DC Office for Neighborhood Safety and Engagement under scrutiny after Trayon White indictment

WASHINGTON — In the wake of DC Councilmember Trayon White’s federal indictment on bribery charges, some of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s top officials faced tough questions about the city’s violence interrupter program Monday.

Inside a packed hearing room for the DC Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, Pastor Delonte Gholston of the Peace Fellowship Church in Deanwood pleaded for change.

“All we want to do is to have a city in which all of us can thrive,” Gholson said. “But there is no vision for prevention. I would not dare say that prevention is broken I would say right now it looks like it was designed to fail.”

Some argue the District’s violence interrupter program is broken. Others went so far as to say it was set up to fail by the Bowser administration, from the start.

Councilmember Trayon White’s arrest on federal bribery charges put a spotlight on the agency that administers the D.C. Government’s violence interrupter program, the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, or “ONSE” office.

White allegedly took tens of thousands of dollars from a confidential FBI informant in return for pressuring city officials to direct multi-million-dollar government contracts to the informant’s violence interrupter programs, including one called LifeDeeds.

Court records indicate one of the people White was allegedly being paid off to try and influence was “ONES” interim director Kwelli Snead. White pled not guilty, and Snead is not accused of wrongdoing. She would not comment on White’s indictment or whether she felt pressured by him to steer contracts to LifeDeeds because the investigation is ongoing.

In the wake of the scandal, some have argued the ONES office should be shut down.

Others say it needs to be fixed and better funded by the Bowser administration. But virtually everyone complained that ONSE is plagued by a confusing and frustrating application and approval process for violence interrupter grants.

“I don’t know how this program ran off the rails so fast,” Councilmember Briane Nadeau said. “It had so much promise when we passed it.”

Snead and her supervisor, DC’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Lindsey Appiah, defended the Bowser administration, crediting DC’s violence interrupter program, including LifeDeeds, for helping bring down gun violence by 40% city-wide.

But Councilmember Brianne Nadeau grilled Sneed on that now infamous LifeDeeds partnership, noting the company had a previous contract with the city for other services canceled years prior due to falsified documents.

Snead said she found out about White’s attest “on the news.”

“Professionally, I wanted to ascertain a little more information,” Snead said.

D.C. initially announced it was canceling LifeDeeds contracts. But on Monday Appiah told DC Councilmembers the city decided to extend the company’s violence interruption services through the end of the year so that the city has time to find a proper replacement for the areas that the company serves.