Pastors and NYPD team-up to take on gang violence in Brooklyn

The New York City Police Department is working with dozens of pastors in a new alliance, formed to engage black youths in an effort to deter gang violence.

The group's formation was announced Wednesday. About 35 pastors have joined the alliance, among them Bishop Gerald Seabrooks, of Rehoboth Cathedral International, in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, who said too many mothers and grandmothers have lost their children and grandchildren to gang violence.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly explained that, as part of this initiative, women in the Police Department's executive corps will be developing relationships with black grandmothers who are raising grandchildren.

The New York Theological Seminary is an institution dedicated to religious tolerance, diversity, multiculturalism and social justice. The mission of the seminary is to prepare men and women, from every background, for careers in ministry.