Chicago police will try to reduce the city’s growing murder rate by partnering for the first-time with anti-violence group CeaseFire, which trains ex-cons to attack violence as if it were a spreading disease.

Chicago-based CeaseFire, whose “violence interrupters” programs have been replicated and studied in several U.S. cities, as well as in Iraq, will receive $1 million from the Windy City’s Department of Public Health beginning July 13.

CeaseFire previously received state and federal money, but not city funding, the group said.

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The partnership was proposed after Memorial Day weekend shootings left 10 dead, pushing the city’s homicide count to 200 for the year, the Chicago Sun-times reported. By June 17, the Sun Times said, the city’s murders were running 38 percent ahead of the same period in 2011.

The new funding will boost the number of CeaseFire program workers in Chicago to about 140, up from 100, Dr. Gary Slutkin, CeaseFire founder, told msnbc.com.  

See the NBCChicago.com story 

Slutkin last weekend was on a U.S. Conference of Mayors panel with mayors from Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Fresno to encourage other cities to support CeaseFire’s model, which can be seen online in PBS’ “Frontline” documentary “The Interrupters.”

Slutkin, an internal medicine and infectious diseases specialist, said CeaseFire takes a public health approach to public safety.

“Violence has been misunderstood,” Slutkin said. “In the absence of a correct strategy, violence will go up, down or sideways in waves. The only way to predictably reduce it is using methods that interrupt it.”

Violence is perpetuated as people consider it the norm, he warned.

“You get a situation where someone looks at someone’s girlfriend, now the expectation is it’s normal to shoot someone,” he said.

He said CeaseFire tries to intervene with the people who are at highest risk for violence.

Slutkin acknowledged a Sun-Times report that six ex-felons have been arrested while working for CeaseFire. However, he said, it's rare. The program sees just a 1 or 2 percent relapse rate, he said, with only two people out of 600 hired over 12 years having been convicted.

Workers go through intensive training, are hired by panels and are subjected to regular drug tests, Slutkin said.

On the street, they work like disease-control workers.

“What we do is figure out who the people are who are spreading the disease, the people most likely to be shooters,” said Amy Ellenbogen, who directs Save Our Streets Crown Heights, a Brooklyn, N.Y., program replicating CeaseFire and serving about 20,000 residents in a 40-block area.

From an eight-member team, four work as street-outreach counselors, trying to get the people most at risk of committing violence to change their focus, perhaps toward getting a GED or job, she told msnbc.com.

“Street outreach is incredibly important, knowing the players and how to persuade them to make better choices,” Ellenbrogen said.

Another four are the interrupters, who step in to mediate potentially violent situations.

“We’ve mediated over 100 incidences” since the team was hired in February 2010, Ellenbogen said.

Like other public health campaign, the program tries to “change the norms of the community,” which means making gun violence not acceptable.

Merchants have signs in window that count the days since last shooting; pizza boxes at a local parlor carry the words “Stop shooting, start living”; neighborhood posters proclaim, “Don’t shoot, I want to  grow up.”

Community meetings are held when a shooting does occur, she said. The number of shooting deaths dropped to 13 last year from 25 the year before in the area served, she said.  

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Updated at 6:15 p.m. EDT: SAN DIEGO -- A 25-year-old woman charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of a Camp Pendleton Marine's wife pleaded not guilty Thursday and was ordered to remain jailed in lieu of $3 million bail.

Jessica Lynn Lopez was arraigned Thursday at San Diego County’s Vista Superior Court on charges involving what prosecutors called “homicidal violence” against Brittany Dawn Killgore, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.

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Also Thursday afternoon, Killgore's father, Darryl Wrest, who lives in Pennsylvania, read an emotional statement at the San Diego County Sheriff's headquarters in Kearny Mesa, the North County Times reported.

"I am here to speak for Brittany, as her voice was taken from her,” Wrest said. "Brittney was a victim, she did nothing wrong," Wrest said. "There have been stories and comments made from people who do not know my daughter and have their own agendas or opinions. These stories have absolutely no basis in fact. Please leave my daughter in peace, she does not deserve to be a victim of lies and innuendo any more than she deserved to be murdered.”

Lopez was arrested Tuesday, hours before Killgore’s body was found in a remote area of neighboring Riverside County.

Authorities found Lopez in a Loma Linda motel room with self-inflicted cuts. Prosecutors said Lopez had left a suicide note that led investigators to Killgore’s body.

Earlier Thursday, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said at a news conference that Lopez could face 25 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.

Dumanis refused to discuss facts or evidence in what she called the "ongoing case."

She said another Marine, Louis Ray Perez, 45, was arraigned Wednesday on a separate stolen weapons charge and remains a person of interest in the Killgore killing. Additional charges are possible, she said.

"This case has shaken many in San Diego County and the military community," she said.

Dumanis said answers about the killing will come as the case makes its way through the criminal justice system.

Killgore was reported missing Saturday. Her body was found in a rural part of neighboring Riverside County.

Her husband, Cory Killgore, is based at Camp Pendleton but has been deployed to Afghanistan.

Earlier story: Coroner says body of woman is that of Brittany Killgore, missing wife of Marine

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The body of a woman found in California's Riverside County is that of a Marine's wife who disappeared last week, the county coroner said Wednesday.

Brittany Killgore, 22, was last seen on Friday in San Diego County and was reported missing the next day. Her husband, Cory Killgore, is based at Camp Pendleton but has been deployed to Afghanistan.

Another Camp Pendleton Marine who authorities say is a person of interest in her disappearance pleaded not guilty to weapons-theft charges Wednesday, the North County Times of Escondido, Calif., reported. Authorities said they found an AR-15 rifle taken from the Marine base in the car of Louis Perez, 45, and questioned him about Killgore’s disappearance. Detectives said he has been uncooperative.

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Authorities have said Perez was the last person seen with Killgore.

On Tuesday, a woman was arrested in relation to Killgore’s disappearance. Jessica Lynn Lopez, 27, was booked into Las Colinas women's jail on suspicion of first-degree murder. Lynn was taken into custody after deputies found her at the Ramada Inn in Point Loma with self-inflicted wounds, Lt. Larry Nesbit said. A suicide note in her motel room reportedly led investigators to the female body in a rural area of Riverside County, the Times reported.

Perez was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail after the hearing, the Times reported. Lopez is scheduled for a court appearance Thursday.

Police have not explained the relationship among Perez, Lopez and Killgore.

The developments came as word emerged that she had planned to leave her Fallbrook home and return to her parents’ Pennsylvania home, the North County Times reported.

Killgore was reported missing Saturday after a stranger called her parents from Killgore’s cell phone, said her grandmother, Cheryl Coble of Farmington, Mo.

A homeless man in downtown San Diego was attempting to sell the phone to the stranger, Coble said. The stranger then called Michelle Wrest, Killgore’s mother, who contacted authorities.

Killgore was supposed to go out with Perez and his girlfriend on a dinner cruise on Friday, Coble said. She said the girlfriend decided not to go on the cruise at the last minute and the Wrest family is unsure whether Killgore made it to the dinner. It was not clear who the girlfriend was.

On April 10, Killgore filed for divorce from her husband.

Coble said Killgore was supposed to go to her parents’ house in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Authorities found luggage and a laptop case at Killgore’s apartment and her belongings had been shipped to her parents’ house, according to Coble.

"She just wanted to be at her parents' house," Coble said. “[She] just wanted to sit and hold her new niece.”

Darryl Wrest, Killgore’s father, and her grandfather, Jim Wrest, are in San Diego. Cory Killgore is expected back from Afghanistan by the end of the week.

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A Texas nurse accused of killing a mother and snatching her 3-day-old baby was trying to produce an infant for her fiancé after hiding a miscarriage from him, police said Wednesday.

Verna McClain, 30, acted alone when she attacked Kala Marie Golden, 28, of Spring, Texas, and took her son, Keegan Schuchardt, outside a clinic where the baby had a checkup Tuesday, police said at a news conference.

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McClain was charged with capital murder and was being held without bail after her first court appearance Wednesday, Montgomery County sheriff’s deputies said at a news conference.

The baby was recovered unharmed Tuesday night from the Harris County home of the suspect's parents by Texas Rangers. The baby was with the suspect's sister.

McClain told her fiance she’d had a live birth of his child, Montgomery County Sheriff Det. John Schmitt told reporters. A May wedding was planned, he said she told officers.

Investigators were interviewing the fiance but believed he had never seen the kidnapped baby, Schmitt said.

Investigators said McClain and her fiance are black, the kidnapped baby is white, but they did not know how McClain planned to pass the infant off as hers and her fiance's.

The baby was reunited with his family Wednesday.

Officials said McClain first approached two deputies as a helpful witness at an apartment complex where they found a Lexus described by witnesses as being the suspect’s vehicle. However, her story soon fell apart as they talked to her and she later confessed to the killing, officials said.

Police said McClain was being held in a single-inmate cell and was not under any suicide watch. McClain is estranged from her husband, with whom she had raised three children, Capt. Bruce Zenor said.

She had been working as a vocational nurse through a staffing agency, officials said.

The investigation was not over, officials said.

Earlier: Nurse charged with murder 

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Connecticut motorists convicted of drunken driving are the latest to face mandatory use of ignition interlock devices, a step seen by some as steering the nation closer to requiring alcohol detection systems as standard equipment in all vehicles.

Pushed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Connecticut on Jan. 1 joined 14 other states with ignition-interlock mandates for drivers caught with blood-alcohol content above the legal limit, even for first-time offenders. A similar pilot program is under way in four California counties.

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At least 24 other states mandate Breathalyzer-like locks for so-called hard-core drunken drivers who include repeat offenders or those caught with alcohol levels of .15 or more.

Other states leave the penalty of interlock ignitions to the discretion of judges. Some states, such as Nebraska, reduce license revocation periods for convicted motorists who agree to use ignition interlocks.

States in general require convicted motorists to pay for the devices.

NBCConnecticut.com: First-time drunken drivers to get ignition locks

MADD launched its 50-state effort to eliminate drunken driving in 2006, when only one state, New Mexico, mandated ignition interlocks for even first-time drunken drivers, said Frank Harris, MADD’s manager of state legislative affairs.

Previously the focus was on hard-core drunken drivers and suspending their licenses, a punishment ignored by up to 75 percent of convicted motorists, he said.

"It makes me sick to my stomach to see people drive drunk with a BAC of .08 to .14 and not be categorized as hardcore drunk driving offenders," Harris said.

"DUI or DWI laws are very complicated," Harris said. "The ignition interlock is just part of the approach to assure the offender must prove sobriety and assure swift punishment," he said.

The devices are designed to prevent a car from starting if a driver who blows into it has an alcohol level above a certain point. Technological advances – including cameras on the device – make it tougher to get around the systems. People previously thought they could have sober friends blow into the devices to get their cars started.

Legal reforms with ignition-interlock mandates not only reinforce a state’s commitment to halting drunken driving, but also effectively reduce re-arrest rates by 67 percent, said Harris.

The recidivism figure is also cited by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mandating ignition interlocks is the CDC’s top recommendation for reducing the approximately 11,000 alcohol-related driving deaths yearly, which it says is about a third of all driving deaths.

But the American Beverage Institute fears mandates go too far and it wants judges to stay in the picture, said Sarah Longwell, the restaurant trade group’s managing director.

"There is a distinction between somebody who is one sip over the legal limit and the type of person who has 10 drinks," Longwell told msnbc.com. "The judicial system should be involved in those cases," she said.

"Restaurants prefer 10 people come in and have one drink each than one person order 10 drinks," she said.

A 120-pound woman who has two glasses of wine with dinner metabolizes alcohol differently than the 10-drink offender, she said.

A judge, not legal mandates, should decide about ignition interlocks at the lighter levels, she said.

The spread of mandates and discussion of ignition interlocks will "prime the public" for the day when the government requires auto manufacturers to install even more-sophisticated alcohol-detection devices as original equipment, Longwell said.

The Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, funded in part by automakers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says it is working on "potential technologies that could detect alcohol from air samples in the vehicle passenger compartment, through the driver’s skin using tissue spectroscopy, from emissions through the skin, from eye movements, and from driving performance." (Wired takes detailed look at DADSS.)

"Why wouldn’t you want that?" Longwell asked.

The problem is in the details of where maximum alcohol levels are set. They won’t be at .08, she predicted, because if someone drinks five shots and hops behind the steering wheel, the driver's blood level won't cross the .08 threshold for a while. No one has the answer yet on how low to set cutoff sensors, she said.

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