BROWNSVILLE, Brooklyn (PIX11) — They are called violence interrupters and outreach workers. They are the young men and women in communities riddled with gangs who go out and try to stop the gun violence.

Now, one of those outreach workers is in Brookdale Hospital after becoming a victim of the gun violence she was trying to stop.

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“She was doing her job,” Rev. Leslie Shannon, a Brownsville Think Tank Matters spokesperson, told PIX11 News on Friday. “She took one for the team.”

More than 100 people from all five boroughs held a vigil Friday night near where 27-year-old Ndia Brisset was shot in the abdomen. Her co-workers say it happened while she was doing her job, as an outreach worker for an anti-gun and anti-gang violence group called Brownsville In Violence Out also known as BIVO.

Brisset was wearing her BIVO jacket and hat as she was walking on Sutter Avenue just after 7 p.m. with a violence interrupter and a young man who believed his life was in danger. The BIVO program director said Brisset took a bullet intended for the young man she was trying to protect.  

“She is a beautiful person. She is a college graduate,” Darien Scriven, program manager of BIVO, told PIX11 News.  

More than 30 other anti-gun violence groups joined in solidarity as the vigil then moved to Brookdale Hospital. That is where Brisset is expected to make a full recovery.  

“When they see the folks in uniform out here to make peace, they should put the [guns] away,” Erica Ford, CEO of Lifecamp, told PIX11 News.

Members of several organizations defended BIVO’s decision not to work with the police to find the shooter. That, they say, would violate the confidentiality of the young men they work with and are trying to protect.  

“In our community, we work with young people, and we would have a reputation as a snitch,” Scriven told PIX11 News. “They won’t come to us when they need help.”

Police have not arrested a suspect in the shooting.

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