arrow NYPD sections off the scene of a shooting where shots were fired from a car that was driving on the Lower East Side on February 16th. A 57 year old woman who was an innocent bystander was struck in the buttocks. Steve Sanchez/Pacific Press/Shutterstock Lawmakers in the state's Democratically-controlled chambers have introduced a bill that would allow non-profit violence interruption groups to access a federally-funded resource to help expand its programming. The bill sponsored by Brooklyn state Senator Zellnor Myrie would allow these programs, including the Cure Violence program—where reformed gang members are hired to defuse tensions between gangs before violence erupts—to access a portion of the federally-allocated funds through the state Office of Victims Services. The office administers the fund that was created following the passage of the 1984 Victims of Crime Act by Congress. The funding sources—made available those who've been the victims of a crime, which include victims under the age of 18 or those of a terror attack in New York—are often derived from fines, penalties, or donations and doled out to states yearly. In 2019, federal allocation to the state's fund was $133 million, according to the Office of the Inspector General.