PBS Wisconsin Documentaries

(siren wails, gunfire) He's going, he's going! Got no guns in there? In this city, our kids are dying. Semi-automatic handgun is probably the most common gun used on the streets. I get texts at all hours of the day about shootings and homicides. This has got to stop! We have a public health crisis. There is a hopeless generation, and it's my generation. We gather with far too many candles. (somber piano music) (fireworks pop and crackle) Fourth of July fireworks erupt into the night sky on Milwaukee's lakefront. While a mother drives toward downtown to pick up her teenaged sons as arranged, trying to reach them along the way. I was calling the phones, calling the phones. Their phones wasn't answering. She shoots video out the window between calls. The panic of every mother rising in her throat, Arifah Akbar just kept dialing. And I just kept calling back, maybe, at least, about five or six times. Then I got another answer. And this time, I heard screaming and yelling. Because her youngest, 14-year-old Tariq, lay in the street. A gunshot wound to the head. You know my son was too young. He was too young to die. He just gets shot. And there were police within 50 yards of that. Dozens of police in the vicinity. Boiling point anger expressed in gunfire over simple disputes. In this case, police say the shooting stemmed from a Facebook fight over a girl. A dispute that didn't involve Tariq. His mother says he was walking away from the show when shots rang out. An unintended target. I heard he was 14 or something like that. 15. Another teenager, a 15-year-old, was charged as an adult in the shooting. The gun has not been recovered. When you turn on the news every day, they're seeing people their age being shot, murdered in their communities. As a middle school teacher, Tamika Johnson knows the hurt children in her classroom experience. She was Tariq's 8th grade teacher and says she took special pleasure in guiding his youthful exuberance. Always imagined him a doctor or lawyer. Tariq was a leader. But he was one that I will always try to redirect his leadership skills in a positive way because he was 14. Tariq was one that I really wanted to reach. And I do that every year. One of my students that begin off challenging. Usually at the end of the year, they turn out to be my pet. Teacher's pet. So that's what he was. Johnson's own teenaged brother was murdered in Milwaukee 23 years ago. She can relate to her students who have grown up with gun violence around them. They probably see death and dread. They probably see hopelessness. For them, that looks like that's the only place for us. But, that's not true. There is life beyond your current circumstances. Johnson believed Tariq would be one to live beyond current circumstances. Instead, his neat twin bed, in a bedroom he shared with his older brother, enshrines his death. Photos. Basketball trophies. And a letter to his family from dear friends, also devastated by his murder that night at the fireworks. 15-year-olds should not have guns. They should not be carrying them in public places and losing their temper and shooting into a crowd. Sandy Brown and her husband, Brian, were Tariq's Big Brother and Sister. They had known him since he was seven. Taking him out on their boat, playing hoops Double swish. Going to Bucks games. So who are you? - Tariq! Tell me about yourself, Tariq. I like playing basketball. And I love Sandy and Brian. Tariq was just a joy to be with. He was a very smart kid. He just liked to laugh. He liked to be silly. He liked to have fun. And he really liked people. He was just a good kid. He liked to ride bikes, play basketball, and just hang out with his friends around here. Tariq's brothers tried to help him as he lay dying that night. They could not save him and still cannot fully process his loss. There be times when I wake up, I'll be waking up just to see if he-- One day I'll wake up and he be playing a game like he always usually do. We'd go everywhere together. The boys in this family represent a group most likely to be victims or perpetrators of gun violence in Milwaukee. Young, black, low income. Still, their mother held her family close. I think his mother, Arifah, has done a very good job in a tough situation raising her kids. You know, it's certainly in no way her fault. She's done all the right things. I think there's a big segment of our population that wants to somehow blame the victim when something like this happens. They want to feel safe. They want to say, "That would never happen to me or my family so Tariq must have been a bad kid. It must be because he was black and from the city." And it was not at all. This was a good kid with a good family, a good support system, friends, plans, dreams. All those things that all of our children have. And he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's not because he was bad. I just believe now days that anybody can get a hold to a gun. If it's a kid, a grown-up, or whatever. That leaves this mother wondering how Milwaukee families can keep their children safe. I don't believe you can. Me personally, I don't believe you can because if you in the house, you get a bullet flying through the window. You know it ain't safe nowhere. The fear of random deadly violence is all too real in the city. Almost a year ago Laylah Petersen was sitting at her grandfather's lap in what most people would assume would be the safest position you could be in your life. Then her life ended. Five-year-old Laylah Petersen died after being struck by gunfire when bullets came through the house where she was reading with her grandfather. The crime left the city and the Milwaukee police chief shaken. This police department took it hard. The officers that were there took it hard. It was very difficult. I'll not soon forget the professionalism of the officers who were first responders and their sensitivity to the family even as they processed a brutal and gruesome crime scene. (camera shutters clicking) Court records say the shooting suspects were allegedly out for revenge in connection with a separate homicide. One of them bragging, according to court testimony, about spraying what turned out to be the wrong house with bullets. They were laughing and talking about what they had just done. Did he recall any specific statements from either of those actors? Yes, he remembered that he had emptied his clip and that he lit up the whole mother####### thing. It's no longer to the point where if you don't hang out at the wrong places or with the wrong people, then you have nothing to worry about. It's not there anymore. State Representative La Tonya Johnson lives near this park in Milwaukee. A park and playground named for a child shot and killed here 20 years ago. She says people promised then it would never happen again. (basketball bouncing) But just in the past two years, 18 children have been shot and killed in Milwaukee. Their deaths prompting peak outrage. In this city, our kids are dying. They're literally dying from gunshot wounds. And not enough people seem to care. It makes me angry that we're forcing our kids to live in communities where, you know, their only way to show that they're hurting is to put up a memorial. When those kids walk to school, they're walking past memorial after memorial and this community doesn't think that there's anything wrong with that. Memorials like this one that dot the sidewalks in a part of the city hardest hit by gun violence. This remembrance marks the life and death of 19-year-old Malik Williams-Weddle. The 102nd homicide of 2015. He was shot and killed at home on a summer night. Family members living in the same house say they don't know why. I run downstairs and I just see my cousin lying on the floor. He's bleeding out. His mom on the phone, I guess, with the police. Police say the case is still under investigation. It's sad. It's disturbing. It's hurtful. It's emotional... because Malik is, he's my-- I have two other cousins that were murdered. So he's the third cousin that make murdered in my family. So it's not easy, you know, dealing with the violence that's going on in Milwaukee. Because Tiffany Weddle is raising young children here. Like her youngest, who plays amidst memorials to the murdered. It always surprises me when people say, "Well what's happening to the kids these days?" They're living in situations where they're living in virtual trauma. And we expect things to be different. Kids who are exposed to violence are more likely to become violent themselves. It's a repetitive cycle. And it's not going to break unless we do something to prevent it. (siren wailing) Right there, right there! Yup, yup, yup. (engine revving as it accelerates) He's going, he's going! It's called the "power shift." Milwaukee police officers working a Saturday night responding to "shots fired" calls all night long. You got no guns in there? Open the door. - Just open the door. We're making sure you got no weapons on 'ya. (gunshots recorded) The calls come in from central dispatch over a gunshot detection system called "ShotSpotter." These are all the "ShotSpotters" for today. The number of gunshots fired and the exact address go directly to squad car computers. Our use of it is basically immediate. Shots fired goes off, we go to it. Somebody's in there. You don't mind if we look through your car? - That okay? Go ahead. - Sir, why don't you come on over here? We're just looking for guns man. "ShotSpotter" detected 28,311 gunshots fired in Milwaukee last year. Most of them not reported by residents. You hear the gunshots out here? You hear them gunshots out here? No? - No. We get a "ShotSpotter" with ten shots, you know, say on this block. This is a very well-populated area and you don't get one single call. And say it ends up in a shooting. And we go knock on the doors doing a canvas trying to find out what happened. And the people go, "Yeah, I heard the shots." And we go, "Why didn't you call?" Well, they're always shooting on this block. Gunfire serving as background noise, leaving police to rely on technology because people don't want to get involved. When we don't speak up, more or less, we are encouraging it. More or less, we are promoting it. Retired Milwaukee police officer and current church elder, Malcolm Hunt, says he believes people don't speak up because they're either afraid of police, or afraid of the criminals, or both. Gunfire in this city caused most of the 145 homicides in 2015. That number represents a 69% increase in homicides from the year before. Another 635 people in Milwaukee were shot and wounded. That says we're in public health crisis. Dr. Mallory O'Brien is founding director of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission... The largest increases have really been seen in District 7. They have a 250% increase....which tracks crime with the aim of preventing it. We know that our suspects are African American males. We know that they tend to have arrest histories. We know that they tend to have some kind of drug arrest in their history. In fact, O'Brien's 2015 data show that young black males aged 15 to 24 in Milwaukee are homicide victims at a rate of 187 per 100,000. For young white males, it's four per 100,000. This has got to stop. So I get texts at all hours of the day about shootings and homicides. The city's mayor, Tom Barrett. I usually expect to see the same thing. I usually expect to see a young person. Sadly, I usually expect to see that the person is going to be a young African American, and a male, and usually I'm right. Barrett says he literally and figuratively carries these deaths with him. During his years as Milwaukee mayor, he's never erased a single one of the messages. There are hundreds. Who is the only one or who is the one qualified and capable of comforting those who mourn? Especially those who mourn because their loved one has been murdered? We gather... with far too many candles. We gather here to acknowledge our collective shame for these candles. Elected office holders attend vigils and funerals to pay their respects for the many victims. Shanice McClain was 17 years old. Milwaukee State Representative La Tonya Johnson remembers one for a 17-year-old girl. I looked around that funeral home and there were so many young individuals there. And I did something that I never do. I stood up and I apologized. I apologized for allowing them to live in a city where a lot of them don't know if they're going to make it to age 18. (car door opens) - How 'ya doing, bud? Between violent crime calls, officers ride the city... Ain't got no guns. - Got no guns on you? Alright....looking to preemptively take guns and shooters off the streets. You're 25? I'm 25. They interact with young men. I've talked to guys where I've told them, "If you don't change your way of life right now, you're going to wind up dead." And they don't care. They flat out told us, "I don't care if I die." Upping the odds all-around of danger and death. Black male in his 20s, gray hooded sweatshirt, red pants, standing in front of the bus and is still pointing the gun. A report from a bus driver. Who said that? - I don't know. Someone called in and said you had a gun on him. He goes around the corner. He just launched it as far as he can. By the time I'm around the corner, he's got his hands in his pockets like, "What? What? I didn't do nothing." The gunman whipped the weapon into the intersection as officers descended. No one was injured. I just want to take a close-up of this one. This two-squad crew in Milwaukee's busiest police district... It's loaded....seized 120 guns from arrests last year. Able to unload it? Semi-automatic handguns would be probably the most common gun used on the streets. These are all semi-automatic handguns. You have a Glock. You have a Hi-Point. In total, Milwaukee police have recovered 12,780 guns since 2010. 2,500 of them last year alone. The highest number in the past five years. They're kept at this police repository in the city. We just know and we're prepared that, in every situation someone could be carrying a firearm. I think of our homicides, close to 90% were gun related. So it's a gun issue. There's no question it's a gun issue. You can have Second Amendment conversations all day long, but people are being killed by guns. There's an old bumper sticker that the NRA had from many years ago that said, "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" and there's truth to that. That individuals who are committing crimes with guns, they don't care about legally possessing them. Wisconsin Attorney General, Brad Schimel, says rules like universal background checks only make it more difficult for law-abiding gun owners to purchase or transfer a firearm and are not stopping the criminals. 90% of my crime guns have been legally purchased. Legally purchased. Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn describes how that's possible. Girlfriend of criminal goes up to Gander Mountain or Cabela's. Buys the gun she's been asked to buy. She has no criminal record. Brings it home. Gives it to her boyfriend. Maybe she buys two guns, couple days apart. So people have this heightened urgency to feel safe. And I believe most people think that that'll be accomplished if they have a gun. And in some areas of this city, I can understand the need to have a gun more so, than not. The cops say they hear that a lot. "It's dangerous out here. I'm just carrying it for protection." And, you know, honestly, I don't blame them. I really don't. But what we want to make sure is that those guns are not falling into the wrong hands. And we've seen that over and over again that is has. Milwaukee has a time-to-crime of six months. And that's the time from when a gun is purchased to the actual time it's used in a violent act or a crime on the streets. The Milwaukee streets where most of the crime and gun violence happen are in the central part of the city, often tracked by zip codes. My feeling is that the Wisconsin residents who happen to live in Milwaukee should not be relegated to a life of crime because they live in a particular zip code, okay? And we've overlaid the census data with... Dr. O'Brien says when demographic data is overlaid in the areas where shootings occur, there's a common theme. There's high poverty in the neighborhoods where we see the violence. There's high unemployment. There is high female head of household, low education attained. The overall primary factor was an argument-fight. It stemmed from a disagreement that some of the subjects at the party had. The commission's crime tracking shows emerging causes for deadly violence in Milwaukee. In 2015, the city saw a 127% increase in retaliation as the reason for a homicide and a 76% jump in simple disputes. We had a case that we reviewed yesterday where there were two individuals and they were fighting over who had the prettier girlfriend. And we have someone dead. Not being able to see him anymore. Tariq Akbar's mother knows all too well. Her young son died over angry words in a Facebook post that didn't even involve him. It's not safe nowhere period. It's not like back then when you can go have fun with your friends and you know a fight will break out. But now it's just shooting and it's just crazy. Even if it's not your own family, the city's violence and gunfire leaves its mark. I had a friend who ran a daycare center in Milwaukee and she was taking the kids on a walk around the block. And this is in a neighborhood that I would not be at all concerned about walking around the block. And there was a car that backfired. And she said half of the children ducked down and laid under a tree. Dr. Marlene Melzer-Lange works in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, specializing in violently injured youth. She says while trauma and stress is worst for those injured themselves or families of victims, entire communities are taking cover. You become much more protective. Parents become much more protective and worried about letting their child go to school, letting them go out on playgrounds, letting them actually be a kid. It is scary because I have to catch the bus home. I could probably walk into somebody's getting into an argument, they might start shooting. I could get hit with an un-named bullet. Then when you hear that it's close to you or it's been in your backyard or it's happening around you, you're scared and you just want to stay in one place and nothing will happen to you. They don't know nobody in the community. They don't socialize with people. So there's a lot of things within the inner city that is going on. People feel trapped in the inner city because at nighttime, it's kind of like you're living in a war zone. And a lot of times when the sun go down, people in their house. They're afraid to come outside. Welcome back. So, it's a complicated issue. And guns and gun violence... It's a frequent topic on Milwaukee radio station W-N-O-V.

The conversation

wide ranging. Caller, good morning. How are you? You're on the air. Go ahead. Thank you for taking my call, Sherwin. When I see a black young man walking down the street, I stop. And I give him a hug. And I say, "I'm so sorry, "as a black man, that you have to go through this in America." And this is how we start this conversation. From the perspective of a law maker... Studio guest, state Senator Lena Taylor, is a regular on the air. We need to deal with literacy. We need to deal with opportunity. We need to deal with teaching people to have a voice, so that people don't feel that just, you know, shooting somebody, right, is the first response. Or a response, right, to disagreements and to issues that exist. W-N-O-V 860 AM "The Voice." You're listening to The Forum. I'm your host Sherwin Hughes. Defense attorney Dan Adams in the studio. So is the senator from the 4th District. That is Lena Taylor. Keep it locked. Listeners of this community station are all too familiar with what's playing out on the street. You ain't never seen a pee pee like this. You know that. And you ain't never seen a 33... - Mike, don't kick it at me. Like the brandishing of weapons in broad daylight. Depicted here in a video shown in court at a defendant's sentencing. These are generally young men who've been miseducated or uneducated. Their family's structures are decimated. They have really very little in terms of pride in themselves. Certainly, very little pride in their neighborhood and their community. And so what do they do to build up that pride and that feeling of self and that feeling of identity of "I am a man. "I am consequential." They go and they get a gun. Commentators note lack of pride, loss of hope. But what led to that? Milwaukee's negative statistics and the people living them may point the way. Starting with the 37% jobless rate for African American men. Milwaukee's employment situation, particularly for black males, is as bad as it's ever been for black males "in their prime age years" as economists call it between the ages of 25 and 54. University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee professor, Marc Levine. We know that segregation plays a very important role. Milwaukee being the most, one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the county means that African Americans are concentrated in the central city here to a greater extent than almost any place in the country. And he points to more. There are big education gaps between blacks and whites in Milwaukee. And that explains a big chunk of the differences in employment. Unemployment results in poverty. The overall poverty rate in Milwaukee is 29.4%. For its white population, the rate is 18.7%. For African Americans in the city, it's 40.4%. And all of these negative statistics. These cumulative disadvantages have historical, multi- generational underpinnings. The period between 1970 and 1990 was the period where the bottom really dropped out of Milwaukee's industrial economy. And that's where the conditions that we see in Milwaukee's inner-city affecting African Americans really took hold. (loud crashing sound) But certain conditions took hold even earlier. A man got eight kids and he makes pretty good money. And he can't get into decent housing because he's a Negro or because you got too many kids. That just don't seem right. This 1968 film documented urban renewal programs in Milwaukee. Programs that tore down dilapidated houses that many African American families called home. Families like Homer and Delores Sheridan, and their eight children, struggling to make it. There's no feeling, no happiness there. There's a feeling of just gloom, nothing but gloom. Gloom and despair, compounded by segregation. Only to be followed over the next two decades by the bottom dropping out of the manufacturing economy. So what happened to the Sheridan family, the children of Delores and Homer, seen in this film? How did the changing landscape of Milwaukee through the years treat that younger generation? I had this ideal that we all were going to grow up and go to college. Dad was going to buy us our first car. And we'd become successful teachers, doctors, lawyers. That is not what happened for Nora and Kim Sheridan or their siblings, whose father, Homer, was a welder in 1968. Feel like you're just working in vain. Then they wanna, like, they say, "Well why does this man--" They'll say, "He's not hisself no more, he's drinking." He done start to drinking. There was a lot of truth to what my dad was saying about he's working an honest-paying job. And he can't go out and find a decent home for his family, which causes him-- which caused men like that to become alcoholics or drug-abusers or abandoning their family. And that's exactly what happened to our family. It's just nerve-racking. You ain't got no peace in the home now. The women say first their father left. That's all I got to say about it right now. And he's not in proper order. And his wife is always angry. Then, their mother. It's nice. They have a really nice garden over here. As they walk the old neighborhood in the central city... Oh, just think. How long ago was that, 1968? 1968? They describe how the nine children, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, fended for themselves in a house where the city eventually placed the family. And it was rat-infested. So we used to all jump in the bed together because we were scared of a rat, you know. Too afraid to ask for help for fear of being separated. It's really hard to concentrate when you're starving to death. Many a days, you know, just being ridiculed in school about your stomach growling so loud because you hadn't eaten in days. And you're dirty and you're going to school. Even so, Kim Sheridan stayed in school and attended college. Employed today in a doctor's office. This house used to be huge, too. Her sister Nora has had long stretches of unemployment. They say many of their siblings got caught up in crime and drugs. The scars of their upbringing, they say, run deep. (Homer

Sheridan

) - Because he's so disgusted. And then he got a job. They want you to have a job. The sisters saw the film. (Homer ) - You got a place for me to go? "No, I'm sorry." Hearing their father speak in it for the first time just days before this interview. And when he left, and under the circumstances that he left, I began to hate him. And I didn't understand his plight. I really didn't until I saw that film 'cuz it gave me a whole perspective on what it's like to be a black man raising a large family in the inner city. Nora Sheridan says she gained perspective and finally forgave. But still she says, she is bitter. It all falls back to the same thing, going back to 1960-- is that society doesn't care about the black community. The sisters say they are angry about generation after generation living in pockets of grinding poverty in Milwaukee, and all that it brings. Including, as in their case, the loss of family role models. And a lot of times what happens in their neighborhood when the sun goes down is shootings, drugs, prostitution and that's all they know. Unfortunately, there's no one else to educate them and show them something different. The black family is being destroyed. The majority of the black family does not have a father. The Sheridan children watched their parents leave home in the early 1970s. Nearly 50 years later, the trend continues for disadvantaged or dysfunctional families in the city. For many, stable home lives can be split apart by razor wire. That means all of the social conditions associated with poverty, such as higher rates of crime. Ultimately, higher rates of crime leading to the epidemic of mass incarceration. Again, we're standing in a neighborhood here that's the epicenter for mass incarceration. As a state, Wisconsin ranks among the highest in the nation for rates of black incarceration. Most of that population coming from Milwaukee. My father did 15 years in prison from the time I was three to 18. 22-year-old Brandon Burks is now serving a short sentence at the Milwaukee House of Correction himself, but vows not to repeat the cycle. He knows the mark an absent father leaves. I think if a lot of fathers were there, that it would be a lot less violence and a lot less anger within the child. How many of you would do anything in the world for your children? Helping inmates understand that anger and reconnect with their families, the director of an organization

called the Milwaukee Fatherhood Initiative

Dennis Walton. We try to get men to really just do a reflection on when you look at the fact that you're incarcerated and you're absent from the life of your child. Let's talk about your father. Was your father incarcerated? And was your father absent from you in that same manner? And a lot of times, there's a direct correlation. So the behavior becomes perpetuated generationally. I got like 120 days left.

Got two kids

two boys. Burks hopes for a different future for his children. I want to give them everything I didn't have and a lot more. And I don't want them to end up in a place like this at all, 'cause it's not a place for anyone. The men in our community that have had setbacks can really change their lives around by going back into communities they've been a part of, destroying or hurting, and making sure that the generations coming behind them don't repeat those same things. Repeating those same things like committing crimes, (clank) being put behind bars. Open the ####### door or I'm going to break the ####### window. Open the door, man. (glass shattering) And doing it all over again for lack of opportunity. Everybody keep your hands up! Or lack of hope or just sheer anger. Now your gun can be economic activity. Back on the radio, the discussion takes up the same points. Loss of family, loss of jobs, poverty. Now you can get a gun and your gun can be your means to an end to get income. You can rob someone. You can use it to intimidate someone, but if there is economic opportunity, people don't look around for other tools, especially dangerous ones. Brandon Methu is a Milwaukee millennial who has found economic success by way of a college degree and good job. But he speaks out on an additional barrier to opportunity for young black men. I grew up with police officers in my school. I grew up with suspensions turned into battery and assault charges. In a school-to-prison pipeline that was very real, (applause) and it took the lives of many of my peers. And Methu says he knows all too well the generational mind-set of young black males in Milwaukee. The demographic overly represented as victims and suspects in gun crimes. Happy people don't shoot people. Happy people don't kill people. Happy people don't rob people. These folks, I would consider them having PTSD with all the gun violence, with all the violence in general that they see growing up in these neighborhoods with the lack of opportunity. There is a hopeless generation and it's my generation. (piano music) We're the largest city in the state, and you can't write off the largest city in the state. If we can fix some of the problems in Milwaukee, it definitely will make things better for Wisconsin. This really has to be "All hands on deck." Already, so many hands work on so many fronts. We're up actually 77% right now for homicides. To cure the despair that blows up at the end of a gun barrel in Milwaukee, hoping against hope for the right prescription. I want this to be a city where in every single neighborhood... Yes!...a grandma can sit on her front porch and watch her grandkids play safely in their front yard. Milwaukee's mayor calls it a simple vision. And that means having adequate police presence. That means having an engaged citizenry that are going to work with the police. So you have to build that trust between the community and the police department. It means having jobs. Particularly, getting the young people in jobs. Young people in jobs, like 17-year-old Dealonte Ragsdale. He says he's building a resume and wants one day to be a chef. I learn how to not be messy when I make food. I learn manners. I learn how to be respectful. (hot grease bubbles) He makes fried chicken and French fries for the in-house caf at an organization called "Running Rebels." Ragsdale has been going to the non-profit after school program most days since he was nine. (billiard balls clanking) He joins hundreds of grade-schoolers and teens who live difficult, stressful, even traumatic lives outside these walls. It's comfortable here and it's secure. When people come here, they don't even think about the negative things that affect them because they come here to have a good time, to get better at something, to learn. Even if they want to just come up here and like, "You know what, I need help with my math homework. Really, honestly, that's all I need." Davonte Hill came as a child and now works for the organization. That's true for many adults on staff. We probably have over 10 young men that work at this agency. And they were part of this agency when they were kids. So, to me, that's definitely success because they learned. One of the main things that I wanted them to learn was giving back. So they get it and go away to college and then they come back and then they help us with the next generation of young people. I told people that they would have a chance to get exposure and perform. Victor Barnett started Running Rebels 35 years ago. His wife joined as co-director when they married. So the computers going to scan until somebody does what? Programs range from computer training to team sports. From chef skills to in-house music recording and performance. (singing) Let's put our hands up And put your guns down 'Cause there's too much bloodshed In the streets now Davonte Hill mentors students in Milwaukee Public Schools, and here after school, on conflict resolution. How to peacefully resolve disputes, a growing cause of gun violence according to experts. He says he can relate to that violence and the fear it brings. As a six-year-old, he was shot and wounded while playing outside. I think for them just hearing my story, and knowing that I'm connected, and I can relate to their stories. They feel more comfortable telling me a little bit more about their background and why they make decisions that they make. They may be able to say like, this tragedy I experienced in my life has kind of led me to be the way that I am and the reason why I handle things the way I handle them. So when young people come here, they really feel like they're surrounded by a family. Like multiple people, got their back and are looking out for their best interest. And that's a good feeling for them to have. (rap/dance music) Running Rebels has been practicing its version of trauma-informed programming for more than three decades. Programming that others serving children only more recently have come to embrace. The Milwaukee Public School District is training teachers system-wide toward what they're calling trauma-sensitive schools. Educating the educators on the effect of adverse or traumatic experiences in childhood including things like incarceration, neglect, or violence. The district's recent training materials included a TED talk by a pediatric expert who explains how toxic stress and traumatic experiences impede learning by, very literally, causing brain injury. It inhibits the prefrontal cortex which is necessary for impulse control and executive function, a critical area for learning. And on MRI scans, we see measurable differences in the amygdala, the brain's fear response center. So there are real neurologic reasons why folks exposed to high doses of adversity are more likely to engage in high risk behavior. Studies show 70% of inner-city populations are exposed to traumatic events that could trigger the need for special interventions. Milwaukee schools are taking notice. Especially as they grapple with achievement gaps. If I have a student in my class and the student's hungry, the ability for that student to learn is not really at the highest possible level it could be because they have some basic needs that aren't met. If we have a student who has experienced some trauma and they don't necessarily have the coping skills at that particular point to deal with it well, the first thing that they're focused on is probably not literacy, or probably not the math problem that's expected of them, or science class. And so there is this appreciation of we have to really make sure that people's basic needs are met, that they feel safe and then we can really get to the learning component of it. (child giggles) Come on T.J.! Ruth McClinton plays with her great grandchildren at a park near her home on the north side of Milwaukee feeling safe with them here. You climb! I climb? You climb up there! Even though the neighborhood borders the lowest income/ highest crime area in the city and sits smack in the epicenter of manufacturing job loss. The former A.O. Smith building across the street. (swings squeak) McClinton moved here 34 years ago. Her friend Yvonne McCaskill bought her house down the block 42 years ago. Then young mothers in a thriving community. We had many people who worked at A.O. Smith and lived here so they were able to walk to work. Capital Drive. We had many businesses. Along Hopkins, this area, there were many family-owned businesses. There were bakeries and small shops. That all changed over the decades as jobs left, along with homeowners. But these friends and neighbors refused to retreat. We really like being here. We like living here. And we want to reclaim it. We want something to happen here. I don't know if I want to say that we want to go back to the old days because that's not coming back. Manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. As we knew it then. But, however, I think that we can create an environment for future generations to enjoy what we enjoyed raising families here. McCaskill leads her neighborhood association

with its watch zones and motto

"Building neighborhoods block by block." That includes working with police to keep an eye out for crime. She's lent her community-building experience to the bricks and mortar re-build of the A.O. Smith site across the street. The Century City business park. Over my left shoulder, you may be able to see the first building that has gone up, which is an investment through the Capital Group City of Milwaukee. And we couldn't be more happy and pleased that across the street from us something is happening. Jobs, jobs, jobs. That's the hope and expectation. When I moved here, it was beautiful and it's coming back. It's coming back. Farther downtown another sign of comeback. The city, county, and state, along with the Milwaukee Bucks owners are joining together to build a new arena that has all-important jobs attached. I look at it, in part, as a $500 million public works project paid for by $250 million in private money that's going to create jobs. And part of our term sheet with the Bucks has been they hire people from the city of Milwaukee. They're building a new Bradley Center so they might need a couple workers. Inmates like Brandon Burks at the Milwaukee House of Correction now have better job prospects upon release. (engine running) For example, ahead of getting out, Burks signed up for welding and forklift training. The institution re-instated programming for inmates in recent years under the direction of the county executive. (rubbing squeak) Programming like this training in the print shop. I don't want to be a statistic anymore. Do you know what that feels like? Especially for somebody not to believe in me. (crying) I think it's the hardest thing ever. (mechanical clanking) Inmates taking part in the programs say they have new hope for their futures. When we get out from being incarcerated, we can get a job doing this. Working in a print shop. You watch them grow over months and through some of the partnering employment agencies, we watch them go to work every day. And a lot of them, it's their first job ever. The goal, according to Assistant Superintendent Jose Hernandez, is to stop the cycle of incarceration. Incarceration that is so damaging to communities and families. And the costs of which cut a deep swath not just in Milwaukee, but across Wisconsin. Taxpayers statewide are footing the bill for individuals that are being put in prison. They're footing the bill for all the social services costs that are resulting from either somebody being killed or being incarcerated, and now, the state's gonna have to step in and help raise a child. Everybody in the state's footing the bill for that. While the state Department of Justice can't sweep in and just fix this problem, we can help on the criminal justice side. New help on the criminal justice side includes state money in Milwaukee for additional prosecutors to try gun cases and to help cover homicide detectives' overtime when making cases against violent shooters. We're coming after them with better tools and a stronger commitment and better partnership. As we sit here and we debate this bill, people are continuing to die. New tools include a bill passed into state law that removes sentencing discretion in certain cases. You're a violent felon and then you're caught in possession of an illegal handgun. Being caught with that illegal handgun is going to get you three years mandatory minimum sentence. If you're using that gun in the commission of another violent crime, that's going to get you an additional five years for a total of eight years. Despite the many costs of locking people up, the bill's author, Milwaukee Representative La Tonya Johnson, says violent felons must be taken off the streets. And to basically say, "We're not going to tolerate it anymore." The best way to avoid the human, societal and taxpayer costs of gun violence is to prevent it. Alright, let's get into the numbers. That's the goal of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, which meets several times a month to review cases. The initial fight started next door to me. In this meeting, community partners learn everything known about suspects, victims, motive. The folks in the zip code are making between about $15,000 to $25,000 a year. The task then is to make recommendations and take action about how similar homicides could be thwarted in the future. I think it should get the word out more so into the schools. We've really been encouraging the residents to start reporting a lot of this activity. In addition, I think we need to build upon that idea about the block watches. At some level, we could have prevented these homicides. It might not have been something that we could have done yesterday or something that we could have done last week. But at some point, we could have changed the trajectory of an individual that's been involved, whether it's the victim, the suspect, or whether it's the location in which these occurred. And now the Commission is onto something new. We started looking at who are the individuals that we've seen as victims, witnesses or suspects multiple times. Working with the Milwaukee Police Department, Homicide Review Commission analysts looked at these so-called "frequent fliers" in its databases. The people showing up as victims, suspects or witnesses three or more times. Mr. Harris' prior arrests involved reckless endangerment of safety which would involve a handgun. Just 27 people and their social networks have been identified. People believed by authorities to be the cause of most of Milwaukee's gun violence. The chronic offenders. We're really talking about a small group of people who have chosen gun violence as a way to solve their problems. I'm tired of our young people dying. I'm tired of our children dying. That small group of people, causing so much tragedy and trouble, is getting fresh focus from the law. The U.S. Justice department has awarded Milwaukee a nearly $300,000 grant to support intelligence to help target, arrest and prosecute the "frequent fliers." To the extent that our addressing the violent crime problem is going to mean that the Milwaukee Police department has an increased presence in certain neighborhoods where these violent offenders live, where these violent crimes are committed, it's important that those communities also have trust in law enforcement. Gregory Haanstad, the United States Attorney in Milwaukee, says the federal government's newly launched reform initiative assessing the Milwaukee Police Department (chambers clicking) is important toward building that trust and curbing crime. Now "ShotSpotter"-- I mean exact address where it happened. Because, when technology must replace citizen involvement in reporting gunshots, what role does lack of trust play? We are all fearful for the treatment of our children when it comes to interactions with the police department. Federal Justice officials came in from Washington this year to listen to community members as a first step toward recommendations for police reform. We don't need police who are praying on us. Hundreds turned out to be heard in the wake of events like the 2014 death of Dontre Hamilton. I'm Dontre Hamilton's mother. Shot and killed by a white Milwaukee police officer after a confrontation in a city park. The officer was not criminally charged. This is not an overnight thing. This is decades long that this distrust has developed out of real concerns and real issues. Stepped up enforcement in high crime areas can leave residents feeling racially targeted. We just need to be treated fairly and equally where we live. Now Milwaukee has a lot of criminals but because you're black, that doesn't make you one. Right! The Milwaukee Police Chief was not invited to this listening session, but he says he feels the tension of policing in troubled neighborhoods. This dual reality of "Do something about crime and get cops into my neighborhood," and "Oh, my God. What are all the cops doing?" is injuring the neighborhoods and the police at the same time. Not only do we need to talk about what the police are doing, but we also need to address what we're doing. And with all the shooting, it's always been us killing us-- killing one another. Malcolm Hunt is connected to the city and its people. First, as a Milwaukee police officer for 25 years. So we have to go back and thank God! And now, at this inner-city church, Hunt is an elder. It seems to me an alarming number of men and women have failed miserably to understand the spirit and the nature of murder. He believes the religious community in Milwaukee should take a broader healing role. We have to get out here and start talking with these young men, especially with these young men. Us older men, we got to get out here and start talking with these young people. (singing Gospel) Hunt says his next step is to expand his street ministry. Reaching out to young people block by block. Say, "Hey listen. Let's stop this, all this violence" cause the children. The children are the ones that suffering. We need children to dream again. I need them to see that there is something more. And so, the hands on deck in Milwaukee work to heal and help. Realizing they need to bring change and hope to a city despairing over too many candles for its victims. (somber piano music) Most especially, its young victims. Like the boy whose friends and family say, "Loved basketball, loved people, was just a good kid." Tariq! He was only 14. My son had a long life ahead of him. (somber piano music)