From Grief to Action: How Rochelle Johnson and Safe Streets Helped Reduce Baltimore Homicides

Rochelle Johnson, a mother of five, is instantly recognizable in Penn North: neighbors stop their cars to greet her, children run up for hugs, and adults welcome her check-ins. She moves through her block handing out resources, defusing conflicts and asking people quietly, ‘Do you need anything?’ — the daily work of a violence interrupter.

A personal turning point

Johnson’s community standing grew from profound loss. In 2013 her 19-year-old son was chased and fatally shot on his father’s birthday, just a month before he was to graduate high school. For years she admits she wanted "blood for blood." That began to change after a conversation with the Penn North site supervisor for Safe Streets, a community-led violence intervention program. The supervisor had lost a son at a similar age, and that shared trauma helped Johnson see another path.

Hired by Safe Streets in 2020 as a violence interrupter or credible messenger, Johnson now uses her lived experience to reach people at the highest risk of violence or justice-system involvement. She describes her mission as turning personal pain into prevention, meeting people where they are and building trust before crises escalate.

How the model works

Safe Streets deploys trained interrupters who are rooted in the neighborhoods they serve. These credible messengers draw on shared life experience to mediate disputes, provide referrals for housing, food, addiction treatment and mental health services, and to identify situations that might turn violent so they can intervene early.

“You gotta meet people sometimes where they are. And for a lot of these people, I’ve been where they are,”

City leaders have credited community-led programs like Safe Streets with contributing to a roughly 30% decline in homicides this year compared with 2024, and a more than 50% decline since 2023. Observers also note a broader national trend: an independent analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice found an overall 17% decline in homicides nationwide from January through June of this year versus the same period in 2024.

On the ground in Penn North

At the Safe Streets Penn North site, Johnson leads daily briefings where the team checks for new shootings, reviews mediations and assigns roles for outreach. Colleagues call her the “mayor” and “mother” of the neighborhood — titles earned by going door to door, learning residents’ needs and personal histories, and sticking with families through crises.

Penn North faces persistent challenges: widespread poverty, an open-air drug market and recurring mass overdoses. Johnson understands addiction and trauma firsthand — she says she once struggled with substance abuse and now shares her story so residents don’t see her as distant or judgmental.

Credibility, not authority

The credible-messenger model traces to the work of Eddie Ellis, who argued that people with lived experience of the justice system can mentor others and address drivers of violence. Safe Streets, founded in 2007 and adopted by Baltimore in 2022 as part of a broader Group Violence Reduction Strategy, aims to coordinate law enforcement, social services and community members to reduce gun violence.

Johnson says Safe Streets can do what police sometimes cannot: hold frank conversations with people who fear legal consequences for seeking help. That ability to listen and relate, rather than to punish, helps prevent retaliation and escalation.

Carrying others' trauma and protecting herself

Johnson often intervened in disputes long before she had an official title. She recounts stepping between her son and nephew when they threatened each other, and how her calm, unafraid presence de-escalated them. But the work takes an emotional toll: she must balance being present for the neighborhood with taking breaks when she becomes triggered.

Some days she simply shows up even when she is not fully present, held to the job by deep love for her community and the memory of her son, Dennis Conway. She keeps a photo of his 12-year-old daughter — a reminder of lives affected by violence and of the purpose that keeps her going.

Impact and community trust

Residents such as Artes Elliot and Bryan Lievers describe feeling safer when Safe Streets is active on the block. They credit interrupters with preventing conflicts from escalating and with connecting families to resources they otherwise wouldn’t receive. The program’s effectiveness, supporters say, lies in its ability to build trust and sustained relationships in neighborhoods that have long experienced trauma and mistrust of formal institutions.

Johnson puts it simply: “If it took the life out of me to help these people in my community, I would let it. Why? Because I know there’s a better way. I was once one of them.”