Aquil Basheer, founder of the Stop the Violence Foundation and the Peace and the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute, speaks Oct. 4 at his organization’s leadership award program. Basheer plans to step down as leader of the organization.
Photo by Ian Foxx
By Shirley Hawkins
Contributing Writer
SOUTH LOS ANGELES — Individuals who work behind the scenes to build safer communities were honored Oct. 4 at the Stop the Violence Increase the Peace and the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute Foundation’s 2025 Community Safety Leadership Awards at the Los Angeles Southwest College Theater.
Honorees included Aquil Basheer, founder of the BUILD Program and the Peace and the Professional Community Intervention Training Institute Stop the Violence Foundation who received the Pinnacle Leadership Award for Public Safety; Stephanie Graves, chief executive officer of the Lee Andrews Group, who received the Emerald Corporate Impact Award; Los Angeles Fire Capt. Robert Hawkins, president of The Stentorians, who received the Community Based Stentorians Public Safety Award; and Aqueela Sherrills, co-founder of the Community Based Public Safety Collective, who received the Peace Prize Award.
There was also a roundtable discussion with people who talked about their experiences as gang interventionists and their efforts to bring peace to the streets.
Melvyn Hayward Jr., senior director for the city’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development program, was only 10 years old when he saw firsthand the impact of gun violence in his Los Angeles neighborhood. As a teenager, he was shot and lost his best friend to gun violence within a single year.
“This work saved my life,” said Hayward, one of the participants in the roundtable discussion.
Basheer is a top expert in the field of street violence intervention who for over 40 years has trained members of the community on protecting their neighborhoods, minimizing gang violence and building
safer communities. His foundation offers an 18-week gang intervention training course, one of the few of its kind in the nation.
Through his program, he has turned hard core gang members who battled over neighborhood turf into leaders of the peace movement in their communities.
Basheer has gained recognition around the world as an anti-violence consultant who has trained specialty teams in Brazil, Argentina, Africa, London, Beijing, Hong, Kong, Shanghai and El Salvador.
The nominees were grateful to be recognized for their work.
“I was surprised, humbled and extremely honored,” said Hawkins, who spent more than two decades with the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Aqueela Sherrils was one of the co-architects of the Bloods and Crips Peace Treaty.
A native of Watts, he co-founded the Amer-I-Can Program with former football legend Jim Brown, a program that sought to keep the peace in gang-infested neighborhoods.
Community Based Public Safety (CBPS) Collective,
Stephanie Graves, a titan in public relations, has helped to move policy and create safety through her work in helping disenfranchised communities.
A staunch believer in passing the torch, Basheer announced he had been searching for new leadership to take over the reins of the organization. He selected Marquis Rey Liggins, who will serve as the organization’s new executive director.
“This brother is a soldier who truly loves his community,” Basheer said of Liggins. who originally joined Stop the Violence when he was only 14.
Liggins was equally impressed with Basheer.
“When I met Dr. Basheer 10 to 15 years ago, I was honored just to be in the same room with him,” Liggins said. “I was a fly on the wall and filled with amazement as I listened to the teachings and training that he was able to provide.”
Board Chair Khalid Shaw paid tribute to Basheer whom he said had trained thousands of interventionists, youth, law enforcement and community leaders, giving them the tools to carry on their public safety work.
“Let us honor the past, elevate the present and build the future with the same precision, passion and power that Aquil Basheer taught us to carry,” he said.
Shirley Hawkins is a freelance reporter for Wave Newspapers. She can be reached at shirleyhawkins700@gmail.com.
