The Violence Project

www.theviolenceproject.com

It was naive to think that another week would go by without reading about one more youth getting killed, but I try to be an optimist. Although a 15-year-old boy was shot last week, he did not die, making last week one of the rare weeks a Chicago teen has not gotten killed since I started reporting on education. Not reading about another death made last week feel like an eternity since the last murder. Schools and communities continued to make strides in addressing this problem. People were talking and listening to one another. The sense of urgency was present. But with all of that there, we still find ourselves coming back to reporting the bad news we’ve become used to.

The latest young life taken remains unidentified until family notice. All that is known is that he was found dead in an alley in the Gage Park neighborhood on the South Side.

With the cyclical nature of news, I wanted to share an essay written by journalist Meredith Maran. Maran is the author of the book “Class Dismissed.” It chronicles a year in the life of three teens at Berkley High School, considered to be the most diverse high school in America. One of the teens Maran covered, Keith Stephens, was later shot to death six years after the book’s publication. Maran’s essay touches not only on Stephens’ life and death but hope that Keith Stephens doesn’t just become another statistic or blurb we glance over as we read our newspaper. Keith Stephens, like every Chicago youth killed this school year, had a life behind their headline. They were lives filled with dreams, good and bad days and — most importantly– people who loved them.

That is why I want to propose the following challenge: if you happen to come across a murder on the news ( doesn’t have to be a teen), dig a little deeper and find out something interesting about that person. It can be their favorite movie or something random their family has shared. Any takers?

A + Illinois

CeaseFire

PURE (Parents United for Responsible Education)

University of Chicago Consortium on School Research

Friends of the Parks

Catalyst Chicago

Illinois Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

Chicago Public Schools Office of Research, Evaluation and Accountability

I guess I got a little ahead of myself and not properly post a formal introduction and mission statement for this blog.

This blog is a chronicle and, hopefully, a virtual community center to discuss and debate the violence finding its way in many Chicago communities, particularly violence that has so far claimed the lives of 23 Chicago Public School students this school year.

Recently, two classmates and I reported on the potential for this year’s deaths to surpass last year’s number.

While doing research, we were struck by the many layers this story began to take on.  It was a story much larger than the 1,200 words we ended up writing and four minutes of video we ended up producing.  We spoke with police, school officials, community leaders and teenagers who have been attacked by gangs or know others attacked by gangs.  It surprised us how similar the anger and the hunger to improve things were in these people, who would normally be thought to be on opposite sides of the debate.  Over the course of this blog, I hope to reach out to the same diverse group of people and organizations.

This week CLTV will be hosting a special program called “Deadly Lessons.”   The week-long show will be a live call-in discussion on the recent killings of Chicago Public School students.

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