COMPTON — In a unique forum, gang interventionists, victim support groups, clergy, crime victims, former gang members and law enforcement have all been collaborating to reduce violent crimes throughout Los Angeles County.

Holding a series of breakfasts over a period of roughly four years, “our objective was to end gang violence but as we dug a little deeper, we found that there were all sorts of violence that needed to be addressed — like domestic violence, excessive police force, even the playground bully,” said Ben Owens, one of the founders of Ceasefire, a coalition of groups and organizations that provide gang intervention services. “We wanted to try to get the community involved to empower the community to stop those violent acts.”

The idea initially consisted of getting former and active gang members together at a breakfast table where they could sort out old issues and discuss why they were at war.

The first breakfast was held in Watts — with over 350 people in attendance — where the rivaling gangs heard several presentations from people who had been impacted by gang culture. Everything, according to Owens, went off without a hitch.

“It was something that was never done before,” he said. “What we saw before was that you would never see active or former gang members together eating together, unfortunately unless they were in an institution.”

Over the years, Ceasefire has expanded to include clergy, mental health groups, and others. The latest breakfast held Dec. 5 at Crystal Park Casino in Compton, came with a theme: “We all need each other.”

This time, said Owens, it was unique because law enforcement officials were present not to suppress the members of L.A.’s communities but to provide transparency and get a better understanding of what it is they are dealing with on the streets.

As gang interventionists, their role is not to get people arrested, said Owens, and in fact they keep their relationship with law enforcement limited because their main goal is to “keep people alive, out of jail and on their way to becoming productive members of society.”

In cases where there are deputy involved shootings, Ceasefire and organizations — such as 2nd Call, We Care Outreach Ministries, Unity Collaborative and Project Cry No More — affiliated with it, act as mediators and liaisons for the community.

Black churches, which have been embedded in African-American history and culture for centuries, were asked “to step up to the plate and take more ownership in their neighborhoods,” said Pam Carolina, member of Project Cry No More, an organization that gives support to crime victims and their families.

The issue, said Owens and Carolina, is that mega-churches are often led by pastors and have members of its congregations who do not live in the community, they only worship there.

“Some of those programs and services that you would anticipate from a church, Monday through Friday or Saturday, they’re not there because most of the membership does not live within walking distance of the church,” said Owens.

Ceasefire has encouraged some of these local mega churches to open their doors outside their traditional days and offer more outreach services. Those that were present, said Carolina, agreed to answer the call.

Pastor Michael Cummings, director of We Care Outreach Ministries, has been doing just that for more than five years. His organization offers a Safe Passage program aimed at providing adult presence in designated hot spots so that youth can safely go to and from school. In addition, the components include encouraging parent involvement, recruiting and training parents and community volunteers, and making themselves available as mediators for schools and law enforcement. Their gang intervention program gives gang members life skills training and conflict resolution skills, and for those at-risk gives them activities to get involved in so that they do not fall back into gang life.

In working on the streets, it becomes clear that violence “has a profound effect on the community,” said Cummings. “When you kill somebody, you are not just hurting that person and their family, you are tearing apart a whole community. … The community is trapped. Some people don’t go outside their doors for fresh air because they fear drive-by shootings and as we all know most of the time the bullets never go to the person they are intended for, it’s usually innocent bystanders.”

Cummings said he understands that some clergy will not adhere to what they are asking for, but If they really want to help, they “should fund ministries like mine and others that are out here doing the work, that are actually out on the streets trying to do something to keep [violence] from happening.”

Cummings efforts, as well as those from Ceasefire, 2nd Call and Project Cry No More, have continued to make headway in communities stricken by violence.

“We have worked to create peace in several neighborhoods. One of the neighborhoods that we created peace for was on the east side between the 59 east coast crips and the east side villains who were able to sit down,” said Townsend. “Since then they have been eating together and talking about how they can implement the peace among the young guys in the community.”

At the most recent breakfast, Townsend said, the City of Inglewood was well represented. They formed a huddle and are now in talks about starting something similar for their residents.

“We wanted the people there to take the information back to their neighborhood and talk about the positive things to change the mindsets of the individuals who are here doing things that are destroying our neighborhoods,” said Carolina. “And I think that we were positive in that aspect because we touched people from different neighborhoods that were willing to take that information back.”

But if nothing else, if there is a situation that happens in the community, now they have a line of communication, said Owens.

“They can call someone and say ‘hey, there was a fist fight at school and before it evolves into a homicide over the weekend let’s get together and talk.’ Where in the past, those opportunities and resources weren’t there. The mere fact that they are meeting each other and networking makes it that much more valuable because now they have a contact person they can call.”