Targeting Retaliation: Stopping the chain reaction of gun violence in Paterson, NJ
The Paterson Healing Collective has been working to reduce shootings in the city since 2020. This is the story of the work they do and the lives they touch.
Michael Karas is a visual journalist at NorthJersey.com and The Record. After years in which he often reported several stories a day, Karas recently devoted all his time to a single story: A documentary about an anti-violence organization called the Paterson Healing Collective. We wanted to learn more about the project, and this important group. This conversation has been edited for clarity, and condensed for length.
Hi Mike. So, what’s your film about?
The video is on the Paterson Healing Collective, which is a violence interruption group that is based out of St. Joseph University Medical Center in Paterson. So when someone is shot, they go to the hospital, and this group tries to reach out to them, help them with whatever they need, but also try to get them not to retaliate for being shot. They do great work. They’ve been around since 2020. We’ve all known about them, but we haven’t done an in-depth video project about them. So this seemed like a great subject, and I was given the chance to do it.
How did you get the people involved in this work to trust you?
I’ve been buzzing around this for a while. Knowing that I would really need to spend a lot of time working on it. They do a tremendous amount of work, and so this project would take a lot of time. I made contact with them probably more than a year ago, and I was checking in with them sporadically. I would just drop in on them and try to spend as much time as I could with them while doing my daily stuff. So I think that helped let them know that I was very interested in telling their story. Just being around so much, I think that helped me gain their trust. And then once I started this project they were completely invaluable to introducing me to other people. Very often, gaining trust is one of the hardest things we have to do as journalists. But they would vouch for me, and that helped tremendously with getting people to tell me their stories and trusting me.
Can you tell me some details about how this group actually interrupts cycles of violence?
The collective is made up of a lot of people who have been in that situation themselves before. They have been shot. They’re also Paterson residents and they know a lot of people. So when they show up to provide assistance — and that can be medical assistance, it can be contacting the victim’s family — a lot of times they know the person. I think that goes a long way with getting the person to buy in to what they’re saying, which is not to retaliate. It’s really connecting with the person. And more than that, they genuinely want to help. This is their life’s mission is helping people. And I think the person who was shot sees that. I think that genuine desire to help is what makes the connection.
What happens after that initial meeting in the hospital to help shooting victims restart their lives?
The collective helps shooting victims with whatever they might need, and that can be housing, that can be finding a job, that can be helping them move out of an area where they don’t feel safe anymore.
How do you shoot these videos with people in tense situations? How do you get everything you need on video?
It’s usually I feel that I’ve exhausted the person. Basically, I don’t want them to get sick of me. So if someone is talking about something that was traumatic in their life, or they’re letting me witness something where they’re incredibly vulnerable, I feel like I can’t ask for too much more than that. So I leave.
How about the parts of the video that show the feel and vibe of Paterson? How did you shoot and edit those elements so they’re emotionally powerful and still concise?
It was something I thought about a lot because this video is considerably longer than what I would normally do. It’s about 13 minutes. That’s a lot of film that I need. I always start with the narrative. I start editing the interviews and putting them on the timeline, and then putting the other shots over it. As I did that, there were gaps. There were places where I needed atmosphere. We’re talking about Paterson, so I needed to show it.
Elsewhere in New Jersey, Paterson has a bad reputation for violence and drug dealing. Many of our readers in other parts of the metro region express fear of Paterson and the people who live there. How do you go about humanizing people who live in Paterson?
I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it like that. I just approach every project that I’m working on with a lot of empathy. That’s just the approach I’m always taking, and these are the stories I like to do.
Michael Karas is a visual journalist at NorthJersey.com. He has produced award-winning videos and photographs documenting challenging topics and engaging personalities, including a docuseries about young athletes playing for their futures during COVID, and the experiences of former inmates adapting to post-pandemic life.
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