As mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, Randall Woodfin is trying to tackle a murder epidemic. He’s all too familiar with the pain of losing a loved one to violence

It was past midnight on 27 May 2012 when Randall Woodfin, an early-career public prosecutor, received a call about his older brother. “Ralph’s been shot,” he was told, abruptly. “You need to come.”

He jumped in a car, and raced across the city of Birmingham, Alabama, running every red light along the way. He made it to the police perimeter. It was a block and a half from his grandmother’s old home, at a public-housing project in the city’s south, where the two brothers – eight years apart – had spent much of their childhood.