Overview:
Since 2007 Richmond has made a concerted effort to curb street violence, and it's paying off.
In 2025 the city had the lowest homicide rate in its recorded history.
Richmondside shadowed some of the people who've helped make a difference by connecting one-on-one with youths, showing them how to choose a non-violent life.
More than three decades ago, Richmond was seen as being among the most dangerous cities in the United States — at its worst point recording 61 homicides in 1991. Today, at least in terms of gun violence, the city is safer than it has ever been, with 2025 seeing the lowest homicide rate in its history, according to a Richmondside analysis of the data.
The turnaround did not come about on its own. After a spike in murders in the early 2000s, in 2007 Richmond was one of the first cities in the state to create an official department with a mission to reduce gun violence: the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS).
“The community was at war with itself,” said ONS director Sam Vaughn in a recent interview with Richmondside.
Ending this war required cultivating a generational culture shift away from using guns to solve conflict, a shift that Vaughn says has reduced the number of homicides. Through inter-generational mentoring, youths who might once have resorted to shooting someone to solve a dispute are shown by elders, those who’ve had similar lived experiences, where that choice leads — death or prison.
“We were never taught to grieve without violence,” said Joe McCoy, the most senior employee at ONS. “If I cry because one of my partners got shot, you’re (going to) feel the same pain. You’re (going to) die.
“That’s just how it is because I’ll kill before I cry. That’s how most of us think,” he continued. “And I say ‘us’ because, hell, I was them at one point.”
2025 Richmond homicides
There were five unlawful homicides in Richmond in 2025 and one fatal shooting that was later ruled to be in self defense. Three of the known victims were males on the streets of the Iron Triangle neighborhood — two at almost the same location.
- Claude Richard III, 43, shots reported July 9; victim found July 10 between Eighth and Ninth streets and Lincoln Avenue, Iron Triangle.
- Jerry Williams, 28, Sept. 19, Ninth Street and Lincoln Avenue, Iron Triangle.
- Griffin Hammond, 20, Nov. 8, Carlson Boulevard and Potrero Avenue. (Later determined to be a justified homicide.)
- Josue Cornejo, 23, Nov. 17, Marina Way and Bissell Avenue, Iron Triangle.
- Larry Russell, 50, Dec. 16, Macdonald Avenue and Third Street, Iron Triangle.
- Romario Raso Garcia, 30s, Dec. 29, 3400 block of Klose Way, Hilltop District.
Most of the cases remain unsolved except for Hammond’s, whose assailant will not face charges, the Contra Costa County district attorney decided. A “person of interest” in Garcia’s killing has been identified, police said. The man, a San Pablo resident who police have not named, shot himself in the parking lot of the San Pablo Police Department on Dec. 30 and remains in critical condition.
Most of those working at ONS have been in trouble in some way. The fact they’ve been infected with violence is what allows them to now become its vaccine, Vaughn said.
Various news outlets previously reported that 2023 was a record-low year for homicides in Richmond, with eight killings. This year has beaten that record with Richmond’s fifth criminal homicide occurring on Dec. 29. (The year was mostly peaceful but didn’t end that way. Four of the six shooting deaths occurred in the last two months of the year.)
In most of the cases, the victims, all men, were shot to death on Richmond streets, with two at almost the same location. A fifth person, a 20-year-old man, was shot to death Nov. 8 in an exchange of gunfire at a convenience store, but the death was ruled to be in self defense and no charges are being filed by the district attorney. One man was killed at 1:45 p.m. in the kitchen of the Richmond IHOP where he was working.
From 2019 to 2020 Richmond’s homicide rate rose by 30%, in line with the national homicide rate — the largest single-year increase in more than a century, according to a Pew Research Study. This year, Richmond’s homicide rate represents a 90% decrease from the 2020 surge.
The dramatic decrease means that Richmond now has the lowest per-capita homicide rate when compared to San Francisco, Oakland and Vallejo.
ONS is trying to change how people resolve conflict
At its core, ONS is trying to change how people resolve conflict. “[Gun violence is] not the way you solve your problems,” Vaughn said. “Folks can have communication about issues and compromise and come to some kind of solution without a gun.”
The ONS program was born out of a partnership between the city of Richmond and inmates from San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, where Vaughn was incarcerated at the time.
The people who were shooting each other in the streets of Richmond, “They got along just fine inside San Quentin,” he said. “We were trying to figure out, why does it take us to have to come here, to get together?” he said. “What can we do to get the streets to understand that?”
“We just came up with ideas, we came up with strategies, we used whatever influence that we had with folks out here to try and encourage them to stay away from gun violence,” Vaughn said.
After serving a 10-year sentence and returning home in 2007, Vaughn began doing outreach for ONS the following year. One of ONS’ founding philosophies is that those who know violence intimately can become the ones who engender peace.
Vaughn started leading the office in 2018 after its first director, DeVone Boggan, left to found Advance Peace, a nonprofit that started similar gun violence reduction programs statewide.
A ride-along with ONS staffers working to prevent gun violence
ONS employs trained neighborhood change agents, such as McCoy, who visit Richmond neighborhoods at risk of gun violence and work to prevent it.
On a recent weekday, Richmondside rode along with two of them, Joe McCoy and Shevvy Franklin, visiting neighborhoods and talking to residents.
We met just after noon at ONS’s Civic Center office and stepped into a Gray Ford Explorer. Our first stop was to get some lunch at Rancho Market and Deli on Market Avenue and Fifth Street to sample a local specialty.
McCoy ordered a Maruchan Ramen cooked with crushed Cheetos puffs and a diced-up hot link, making what they called a “spread” in jail, he said.
Shevvy Franklin picked a more exotic variant with pork rinds, pickles and hot sauce on top, accompanied by a Tropical Mix Sprite. Richmondside sampled one as well.
“The corner is our boardroom, our office is the cars,” said McCoy, who grew up in North Richmond. “All of us have been in some form of trouble before.”
Change agents understand the neighborhoods they work for because they come from them. That lived experience helps them reach those they are trying to help.
“ ‘He did it, I can do it,’ ” McCoy said. “If this cat came home off of a life sentence, and this is what he’s doing now, it gives them hope and the knowledge they can do it too.”
During lunch, Rancho Market’s owner, Eric, who did not want his last name published, said he immigrated from Tanzania and has owned the store for more than 20 years. He told stories of drive-by fatal shootings that happened in front of the store, pointing out the bullet holes. They were casualties of what McCoy called the longest-standing feud in Richmond: A cycle of retaliatory violence that started in 2003 between people in the north and central parts of the city after a car race that ended badly.
During the widespread gun violence of the early 2000s, many people were killed just for being from another part of town. The overwhelming majority of victims were young Black males. In 2007, the year ONS was founded, Richmond reported 47 homicides.
“Our whole strategy was to get between cyclical and retaliatory violence,” Vaughn said. When two or more people are having a conflict, ONS tries to intervene before it escalates.
The other half of the ONS violence reduction strategy is prevention. Its Peacemaker Fellowship, which recruits those most at risk of suffering from gun violence, is a major component of the prevention strategy.
Peacemaker fellows set life goals, are given internship opportunities, life coaching, stipends and even embark on “transformative travels,” which entail having to travel with someone they would normally consider their enemy. Participation is voluntary. The program emphasizes the need for fellows to willingly want to change, instead of using the threat of the justice system.
“Change begins with the individual,” reads a graffiti mural on Harbour Way, seen through the car window as the change agents navigated streets wet and gray with rain.
A study published in 2019 linked ONS to a 55% reduction in gun deaths and hospitalizations. However, it also noted a slight increase in non-firearm violence. The past six years of crime data published by Richmond police shows that, while homicides have significantly decreased from the previous decade, aggravated assault, and to a lesser extent sexual assault, remain elevated.
While crime spiked following the onset of the pandemic in 2020, an analysis of crime data by Richmondside shows that crime rates are, for the most part, lower than in 2019, except for aggravated and sexual assault. This signifies an overall decrease in crime rates.
After lunch, the change agents visited a half dozen subsidized housing communities. It was a rainy day and there was hardly anyone outside.
“These are the projects I grew up in,” said McCoy as we toured North Richmond. Now, he proudly points out, he’s been able to buy a former Section 8 property that he plans to renovate.
Franklin, who is from Vallejo, spotted a youth he knew hanging out with some friends in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
“Oh, that’s little Mike right there,” he said.
“Long time no see, brother. Where you been? What happened?” Franklin said through the window as we pulled up.
“I ain’t gonna lie, no, I’m not alright,” said Mike, “I’m actually fucked up.”
Franklin asked him what had been going on. Before we left, he asked Mike to promise to stop by the ONS office. Daily check-ins are a core aspect of the ONS model and are critical in building community trust.
“Come to class, I’ll holla at you alright? Be safe out here, brother,” said Franklin. The ONS offers weekly life classes, teaching skills such as getting a good credit rating or talking about the definition of manhood, for example.
Franklin and McCoy spent more than two hours driving through Richmond, as McCoy continued to provide this reporter with a run-down on the city’s history and street politics. At about 3:30 p.m., all 11 of the office’s change agents met back at their city office to debrief. Like a circle of elders convening, each shared about the day’s work, who they talked with and the latest happenings around Richmond.
As Richmond gun violence has decreased, ONS has turned from intervention toward prevention. “We’re a violence intervention program, but we’re out here doing tutoring because the data shows if you flop out by ninth grade, you will likely do nothing else than criminal activity,” Vaughn said.
Historically, most of the gun violence has been concentrated in specific communities, such as between former North Richmond housing projects and central Richmond. The ONS says it is successful because it’s been able to geographically target its efforts.
Most of the recent violence, however, has been opportunistic, what Vaughn describes as crimes “of greed or passion.”
Since the violence is not always targeted and it doesn’t necessarily follow a particular pattern, it’s “very difficult to get in the middle of that,” Vaughn said. Additionally, some of the people committing violence are coming from outside of Richmond, change agents said.
Police chief says Richmond “not tolerant” of violence
Incoming Richmond police chief Tim Simmons, in an interview with Richmondside, agreed with Vaughn’s assessment. Most of the crime occurring in the city nowadays are “crimes of opportunity.”
He credits technologies, such as Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR), video surveillance and the use of “Shotspotter” technology, which detects and locates gunshots, with having helped reduce crime overall.
Increasing the police presence and installing surveillance technologies have deterred criminals, who perhaps now go to cities where the police presence is perceived as weaker, such as Vallejo or Oakland, he said.
Simmons said technology has also helped with solving crimes. “Using the ALPR, we’ve been able to close 12 homicides,” he said, referring to using license plate technology to solve older cases. “The moment we get a call that something’s occurred, we have those leads right away.”
Additionally, the Richmond City Council established a crisis prevention program, ROCK (Reach Out with Compassion and Kindness), which responds to non-violent calls to help free up officers for emergencies.
Violence has by no means fully disappeared from Richmond, however. According to Simmons, there were 29 confirmed shooting incidents this year.
“They’re still shooting each other and the whole shit. I just think they’re going somewhere else to do it,” said Franklin.
“Like, here, you know you’re gonna go to jail. I could drive 15 minutes away to Vallejo and have a significantly less chance of being caught,” he said. “You know why they’re not coming through here? It’s because it’s gonna be a repercussion. The city has a higher standard now.”
The chief of police agrees, but argues it’s not just the city government or police that have changed; it’s also the city’s culture.
“We’re not tolerating it as a community,” said Simmons. “All the nonprofits and the churches, like, there’s a sentiment over the last several years that continues to grow, where we’re not going to tolerate this level of violence in our community.”
For Simmons, all of these efforts worked together to create change. “It is the result of this collective synergy to really move the needle, change the tide, change the culture and improve the quality of life,” he said.
For ONS, if gun violence is the lowest it has ever been in Richmond’s history, that’s the result of a generational shift that’s been decades in the making.
“Credit where credit’s due,” Vaughn said. “It’s young people.”
“Using a gun to resolve conflict, they’re just not so willing, that’s their decision. It’s young folks making better decisions,” he said.
“We would love to take credit for it all, but we can’t. It’s them,” said McCoy, during the ride along. “Technically, we are working ourselves out of a job.”
I’ve seen this talked about before. The ONS loves to take credit for the positive changes. But they don’t talk about times when things went south. And they never mention what I believe had a lot more to do with the declining rates.
Richmond used to be ground zero for the turf wars between two major gangs, the Nortenos and the Serrenos. They were responsible for most of the murders in Richmond. And the police force operated very differently. The officers basically went wherever they wanted when they were on duty. If a group of them wanted to have lunch together, they just did it. Half the officers who were on the street could be out of commission, and no one was stopping it. And when they went back out, they tended to stay in the neighborhoods where there was less violence. No one wanted to be stuck between the crossfire of two gangs.
Then, we hired a new chief of police, Chris Magnus. He was from out of town. He’d never lived in California. But our city manager at the time, Bill Lindsey, must have had a sixth sense, because when it came time to hire a new chief of police, he picked Magnus. One of the first changes he made was to assign officers to beats. That meant the patrolled the same area every day, every shift. And they were to get out of their cars when they saw a few neighbors out and introduce themselves. Give them a card with their phone number. And tell them to call if they had any questions. This was art of what’s called community policing. Not many people had heard of it. But Chris Magnus had, and he had a pretty idea it would work in Richmond.
If there was a large group of teenagers hanging out, they weren’t to start running their names for warrants. They were to hold out their hands to shake hands with the teens, introduce themselves, gave them a card and asked them to call any time. Not a word was to be said about the lit cigarettes. Or the empty and half empty beer bottles sticking out of their backpacks.
No one trusted the Richmond police. Even I didn’t trust them. They harassed my son. But when they were told to change, they changed. They stopped profiling when they pulled people over. I got pulled over because they noticed one of my tires was low on air and they wanted to make sure I filled it before it caused other problems. They came to neighborhood parties and picnics, equipped with stickers and police helmets for the kids. They did k-9 demonstrations in t by e parks and showed everyone how just by giving it a scent the dog could find anything. If the music was right and people were dancing, they’d join in.
A lot of us started to trust the police again. We called if we had questions. They gave us answers. They had workshops showing people with old things on their records how to clear them. People still called with questions but they called with information, too. They heard about a retaliation shooting that was planned for that night. Or someone in their high school had a gun in their backpack. Or someone threatened someone else.
I think the changes in the police department, and the resulting changes in people, along with working hard to make Richmond less hospitable to the gangs, had more to do with the drop in the murder rates than anything else. We’ve gone through several different chiefs since then. But each one had worked in Richmond, each in their own beat. They already knew a lot of people. And they knew how well community policing worked. So they continued. And it kept working.
Nothing is perfect. People are human. Some people want to be cops for the wrong reasons and they slip through the cracks when they’re hired. But if they think being an officer means being heavy handed and driving around and stopping people who looked like they were “up to something” because they were walking in the “wrong neighborhood,” they didn’t last long. Not here.
Congratulations to the City of Richmond California on recording its lowest homicide rate in city history. This moment reflects extraordinary leadership, sustained teamwork, and an unwavering commitment to public safety spanning nearly two decades.
Richmond was once the third most dangerous city in the country. The creation of the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) in 2007 marked a decisive shift—one that city leadership has protected and sustained through multiple administrations, from then until now. ONS has remained a consistent and essential thread in the fabric of Richmond’s public safety strategy, proving that lasting change requires endurance, not headlines.
This outcome is the product of at least 18 years of working tirelessly to end what has often been called a “Confused War.” It takes many moving parts—city leaders, practitioners, community partners, and critically, the individuals at the very center of gun violence—choosing healthier, more productive ways to handle conflict without firearms. No single agency deserves sole credit. But credit is absolutely due to the Peacemaker Fellows who made different decisions on the streets, often in moments when the consequences could have been tragic.
While this is a record low in homicides, it does not mean conflict has disappeared. Ongoing and emerging disputes still exist—and many could have turned deadly if not for the courage of those choosing peace and the daily work of people who put themselves in harm’s way to make options, alternatives, and support visible in real time.
For cities watching: there is no cost-free, shortcut, or overnight solution to reducing gun violence year after year—let alone sustaining those gains over nearly two decades. In Richmond, Community Violence Intervention (CVI), facilitated through ONS, was a deliberate and long-term public investment in public safety, funded at the scale of the challenge. City leaders—past and present—understood the power of building and maintaining a peacemaking infrastructure within government.
This is not a one-off. Richmond has demonstrated, year after year, that when cities invest seriously in what works, retaliatory gun violence can become rare and non-recurring.
For those of us who were there, we are not surprised.