Hillar Moore III – People to Watch 2015

After two years, the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination program (BRAVE) is working, District Attorney Hillar Moore says. There were 84 murders in the parish in 2012, 64 in 2013 and 55 in 2014 as of Dec. 1.

A new federal grant recently expanded BRAVE’s primary focus from the 70805 ZIP code (the parish’s most violent sector) into neighboring 70802. But Moore says the strategy, in which officials and community leaders give violent groups a last chance to become productive members of society before turning up the heat, can be applied anywhere.

While grants are temporary, Moore hopes the BRAVE approach becomes a permanent part of the law enforcement culture.

“The people need to see that you’re for real, and you’re not just here as a show for one year,” he says.

Just as a tiny slice of the population commits most of the violent crime, Moore says a handful of bad actors poison law enforcement’s relationship with the community. He says the public outreach aspects of BRAVE, which include Big Buddy mentoring and weatherproofing homes, help to strengthen those ties between the police and the people they serve.

Moore’s office also has been meeting with the Baton Rouge Police Department, the Sheriff’s Office, State Police and other officials to create an “officer-involved shooting investigative team.” He says an investigation by the new group may be more credible to the public than an internal one by only the agency involved in an incident.

If Baton Rouge has a controversial police shooting like the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, Missouri, Moore says the aftermath won’t be as severe, in part because Baton Rouge’s leadership and law enforcement agencies are more diverse than Ferguson’s.

“I know that we would handle it better,” he says.

—D.J.

Person he admires most
“My late father, Hillar C. Moore Jr.”