Outreach workers support Portland gun violence survivors in effort to deter retaliation

A lot happens immediately after someone is shot. Police are normally called. Paramedics and emergency room doctors and nurses spring into action. In Portland and some other cities, another team is on call, as well. Counselors with the Healing Hurt People program quickly head to OHSU or Legacy Emanuel hospitals to talk to victims, along with their friends and family, with one overarching goal: to stop a cycle of violence and prevent more people from being hospitalized or killed.

The program serves people of color between 10 and 35 years of age. That’s the target demographic because young Black men in Portland are much more likely than members of other groups to be both the victims and perpetrators of gun violence.

Roy Moore oversees the Healing Hurt People program, which recently expanded to serve patients at OHSU. He joined OPB’s “Think Out Loud®” to talk about the work he and his team do in hospitals and beyond.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Dave Miller: I want to start with the calls that you get after a shooting. So, someone has been shot. They’re taken to a hospital, at some point you get a call. How much information are you given?

Roy Moore: Our staff is considered to be a part of the care team. So, we are given the patient’s name, the situation and what room they’re in. And a lot of times because the work that we’re embedded in throughout our community and other programming that we have, we’re alerted through our own group chat and we know the dynamics of the situation before we even arrive a lot of times.

Miller: Dynamics of the situation. What do you mean by that?

Moore: I oversee a team [doing] street-level outreach. We have our Trauma and Violence Impacted Family Program. We have our life coaches and intensive case managers. These are people from the community, working with those who are highest risk, most affected. So, through that relationship building in the community, we really have a pulse of a lot of the beefs and the confrontations that are happening. So, when we do arrive, we have as much knowledge as possible to really be effective.

Miller: Does that mean that you might get a text or a message about a shooting before you get a call or a page from the hospital?

Moore: Yes. Unfortunately, we had to respond early [Thursday] morning and we were there before they could even give us a call.

Miller: What could you tell us about what happened [Thursday] morning?

Moore: We had a victim who was attacked at his home and we arrived and we were familiar with the family and the victim. And so we were able to do our outreach. Luckily, he survived a very traumatic event, but we were there in real time, in that moment to not just be there for him, but to be there for his family. And so we’re working throughout the day to mitigate any risk, helping with the family’s needs. As the victim, he’s not the only one affected. So, we want to really provide a wraparound, robust service for not just him, but his whole family.

Miller: Can you describe the scenes that you often find in a waiting room or I suppose, during the height of COVID, outside hospitals? When you arrive on the scene, what do you see?

Moore: A lot of times, that’s a very volatile situation. It’s a lot of emotions. People are scared; people are hurt. So, we walk in and, once again, having that relationship is vital to our program and so we want to be there. What I say often is, there’s a lot going on, especially for the victim. You have nurses, you have doctors, you have officers saying, “Hey, what happened?” They want to get information. We come in and we say, “What do you need?” We hire people who are credible messengers. So, they often are survivors of gun violence themselves and they know what it’s like to be in that hospital bed. Really having that trauma-informed approach when we’re there providing services is really effective and not just helping them, but being able to be a support system in that moment.

Miller: When you ask that question – “what do you need?” – if that’s the one of the big differences that separates what you’re doing there from police officers or even from doctors and nurses, what’s the range of responses you get?

Moore: That’s tough because every situation is different and in that moment, it’s traumatic not only for the victims, but for us. And so the responses are anything from, “I need some water,” to “Is my friend, okay?” if it was multiple victims, to “I need to talk to my mom,” or “Oh my God, I’m so happy to see you!”

Miller: What about one of the big reasons you’re there, which is to prevent acts of retribution, to stop a cycle of violence? Do you hear people saying from their from their bed, “I know who did this, and as soon as I get out, I’m going to take care of it”?

Moore: That’s a big part of our job. We understand the dynamics. So, a part of our job is diffusing not only the victim’s anger and rage, which is understandable at that time, but also finding family and friends, people who are influencers within that group and really, really trying to engage them. We have a method that we call “play the tape out.” If we’re able to help them play the tape out of what it would look like if they do act on these natural emotions, we like to say, “I don’t want to come back here to see you tonight,” and when we’re able to break through in that moment and then we know that there was no retaliation that night, that’s a win. And that’s our program working at its best, along with the follow-up care and the case management provided by our credible messengers. It’s powerful work and we know we’ve done our job.

Miller: That’s such an interesting way to track the wins. You go, in a sense, night by night. If there isn’t retribution, if there isn’t another shooting related to that one in the next 24 hours, that is the beginning of a win. That itself is a win for you.

Moore: For us, that’s a win. That’s the data we can’t capture, but we know the impact. And when we talk to family members down the line as we’re providing support — the mother that thanks us for talking to her older son who was ready to go hurt somebody that night — you can’t measure that. You can, but you can’t measure the impact in the way it makes us feel and us knowing that our job is really having an impact.

Miller: How different is the message that you’re giving when you dig to the root of it, how different is it from turning the other cheek, saying “I’m going to let bygones be bygones”? I’m just wondering how you can convince someone to to buy into that after they have almost been killed or their friend was killed.

Moore: That’s the beauty of this and the reason why it’s an evidence-based best practice and speaking for somebody who’s laid in that hospital bed before, within that four hours, shortly after that event happening is when a person is most likely to decide to make some life changing decisions. And then really honing in on that because no matter if you’re the hardest gang member or you’re just an innocent bystander, in that moment is when I can reach you and say, “Look at this situation.” And so I think that’s the beauty of it is being relatable but also them understanding that we’re there to help them heal and then that breakthrough happens a little bit easier. It doesn’t always happen, and that’s just the challenge and like you said, that’s the nature of that situation. But the beauty of showing up within that four-hour window gives us our best opportunity.

Miller: The phrase you used to describe the role that you and other members of this team plays is that you’re “credible messengers,” meaning you have your own experience with all of this. In your case, a variety of experiences — you were shot yourself and a number of people closest to you were shot and killed. My understanding is that you were shot when you were in Las Vegas about 18 years ago. What can you tell us about what happened?

Moore: I was caught up in a lifestyle. I was living a fast life. I wasn’t the person who I am today and literally I don’t know who did it, but I was literally driving down the Las Vegas strip, turned on the street and a car pulled up on the side of us and shot eight times into the car. Luckily, my life was spared. But understanding in that traumatic event, I watch my life pass before my eyes, and it’s scary, and I wish I had somebody when I was in the hospital doing what I do with me in that moment. I know I could have not only healed faster and had less trauma, but I would have changed my life a lot earlier than I did.

Miller: What was going through your mind? And so clearly as you’re saying, you wish you’d had someone like you back then. In the absence of that, what were you experiencing?

Moore: Anger. I felt lonely. I was scared. Not knowing the situation, I feared for my life. [I felt] very untrusting to even people closest around me because when you don’t know and something like that happens, it sends a paranoia through your body, through your situation that you can’t explain. And so lots of emotions, lots of fear and confusion.

Miller: But as I noted, that was far from the only time that you were impacted by gun violence. I have read that your best friend was killed in front of you in 1998 and that two of your cousins were fatally shot in 2005 and 2006. At those times, in the mid-2000s, did you have revenge on your mind?

Moore: I think that’s a natural feeling that you have when you lose somebody close to you, especially to gun violence. I don’t mind being honest: I’m a recovering drug addict. I was deep in my addiction and so I think I wasn’t present. I just was dealing with a lot of trauma, a lot of self destruction, but those feelings are real, and I can admit that those were things that I contemplated and real feelings that I had to deal with and fight through.

Miller: What made the difference for you personally in terms of taking your life in a different direction?

Moore: My older brother OD’d off of opiates [in] 2012. I myself was a drug addict. And so I think losing him, along with family members, and seeing so many community members affected by gun violence, once I started changing my life, it really became my passion to give back. And it fuels me to this day, to want to see people come out of it the way I did and to really, really see happiness coming from all this darkness is really what moves me.

Miller: You also noted though, that not only is everything we’re talking about supremely traumatic for the people who are experiencing it, the person in that hospital bed or their family and friends, but it’s also traumatic for the people like you who are going to help. I mean, you just said that that doing this work fuels you, but I imagine it could also drain you.

Moore: Yeah, you have to find balance and the organization I work for, they do a really good job of providing support. Even with my staff, we have weekly check-ins and process groups. We have a training that we do, its called “Who Heals the Healer?” and it gives us a chance to really address grief and the vicarious trauma that we’re feeling because, once again, this is not easy work and you have to really, really give yourself a space and a time to decompress. And so we really support our staff and my organization really supports me and allows me to have those moments to do self care.

Miller: I was struck by just how young your target demographic is. It’s age 35 down to the age of 10. Do you see victims who are that young?

Moore: Yeah, I’ve shown up for victims at the age of three. And on paper and per contract, it’s 10 to 35, but we ask our hospital partners to even give us a call for victims and patients as high as 44 or 48 because we do know trends happen and the demographic changes. So, once again, I’ve shown up for a three-year-old, for a five-year-old affected by gun violence, as high as up to a father of four who was 52 years old. We’re there trying to support all our victims.

Miller: You noted that evidence has shown that in the first four hours after a shooting, that interventions then can play a big role in defining how someone’s going to eventually react. But you also said that that’s just the beginning. So, what happens after people leave the hospital? What kinds of ongoing resources does your team provide?

Moore: We do hospital follow-up care with the doctors and if they’re in the hospital for a longer stay, we do follow-up care, but we can keep a client up to 18 months on our caseload, getting intensive care, but it’s not limited to even 18 months. We have people we’ve worked with since 2018. We want to create a life safety plan and work with our clients towards reaching those goals. Some of the services we provide are education support, of course employment, trauma therapy, substance abuse support. We help with relocation. A lot of times, the threat of retaliation is real. So, we help relocate our clients, and we also provide support around medical bills and then the intensive case management. We call it “intense” because they spend every day connecting with a victim for 90 days. After that, it’s three days a week, and it’s really building that relationship and helping them towards reaching their life safety plan goal.

Miller: How would you describe your relationship with the Portland Police Bureau these days?

Moore: You know, they have a job to do and I have a job to do. Understandably, they have their problems and their issues that they’re dealing with. But what I can say [is] it’s effective for us both to understand what our lanes are and to respect our lanes. So, when I’m in the hospital and an officer is there to talk to a patient, I walk out and I allow him to do his job. I will never be in there when an officer is in there. But them understanding what I’m there to provide also helps that relationship have that song and dance that I think is needed because I’m on the community side and their lane is something totally different. But I think a mutual respect and understanding of the services we both provide and the importance of them is vital to us being here for our community.

Miller: I imagine that by virtue of the networks you’ve built up over time and the relationships you’ve built up, that you may very well know more about what happened, what led to a shooting, than police may know at times. Do they ask you for information?

Moore: Oh, no, not at all. One thing is we’re credible messengers and we don’t work closely with them in that capacity at all to even have that situation. But I think there’s enough understanding of what my program provides and the importance of it for that line never to be crossed, and I appreciate that in that moment. But definitely that’s something that we don’t have to deal with, and that’s a great thing.

Miller: Do you think that the premise of my question is wrong? I mean, do you think there are times when you do know more than the police investigators know?

Moore: I think there’s times that we’re hearing things that they may not hear. Of course, they do their investigation thing, and they know more than we will ever know. But I think there’s times where we understand maybe the situation before we get the concrete details. So, I’m not ruling that out, of course, because we’re boots on the ground and we have a pulse to the community. I’m sure that’s a fair statement. But in the same token, I think a lot of times they know more than we do. We walk in there blind, and so I think it’s a it’s an even keel.

Miller: How are you feeling right now, as we just entered spring and are getting to the summer when, traditionally, there have been increases in shootings, even before the huge spikes we saw in the last year or two? I’m just curious what you see coming.

Moore: Yeah, this is usually trauma season coming up. But the last couple of years have been unprecedented, and we don’t have that no more. We’re seeing violence in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen ever before. So, I’m hoping that we will truly have an impact now that I know that other community partners are really diving into this work and we’re building capacity. We just entered into our relationship with OHSU, so I have hope for the future, and as I get more responders and more staff on my team, I know we can have a greater impact. And so I’m excited, but I also understand that weather is changing, we’re kind of coming out of the pandemic, there’s a potential of increases and so we’re preparing for that. But we’re also hopeful that we can have an impact once again.

Miller: And hoping you don’t get calls?

Moore: And hoping we don’t get calls, yes.

To listen to Think Out Loud’s conversation with Roy Moore, click the “play” button at the top of the page.