Helping to keep the peace: Memphis Allies’ Valentino Smith
Early on a weekday morning, Outreach Coordinator Valentino Smith was leading an incident review meeting for Memphis Allies frontline staff. Up on the screen was a local television report from a recent shooting.
The details seemed as vague as they did familiar: one person killed, another injured, in an area of town where shootings are common.
But where the layperson might see generalities, Smith and Memphis Allies’ frontline staff read between the lines and begin to form a plan for reaching out to those at the highest risk for gun violence.
“One thing about Memphis, everybody knows everybody,” Smith said. “There’s always a connection. By knowing the activity already going on some place, when a shooting happens, we have a good chance of knowing what transpired.
“Like this one, Tito (Porter, an outreach supervisor) only needed five minutes to contact somebody and get the nicknames of people who might want to retaliate.”
At the time of this meeting in mid-January, Memphis had recorded eight homicides — down from 18 at the same time in 2025 (a 55% decrease). As encouraging as that might be, the core mission of Memphis Allies’ work is to stop the next shooting because, on average, one shooting leads to at least four more.
Unless there is intervention, the wheel of retaliation will spin.
“One thing about Memphis, everybody knows everybody,” Smith said. “There’s always a connection. By knowing the activity already going on some place, when a shooting happens, we have a good chance of knowing what transpired.
“Like this one, Tito (Porter, an outreach supervisor) only needed five minutes to contact somebody and get the nicknames of people who might want to retaliate.”
Being a peacekeeper is hard. For it to work, you have to believe. In order to believe, you have to believe in real relationship.
Tino Smith
Memphis Allies Outreach Coordinator
‘Fake’ won’t cut it ‘’
Born in Frankfort, Germany (Smith’s dad was in the Army), “Tino,” as he is known, moved to Memphis at age 4. He played football and graduated from Craigmont High School. He never joined a gang, but he had friends who were affiliated.
“It wasn’t something I wanted,” Smith, now 40, said.
Still, he was arrested at age 18 and charged with aggravated robbery; he said he did not commit the crime, and two years later the charges were dismissed.
After high school, he attended Chattanooga State Community College for a while but returned to Memphis. He and his older brother operated a lawn service for a couple of years; they also briefly had a record label. Smith began working for Memphis Allies as an outreach specialist in 2022.
All along Smith’s journey, the reach of gun violence was getting more personal. In recent years, Smith watched five young men he was close to, including a nephew and a cousin, die by gun violence; he lost another nephew in an accidental overdose.
“It was heavy,” Smith said.
The streets always have their pull, but Smith said he now has other young men in his family “on more stable ground.” He also has three young children of his own, and he wants to ensure they get on a safe path early and stay there.
Change requires belief
Reaching potential participants for the SWITCH (Support with Intention to Create Hope) program requires nothing short of relentless engagement.
“Sometimes, we go to court with them,” Smith said. “They know we aren’t lawyers, but it means something that they didn’t have to go to court alone. It takes a minute to show we’re serious. Relationship building can’t be fake.”
Memphis Allies is now in its fourth year of sending outreach specialists into dangerous neighborhoods and apartment complexes. The increasing effectiveness of incident review meetings and the neighborhood canvassing and follow-up that comes afterward is clear.
“We were learning as we go, but now we have a more formal understanding of the process,” Smith said. “It’s easier to teach new people coming in how to do the work.”
The need for the work does not end, even as murders in Memphis dropped from 344 in 2023 to 184 in 2025 (a 46% reduction).
“Being a peacekeeper is hard,” Smith said. “For it to work, you have to believe. In order to believe, you have to believe in real relationship.
“A lot of people want to be saved,” he added. “They want you to stop them from retaliation. But you have to believe in change to make a change.”
