She lost her son to gun violence. Now she’s part of a movement credited with Baltimore’s crime drop

Baltimore —

Cars stop on the street for Rochelle Johnson, a mother of five, when she walks through her Baltimore neighborhood greeting every person she encounters, running up to children and adults alike as she gives countless hugs.

She approaches a man sitting alone outside in the alley behind an abandoned house to check on him: “Do you need anything?” It’s a brief moment that captures Johnson in her element, doing the work she does each day as a violence interrupter.

If anyone could know the faces of every resident in Penn North, Johnson would be the one. But how she got that standing stems from a tragic loss that left her reeling in 2013 when her 19-year-old son was chased and fatally shot on his father’s birthday, just one month before he was due to graduate from high school.

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