On the night of July 4, as families throughout Coney Island gathered for the holiday, gunfire tore through a backyard barbecue in the courtyard of a residence near West 30th Street and Surf Avenue, just blocks from the boardwalk where hundreds were celebrating. Eight members of one family, including four children between the ages of six and fourteen, were shot. It is the kind of night no family should ever have to carry, and in the days since, our hearts have remained with everyone affected and with a community still trying to make sense of the senseless.

There is no program, no policy, and no statement that can undo what this family has been through. What Operation H.O.O.D. can do, and has committed to doing, is to take a stand, refusing to let this violence go unanswered and working to ensure that a tragedy like this does not happen here again.

The Operation H.O.O.D. (Helping Our Own Develop) Cure Violence Initiative is JCCGCI’s community violence prevention program, focused on identifying and mediating conflict before escalation and on changing community attitudes towards gun violence. Right in the heart of Coney Island, a team of violence interrupters and outreach workers, many of them from the area themselves, patrol the neighborhood identifying and intervening early in conflict, before it has an opportunity to incite danger. As it has after every act of violence in this community, Operation H.O.O.D.’s team moved quickly in the hours after the shooting, doing everything possible to reduce tensions and prevent any further harm. 

On July 7, JCCGCI and Operation H.O.O.D. helped convene a Stop Gun Violence event in Coney Island, bringing together those affected by the incident, Crisis Management System partners, and city leadership, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Brooklyn Deputy Borough President Kim Council, among many others who wanted to show their support in this difficult time. Community leaders and members rallied together to have their voices heard, voicing deep concern for the safety of their families and making clear that this community will not stay silent in the face of gun violence. The gathering paused for a profound moment of silence for the victims and their families, honoring what they’ve endured and reaffirming the community’s commitment to standing beside them. 

JCCGCI Executive Director Rabbi Moshe Wiener, who has led the organization’s social service work in this community for more than four decades, used this moment to urge city leaders to take meaningful action that can bring about real change, including steadier, longer-term support for social service programs like Operation H.O.O.D. or our Trauma Recovery Center that empower and uphold the sanctity and wellbeing of the Coney Island community. A social service agency’s responsibility is to show up, to listen, and to share honestly what this community still needs to heal and to be safe.

“Healing takes more than a moment of silence,” said Rabbi Moshe Wiener. “It takes sustained support, and that is what we are asking our city leaders to provide.”

Operation H.O.O.D. follows the Cure Violence model, a public health approach that treats violence not as something inevitable, but as something that can be interrupted, one relationship and one conversation at a time. Trained violence interrupters work to de-escalate conflict before it turns deadly, walk alongside people at the highest risk of violence, and slowly help shift the belief, held onto for too long in too many neighborhoods, that violence is simply part of life here. None of that work is quick or easy, and none of it is finished by a single event or a single news cycle, but it is work that matters, and work that this community cannot afford to go without.

“This isn’t work you can do from behind a desk,” said Terence Rice, Director of Operation H.O.O.D. Coney Island Cure Violence Initiative. “You have to be present, you have to be trusted, and you have to keep showing up long after everyone else has moved on.” 

This kind of work rarely makes headlines, but it happens every day across Coney Island. Outreach workers know the families on their blocks by name. They mediate disputes, connect people to counseling and mental health support, and build the kind of trust that takes years, not weeks, to earn. On Mermaid Avenue, Operation H.O.O.D. runs a community space where young people can find mentors, structure, and a place to belong outside of school hours. It is the quiet, unglamorous work of keeping a neighborhood safe, one relationship at a time. 

The investigation into the July 4th shooting remains ongoing, and city leaders have pledged to pursue accountability. For Operation H.O.O.D. and JCCGCI, though, accountability is only part of what this moment calls for. The deeper commitment, the one this community deserves, is to keep showing up long after the headlines fade, for this family, for the children still processing what they witnessed, and for a Coney Island community that should be able to celebrate the holidays in peace.

👉 Learn more about Operation H.O.O.D. and how it keeps our community strong at www.jccgci.org/programs/community-services/operation-h-o-o-d