Amid Rise In Murders, South Florida City Starts Campaign To Find Causes, Solutions

As multiple cities in Broward County struggle with a recent rise in gun violence, Lauderhill is starting a months-long initiative that aims to find through research the “root cause” of violence in the city and implement solutions. One of the faces of the city’s “Peace365” initiative is someone who has lived the gun violence that police, the government and residents want to curb. Mancito Telfort, 33, has been a Lauderhill resident since boyhood, marked by a tumultuous home life and trauma that gave way to him finding the acceptance and camaraderie that he was missing in the other boys who, like him, turned to street crime, he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. By age 14, Telfort had purchased his first gun, a two-shot handgun, from someone in the community he viewed as a role model, he said.