Scholar-activist Liza Chowdhury, executive director of Reimagining Justice Inc./the Paterson Healing Collective in Paterson, New Jersey, visited Assistant Professor Ijeoma Opara’s Community-Based Participatory Research in Public Health class on April 4 to talk about community-based public safety.
The lecture was particularly poignant as it came just weeks after a member of the Paterson Healing Collective team, violence intervention specialist Najee Seabrooks, was shot and killed by police. Seabrooks called 911 on March 3 to report he was having a mental health crisis. He had locked himself in a bathroom and was threatening to kill himself. He was shot to death by Paterson police after he lunged toward two officers with a knife at the culmination of a four-hour standoff.
Seabrooks’ death led to community protests and vigils and questions about whether armed police responded appropriately to a person experiencing a mental health crisis. Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, who is overseeing an investigation into Seabrooks’ death, announced on March 27 that his office was taking over operations of the Paterson Police Department.
Chowdhury talked to the class about addressing violence as a public health issue, and the importance of public health researchers and students collaborating with community leaders to assess community needs and address system-level changes. She and her team described the work of the Paterson Healing Collective, a hospital-based intervention program, and the importance of using people with lived experiences as “credible messengers” in their work to end violence.
Four team members talked to the class about being victims of gun violence, and what made them turn their lives around and serve their community. They also briefly talked about Najee Seabrooks, about how they were still grieving, and encouraged students in the class to help in their efforts to spread awareness about Seabrooks’ untimely death and other victims in communities such as New Haven, of not only gun violence, but police brutality. In addition, Dr. James Pruden, MD, an emergency room physician at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson and the Medical Director of the Paterson Healing Collective, talked about the impact of community violence in the ER and encouraged the students to always include community voices in their research.