Columbia names Office of Violence Prevention administrator
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The City of Columbia has named its administrator for the Office of Violence Prevention on Tuesday, a new position created in the 2025 fiscal year budget.
D'Markus Thomas-Brown will be the first person to hold the position in the new office. According to a Tuesday news release from the city, he will start on Monday, March 31.
In October of, Columbia Mayor Barbra Buffalo introduced plans for a new office of violence prevention, a move that came weeks after a 3-year-old was shot in Columbia.
Thomas-Brown had a firsthand account of the incident. He said he was working with the family of Gabrielle Harris -- the mother of the child who was shot -- and was on site when the parents had to identify the body.
Roughly 17 months later, he will now be leading the Office of Violence Prevention, something he has he has had a passion for even before the city offered him the position.
“I have a passion for this because people I care for are struggling and are and are suffering from trauma and an ongoing trauma because of the fruit of violence,” Thomas-Brown told ABC 17 News. “I won't rest until we see an adequate solution to a problem that we can't overlook.”
Thomas-Brown has worked as the regional director of Good Dads Inc. since 2024, the release says. He has also served as the managing director of in2Action, program director for the Reentry Opportunity Campus and was account strategist for Influnce & Co.
When asked about any potential conflict of interest with in2Action and potential funding request, he said that he would recuse himself from the decision.
“Hopefully, we have built a team that I'm not the one approving that, and I can recuse myself. We also got to know we are people and whether we are in government or working for the city, we all have relationships and we all are people and they should be trusted on our integrity and character to say, ‘I need to step back from that because I'm closely tied,’” Thomas-Brown said.
Thomas-Brown is also a certified specialist in multiple areas including harm reduction with the Missouri Credentialing Board, trauma-informed community specialist with TMT Consulting Knowledge Academy along with being a certified peer specialist.
The budget gives the new office $500,000 for its first year of work.
“Whether I was getting paid or not, this is where my attention would have been,” Thomas-Brown said. “We've got to build a community-oriented system of care that all of the organizations, the agencies are cared for. And I believe that Mayor [Barbara] Buffalo and City Manager [De’Carlon] Seewood had the foresight and really the passion to double down and say, ‘We want to see Columbians cared for and safe and we know it's going to take a concerted effort that we think we're uniquely able to do.’”
The Office of Violence Prevention is described as an office that will develop strategies that reduce violence and improve public safety and well-being by collaborating with law enforcement, community organizations, government agencies and other key stakeholders, according to a release from the city.
Thomas-Brown said that growing up in Columbia, there has always been some violence, but things have ramped up in recent years. Right now he said his biggest concern is interpersonal violence, something he hopes his office can help address.
He is hoping to gather more community input. However, he says that the office will be focused on the root cause of violence in Columbia, something he thinks can make the police department’s job easier long term.
“Violence is just a fruit. It’s not the root cause. Root cause is not the action its what’s driving that cause. I know there are many organizations in many things that are the police are an element to that, but they're not the lone element. And I would and I would venture they're not prevention. We need them to intervene. And so they've got to have support around them,” Thomas-Brown explained.
There has been some criticism of the office. Former Boone County Detective Tom O’Sullivan told ABC 17 News he thinks this office is a waste of taxpayer money, citing concerns about how vague the office’s plans are.
Last year the city applied for $1.5 million in grant funding for violence prevention, however, a vague proposal was one of the reasons Boone County Children's Services Board did not award Columbia any money.
