Samantha Malone
Chicago has a reputation for a lot of things, but gun violence is one the city has struggled with since its beginnings and now people are beginning to take a closer look at the inner city community organizations that are trying to help stop this problem.
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A recent video posted to YouTube features some of those organizations such as Ceasefire, a community group made up primarily of ex-gang members with close ties in their local neighborhoods.
“We deal with users, 16 to 25, male or female, capable of getting shot or capable of doing the shooting,” Ulysses Floyd, a Ceasefire outreach worker said in the video which was posted to a thread on Reddit. “Our motto is detect, interrupt and then change the norms and try to get them to see that shooting is not acceptable.”
Jerusha Hodge, another Ceasefire outreach worker, said groups like theirs may be able to get through to kids and individuals in these situations better than law enforcement simply because they can relate to the situation at hand.
With shootings occurring every day in Chicago, Floyd stressed that each one affects the community as a whole, not just those involved. Families are being torn apart by gun violence and things happen so quickly in the neighborhoods people begin to change and have fear, he said in the video.
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The video offers an emotional and insightful look at what is going on in the city, with the number of shootings skyrocketing after the fourth of July weekend. In addition to Ceasefire, it also looks at a few other organizations that aim to help families before and after shootings become relevant to their lives.
“You’re gonna hear on local media that two teens were shot, but you’re not gonna hear that these two teens shot got a whole family behind them that love them,” Dawn Valenti, crisis responder for Chicago Survivors, a group that aims to help families in the aftermath of shootings, said in the video immediately after meeting with a grieving mother. “These two kids were in high school, but you won’t hear how [their families] have to plan a funeral…go to the medical examiner’s office [or] how they have to go to court and face this person who did this.”
The real problem lies in funding for these organizations seeing as, in 2015, a lot of community groups lost funding and downsized and, where they were removed, shootings increased. Community members are crying out for help and funding for these organizations seeing as they have had a positive impact, but help does not seem to be on the way.
