Cure Violence

There’s a major leadership shake-up underway at the Peoria nonprofit that partnered with the City/County Health Department in an unsuccessful attempt to launch a Cure Violence program in the city's South Side.

After two years of messy groundwork, any and all efforts to launch Cure Violence Global's gun violence prevention program in Peoria are dead. How it ended up that way depends who you ask.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding intended for Peoria’s now defunct Cure Violence program might be redirected into a different ongoing program aimed at reducing crime.

WCBU has obtained a heavily redacted police report the Peoria County City/County Health Department filed with the Peoria Police Department alleging “theft, obtained by deception,” related to grant funding intended for the Cure Violence program.

The termination of the Cure Violence program has raised questions and prompted a criminal investigation into possible financial malfeasance. Mayor Rita Ali discusses the problems with the program and how the void it left behind can be filled.

Representatives of the Peoria City/County Board of Health say potential criminal financial improprieties prompted the termination of the Cure Violence program.

Two years after the Peoria City/County Health Department stepped in to fund a violence prevention program passed on by the Peoria City Council, the department’s relationship with Cure Violence Global is over.

The Cure Violence gun violence prevention program is moving forward on Peoria’s south side, without the community organization contracted by the health department.

In July, it will be two years since the Peoria City/County Health Department first took up the funding for Cure Violence, a nonprofit emphasizing communication and intervention to end gun violence.

Nearly two years after taking on the cost to fund a pre-assessment passed on by a divided city council, the Peoria City/County Health Department is searching for the first employees for the Cure Violence initiative.