He says the cycle can best be broken at the individual level.
“There’s individual things we can be doing, one-on-one with people, to decrease their involvement in violence,” says Carter, “addressing issues like conflict resolution that occurs in nonviolent ways, [like] anger management, reducing risk factors for violent involvement, things like substance use, and addressing mental health issues.”
Carter explains addressing systemic issues at a community level is a key part to the puzzle.
“How do we change the nature of neighborhoods or communities where there may be high levels of violence?” Carter says. “How do we induct in those communities? Issues like unemployment, address issues like homelessness, that may be driving some elements of the violence we’re seeing.”
Making matters worse, witnessing these types of events can have a lasting impact on one’s psyche.
“We know that these incidents are not single incidents that involve just one or two people,” says Carter. “Often these things involve a community. … The effects of that on a community are huge. We know that there’s mental health outcomes and trauma that occurs as a result to exposure of perpetual violence in communities.”
The University of Michigan Institute of Firearm Injury Prevention runs two anti-violence programs in West Michigan. One is SafERteens, which is a violence intervention program based at Trinity Health Muskegon Hospital. The other is the Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center.
