(tense electronic music) (people chattering) - You can't guess when violence is gonna happen.

Maybe it's a altercation that's ongoing with people, you know, and sometimes they need someone to intervene.

What's up, man?

You cool?

- [Student 1] Yeah.

- Why you look mad, what happened?

- [Student 1] Nothing.

- You cool, chilling, you tired of school?

Clemente High School, it's kind of like a hub.

Kids get outta school and they go to Clemente to hang out.

Most of the problems that happen are in schools, and then after these kids graduate, or after they drop out, or after, you know, they are no longer in school, the problems, they escalate.

So we try to get them before they become a problem.

Create the relationship with the high school kids before they get into the streets.

Hey, be careful there's a car going up and down acting crazy, just... all right?

(tires screech) That's the same car.

- Oh okay he graduated last year, what he coming back over here for?

- [Student 2] I don't know what he on though.

- [Adrian] Trying to make sure he ain't trying to look for nobody.

That's the first conversation I ever had with him.

So now I'm glad he said something to me, you know?

But that's because I stopped him from fighting last week.

(sirens blaring) Over the summer a lot happens, and usually when the school year comes back around, it's a lot of fights, it's a lot of arguments, it's a lot of commotion at the school.

So we go as much as we can to support the school.

- Oh, they fighting right here.

Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo!

Come on.

(incoherent shouting) (students yelling) Come on, come on man - [Student 3] Somebody help him Damn!

(incoherent yelling) - [Adrian] Come on - [Student 4] Wait, wait, wait I guess there was a dispute, a argument, something going on online.

So the girls came, their mothers came and as soon as they got outta school, they kind of just started fighting.

Well, I hit the street, almost got hit by two cars and they just were fighting.

It was a one-on-one already and then they started jumping one and I, that's when I tried to separate it.

- That's when the car rolled up and said somebody jumped in.

We cannot stop a situation from happening, but we could stop it from escalating.

We could make sure that there's not a a reaction to what happened initially.

That's why we're here.

Right.

- Take care of all people's kids.

- Yeah (chuckles) Sometimes that might risk our lives in certain situations, but if we have to do it, we will.

We don't really hit that area too much.

- Exactly.

- So I want to hit it.

I want to hit it.

You know?

What's up?

what's up?

Hello?

Hello.

What's up?

What's up y'all?

I'm just gonna run in here real quick.

I need a water.

Good, good.

Yeah.

- Call if you need anything, all right?

Be safe out there.

When it comes to the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, when I first started doing violence prevention, people would look at us and they see my outreach team and was like, who are these guys?

None of them came from the streets.

I had one who was a gym teacher.

Other ones just had degrees and regular community workers.

So now being the director of violence prevention, what I wanted to do was create a team that reflects this community.

- We was doing that last year without good - [Adrian] Julio was a part of the Maniac Land Disciples.

He comes with respect, he comes with a name For me, gangs and just gangs in general have been a part of my life since I was born.

On both sides.

My mom's side, my dad's side, we're all members of the Spanish cobras.

I remember being a kid and there were gang meetings in my basement and I remember a guy came out bloody in his mouth and I tell my dad the meeting was over, whatever.

I tell my dad, "Papi what happened to his mouth?"

And I know what happened 'cause I heard the punch.

I started to understand the gang culture really early.

The position that my family was in at the time was like a high ranking position.

So the neighborhood knew us based off the notoriety of my family.

I was already involved, you know, in the streets, kind of learning it for my own.

My little brother and my little sister.

They were seeing that and then they started jumping in the streets and then I retracted and I was like, I just got them involved.

Amanda is my sister.

She saw the change that I made.

- Once they catch on the next day, they're gonna be, - And she saw she was going nowhere with the route she was taking.

She's making the change herself.

She has a daughter.

She went back and got her GED.

She also is an outreach worker for our violence prevention team to, you know, show that it's possible to make change.

- Set him down.

- Nah, he, he, he messaged me last week.

If we could talk to his, his juvenile officer so we could get him.

What's up?

What's up man?

How you doing?

You good.

When I first got in the streets of doing street outreach and intervention, more people knew me before I knew them just based off my dad, my uncle, my cousins What's up?

So.

having people with the history, we use that to leverage relationships.

It's the license to go up to a group and say, Hey, what are you guys doing?

You guys need to move off this corner.

Hey yo, we're having an event here.

Can you move it down?

What's up?

What's up?

You too cool.

Without our relationships or without our ability to do our job, there will be more violence.

- Are any of you all familiar with what's happening on the 1300 block of Lawndale near Division and Grant?

- It was two individuals who got shot and one I believe was fatal.

- You all know how we address our blocks that have severe concerns.

We do safety walks, right?

We take all of the resources that all of you all have and we provide it to the neighborhood.

And so I think that the 1300 block of Lawndale is a great block to sort of target next.

- The 26 ward public safety meeting is a meeting where we meet with other local organizations to talk about hotspots in the community.

From that information, we're able to plan and organize pop-ups, resources, outreach efforts, victim advocacy efforts.

Will there be people stationed there besides outreach?

- That's why we'll meet with Rafa.

- Okay.

And his security team to determine what sort of presence is needed.

- Part of that 26th ward meeting, we talked about Fiesta Boricua, which is a two day event that is for the community, it's for the youth.

So we talk about organizing that to make sure that we're providing a safe event.

- So, we need people to have relationships with the Maniacs, the Campbell boys, to sort of have that conversation, right?

Like, Fiesta Boricua is this weekend, we need like this sort of community agreement.

You're gonna keep your cool, keep your peace.

We don't want anyone airing out any grievances during the festival.

Okay, sounds good.

- Alright, thank you all [Festive Latin Music plays] - This neighborhood, it's about 54% Puerto Rican still 34% are African American and the rest is other.

This year's theme is Afro Boricua.

So we're celebrating our Afro Boricua Latinos.

I'm gonna have my dad put it on his car, in the front.

(laughing) On the hood.

I'm an Afro Boricua my grandfather's even darker than me.

So we're a black and brown community.

I take pride in that.

Being a multicultural community, a lot of people come out, they celebrate their culture, they drink, they party, they eat good food.

Usually this is, you know, Labor Day weekends is one of the most violent weekends in Chicago.

So we wanna make sure we have all hands on deck.

What's going on fellas?

How you doing?

Appreciate y'all helping us out today.

This is my outreach team.

So if y'all see them, we are here to diffuse fights.

Any, you know, anything right here, so.

Yep, yep.

Appreciate y'all.

A lot of people think being an outreach worker, you work with the police, they, they think you are a "fed" but it's not that.

And when they know you and you make those connections, they trust you and then you're able to do your job a little better.

I'm walking back.

Hey the, I'm washing all right there.

So this, you know what I'm saying, just try to keep, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

We have relationships with the local gangs.

So we use our relationships to steer the violence away from the weekend.

Y'all cool.

Hey, be careful over there.

- Have a great day.

Yeah, y'all hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me.

And then you know that that just snowballs into two days of peace, three days of peace, four days of peace.

And we just try to build it from there.

Hey, I'll have this every day rather than having to chase all these dudes.

And this is a, this is a perk man.

No violence is great.

No...

I'm not even stressed.

Usually I walked through here and I'm looking at dudes.

yeah, last year.

The other, this year is so much smooth.

That's 'cause we telling everybody, we ain't doing that - Hey, have you met Adrian?

Adrian Rodriguez, Puerto Rican Cultural Center - Man, we appreciate your work - Runs the violence prevention program.

- We wrap it probably today.

- There's a few things that we have to have.

- Yes.

And we love it.

That the community loves it.

Thank you for coming out today as well too.

- Yeah.

Second year it's going great.

- In the streets you get lost in just not knowing who you are.

So the gym gives a sense of purpose.

Our best ability is to connect.

I would say.

10th grade.

So you're not in school yet.

You want a box?

No, it's free You come by the gym, we take care of you.

We do a little intake.

You fill out some forms - I'll take you to the gym.

You can punch, get out any steam you want to get out.

You know what I'm saying?

It sounds like you got some steam you on the left free.

So you gotta put in the right, you know, put in the right use.

From that conversation, I learned that his family comes from the same background as mine.

Now he's gonna be attending Clemente High School, which now we're able to see him engage with him every single day.

Work with him every single day.

Channeling that anger, channeling that passion to want to do something and putting it in boxing.

Hands up.

Hands up.

Lemme see that.

Right.

1, 2, 3.

In violence prevention, you're gonna get kids that are in the streets.

You're gonna get kids that are not in the streets.

Jose is not in the streets.

And we have conversations about it.

We had one a few weeks ago and where he's like, "man, all of my friends turned to a gang," You know?

And I was like, how you feel?

He's like, man, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to engage in that.

I try to give him a different perspective to what the streets can look like.

What life can look like.

Strong.

There you go, Jose.

There you go.

Dance.

There you go.

Boom, boom, boom.

There you go.

Rather than telling him to go out in the street or giving him a gun or giving him drugs or giving him some gloves and just making him feel important.

There you go.

Right now we are going to Division & Lawndale, which is West Humboldt, to do a safety walk.

We collaborate with other organizers and peace keepers so that we're outside.

We're engaging with the community, speaking to the residents, offering services and you know, it just gives us a chance to meet them, meet the community, meet the people.

And when shootings do happen, when disputes happen, when fights happen, we're able to collect information from those community members that we created relationships with and that we could solve the problem head on.

This is a hotspot.

All of this.

- So some concerns have been raised about this block.

Specifically the presence of, of people that are believed to be in, in gangs and maybe some intimidation.

I'm not really too sure.

And so we're just here to talk to our neighbors, right.

And see what it is that they share with us and see how it is that we, you know, bring our resources together to be able to help out.

- Gangs occupy space, they take claim to a block, they take claim to a street.

So when that happens, what we want to do is we take claim to that space.

[Julio Speaking Spanish] We pass our resources, we engage with the community families.

A lot of police don't even respect the work we do until they see it work.

You'll see a police officer pull up to the scene versus an outreach worker pull up to the scene.

And it's two different engagements.

The community embrace us.

The community doesn't embrace the police.

We got some information for the youth.

We got a lot of programs.

We, wherever really wherever they need, we send them.

You know what I'm saying?

Like they need jobs, school.

We figure out what they need.

We're not police, we're not here to solve crimes.

We're not giving the police information to solve cases.

We're here to help our community.

We're here to serve them.

Heal the trauma that they're going through.

[Rhythmic Drums] Homelessness, we've been battling at Humboldt Park for years because of displacement.

Here, when you go through the tents, these are people from the community.

Recently this has been a hotspot.

So when people come here is they try to sell drugs to the people in the tents.

This kind of becomes a hangout in between and violence stirs up.

It's not the people living in the tents, it's the people that are here coming to try to make a hustle and try to, you know, occupy the space.

That's not Woody, is it?

There's no way.

That's Woody.

Let's see, Woody!

There's no way.

That's one of my dad's like really close friends when we were kids.

Woody!

- [Woody] Yo who's that?

- It's Spooky's son.

What's up?

What's up?

What's going on man.

I was a baby.

How you doing man?

- Good to see you.

- How you doing?

- Maintaining.

- I seen you at the car.

I said there's no way I haven't seen him in over 20.

The last time I seen him was on Hadden.

You drove past and you saw me and my dad like 20 years ago.

- Wow.

- Long time.

- But I check on you because I, your dad's constantly showing me pictures.

He's telling me about how good you're doing.

- I work for the cultural center.

I see that.

Awesome.

- I sent, I send outreach workers out here.

They're the ones who be helping.

- They come through here and that's beautiful man.

- I got you.

I'm gonna come see you anytime.

- Anytime, anytime.

You got my number too.

So call me.

Bless you.

And shoot me a text, anything you need.

All right man.

God bless you.

Yes man.

I love you brother.

All right, I got you man.

- Keep up the good work.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

As a kid, you know how when you're with your father and he takes you everywhere and you meet his friends and you go here and you have those memories of visiting these people, that was someone who was always in our life, you know, like always checking on my dad.

They made money together.

They did whatever they did together.

But like he's like, that was my uncle.

You know?

And now to see it here, it hurts.

But we're gonna help.

We're gonna help as much as we can.

Man.

That's, oh man, I gotta call my dad after this.

I gotta call my dad after this.

- Hello?

- What's up Pa?

Hey, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm right here in the park.

I didn't know Woody was in the tents.

- What you mean the tents?

- Woody?

Your guy Woody.

- With his girl?

- Yeah.

Oh yeah.

That broke my heart right now.

He said that they sold the building.

He couldn't afford no rent and he came out here, he been out here for three months.

- It got bad 'cause he came to my job.

Talking about they sold the building - Yeah, - helped him out, but his girl supposed to have a good job.

What's going on man, tomorrow?

I don't know man.

Yeah.

- Alright Papi, I love you.

Okay.

- I love you too.

I'll call you.

Alright.

Wow.

He didn't even know.

Oh, that's, that's tough.

That is tough In violence prevention.

It's a term that we use.

We call it my story, my Glory.

And it is just telling your story.

It tells how you got to where we're at now.

What I experienced, I was just tired of hurting.

What's up?

What's up?

Hey, what up?

How you doing?

What's going on?

I started trying to heal my community.

I started to try to make change.

It is a redemption it, it's a every day of trying to give back.

I'll see you guys.

and when you decide to turn that leaf and you really believe it, other people will believe it.

[Inspirational Music]