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Chicagoland
Chicagoland: Broken Wings
Aired April 10, 2014 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NARRATOR: Previously on CHICAGOLAND:
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The city of Chicago is on watch for the children of Chicago.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here they come, here they come.
RAHM EMANUEL (D), MAYOR OF CHICAGO: We now have a digital economy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he the mayor of the 1 percent?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can knock our voices down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hit the horn. Shift to your left.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like anything can happen any time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This place can go zero to 60 very quickly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought we were in America, not in a foreign land where we hear about war.
ELIZABETH DOZIER, PRINCIPAL, FENGER HIGH SCHOOL: We're at 50 percent attendance for over 100 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my job, your job, your job. Ain't nobody here safe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NARRATOR: When people want to know how a swampy trading post on the lake became a world-class city, all you have to do is send them to the top of the John Hancock and let them take a look for themselves.
Why Chicago? Because it's at the crossroads of everything. Mayor Emanuel wants to capitalize on that.
EMANUEL: There's 100 cities that really drive the world economy. Chicago's in that. But unlike a Berlin, unlike a New York or unlike a Shanghai, we're not guaranteed a slot. And what we do in these next two to three years will guarantee whether in 20 or 30 years, we're in the top 50 or we slide back. And I'm determined to keep us in that top 50 and moving. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Welcome to O'Hare International Airport, as we celebrate the opening of runway 28 center.
NARRATOR: Chicago's O'Hare Airport once was America's busiest. A lot of work has been done to try to reclaim that crown, and Rahm plans to be the guy to make it happen.
EMANUEL: When we say building a new Chicago, we mean building a new Chicago.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
EMANUEL: We have a world-class work force, second to none. We have world-class transportation, second to none. This is church now. We have a world-class city, second to none. And with this runway, the world's coming to Chicago, and Chicago's coming to your house.
(APPLAUSE)
BRUCE KATZ, VICE PRESIDENT, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Something different is being unleashed in the United States and frankly around the world today. And what's happening in many ways led by the city is a shift in how leaders at the local level think about economic development.
Bruce Katz is a leading voice of what he calls the metro revolution. He believes that cities are the incubators of change.
KATZ: Mayors have to deal with the basics, safe streets, good schools, but they also have to deal with the structure of their economy in ways that they have never had to do before.
EMANUEL: Spend some time. Come on over to the office. We will give you the optimism of the future.
NARRATOR: The mayor's vision can be boiled down into a simple phrase, building a new Chicago. But he faces major obstacles, the history of racism, cronyism and corruption, and a global economy that is swiftly changing. If that weren't enough, there's Chicago's trouble with violent crime.
KATZ: We live in a world where capital can go anywhere. So a mayor like Rahm needs to deal with this upsurge in violence and crime. This is a central issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a violent weekend here in Chicago. There were several new shootings. And they include one man who was killed near Sherwood Elementary School.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a retired Chicago public schoolteacher, and I want to ask the superintendent why my students have to be scared to go to school in their own goddamn neighborhoods.
GARRY MCCARTHY, CHICAGO POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: I have to be clear, Marlina. I'm responsible for reducing crime, but I'm not accountable, nor am I in control of the things that cause it, like poverty, education, breakup of the family unit. There's been a gun violence problem in this city for at least 100 years, but I'm sorry. I'm not going to take the blame for the history that puts us in the place where we are.
NARRATOR: In the 2012 school year, 319 students got shot. Despite parents' fears, this school year has gotten off to a safe start.
JADINE CHOU, CHIEF SAFETY AND SECURITY OFFICER, CPS: Knock on wood, we have not had a student shot this week. Between -- so Monday and today -- it's only Thursday -- we haven't had a single student in any circumstances.
BARBARA BYRD-BENNETT, CEO, CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Jadine, you are right. I probably thought I got so wrapped up in school opening, I missed it, but I haven't seen that.
CHOU: We haven't had a student shot. And I know. So, I didn't want to say anything because we still have one more day to get through.
(CROSSTALK)
BYRD-BENNETT: This is like everybody...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.
NARRATOR: At Fenger High, the fear of violence has kept some freshmen from showing up.
It's a school big enough for 1,500, but now has a student body of 430. Bottom line, if Principal Dozier doesn't get more kids enrolled soon, her budget will take a serious hit.
DOZIER: It's these two charter schools. They're just like pulling these parents under a misassumption, because their scores are no better than ours.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. I think, for next year, we ought to change our name.
DOZIER: Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to do a better marketing.
DOZIER: I mean, I just feel like I like who we are. I think we're good people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These two kids in the building.
DOZIER: OK. Attention all security. I'm looking for a young man, kind of short with a white T-shirt, brown khaki pants on, if you could please do me a favor and hold him for me. OK. Everybody, come around really quick. OK.
NARRATOR: Principal Dozier tells her team to prepare for the worst. There may be an armed student in the building.
DOZIER: Every security in this building, if you're not in the lunchroom or at door eight, all security on the floors, I need you to go ahead and meet me at the middle of the second floor.
NARRATOR: Over the radio, Liz gets an update.
DOZIER: I'm not sure what year this person is.
NARRATOR: Security caught up with the student. He was just a lost freshman who came in the wrong entrance.
While it's a relief, the constant threat of violence keeps Liz and her team on edge.
DOZIER: We have a huge influx of kids who weren't with us last year -- monitoring that stuff.
NARRATOR: Liz alerts the Chicago Police Gang Squad to keep them up to date on potential troublemakers.
CANDICE BURNS, GANG TEAM OFFICER, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: You have the Gangster Disciples on 122nd, but I don't think you still have a lot of them that go to a school.
DOZIER: We actually had two come back, and they are here.
BURNS: Since we have talked the last...
DOZIER: Yes.
NARRATOR: Over in Oak Forest, a SWAT team practices tracking criminals. When the shooting starts, Dr. Dennis is the kind of guy you want to have around. He's a doctor and a cop.
DR. ANDREW DENNIS, SURGEON, COOK COUNTY HOSPITAL TRAUMA UNIT: I'm a little tired. I didn't really sleep very much last night. I came right from the hospital right to here. It's all good.
NARRATOR: He's a trauma surgeon, Cook County sheriff's deputy and a ballistics specialist who knows exactly how to use guns and the kind of damage they can do.
A. DENNIS: It's amazing when no one has bad habits how well they shoot. All right, you want to shoot the rifle? Squeeze.
NARRATOR: It gives his residents a better understanding of the kind of wounds they will have to treat back at the trauma center.
A. DENNIS: Part of medical education, in my mind, is to teach them more than just how to put an I.V. in, or how to sew someone up. If you are only in the ivory tower of the hospital, you are missing half, if not more, of the story.
NARRATOR: The shooting on the South Side sends another victim to the trauma unit. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has no feeling below his left knee. He can't move his left foot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's your name, boss?
DAMIEN ENIS, GUNSHOT VICTIM: Damien.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Damien?
ENIS: That hurt. Whatever you are all doing down there, it hurt.
(CROSSTALK)
A. DENNIS: Relax. Dude, I'm trying to decide whether you need an operation to get your belly zipped open.
So, let me do what I got to do, OK?
(SCREAMING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, our job is to find out what is going to kill him and stop that from happening.
A. DENNIS: He has two holes in his chest, and I only see on bullet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a bullet missing. So, you don't know if it could kill him.
A. DENNIS: My job is to take care of the person, body, soul and all.
You have two holes here. One went here and one went where?
If you don't prevail as a surgeon, the patient dies.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NARRATOR: When the first family moved from the South Side to the White House, they brought the Chicago blues with them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you started something and you have got to keep it up now.
NARRATOR: And President Obama sure can sing it.
(SINGING)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We home, Chicago.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
NARRATOR: Buddy Guy is one of the best guitar players in the world.
BUDDY GUY, MUSICIAN: I said, Mr. President, there is a long ways from picking cotton to picking the guitar in the White House.
NARRATOR: Came to Chicago in 1957, part of the great migration of African-Americans escaping the Jim Crow South to find steady work.
GUY: We were just looking for a day job. And we would get up in the morning and you would have to take your lunch, because we had the steel mill. We had the stock out here, and I think 100,000 people was working around the clock.
NARRATOR: During the great migration, Chicago's African-American community grew from about 2 percent of the population to nearly a third by the 1970s. The South Side became the center of black business and culture.
GUY: It was the heydays, and now it looks like a ghost town.
NARRATOR: Today, in poverty-stricken neighborhoods like Roseland and Pullman, good-paying jobs are hard to come by. After 20 years of watching jobs and businesses disappear, folks here are even willing to welcome a Wal-Mart, a corporation many view as anti-labor.
EMANUEL: I do want to say, you guys know how to open a store, man. It is something else here.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
EMANUEL: Everything that every other community have, Pullman and Roseland have a right to have that here, too. Let's get going.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
NARRATOR: Wal-Mart is bringing 400 jobs to a community plagued by unemployment and foreclosures. The pay's low, but for some, it is better than no pay at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let us pray through this Wal-Mart, our community will continue to stand. Yes, Roseland and Pullman is worth fighting for.
NARRATOR: Back at the Cook County Trauma Unit, Damien's fight for his life rests in the hands of Dr. Dennis, who's still searching for the missing bullet.
A. DENNIS: That's what I want to see. That's a bullet hole. That's where it left the belly. OK. So, that's where it came in and out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The human body is incredibly resilient. But, at the same time, a bullet only has to find one single path to something that's important to change that.
A. DENNIS: He's not moving anything below the waist, nor is he feeling anything, 19. In a matter of a split-second, his life has completely changed.
He was shot a couple times. He's got some things that are broken.
GLORIA MACON, MOTHER OF DAMIEN: The bullet went through the spine?
A. DENNIS: It did.
A. DENNIS: Right now, you have to expect the worst, and that is he will not be moving his legs again.
NARRATOR: Damien joins a large population of wheelchair-bound Chicagoans. Some of them refuse to slow down.
Eric Wilkins knows firsthand what it is like to be paralyzed by bullets.
ERIC WILKINS, FOUNDER, BROKEN WINGGZ: We come together and we challenge each other to be at the top of our game.
NARRATOR: In the Soldier Field parking lot, Eric returns to the National Wheelchair Softball Tournament, where he's been MVP two years in a row.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dig, dig, dig.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Push, push, push.
WILKINS: I have both of the MVPs, the one from New York and the one from Chicago last year. I'm trying to get the MVP again this year.
WILKINS: I got shot. I stayed in the hospital like five, six months. It had me stop and look at myself, and I didn't like what I had become.
NARRATOR: Eric survived the brutal gang wars that plagued the far South Side in the '90s.
WILKINS: Hey. How are you doing today, sir? All right.
Before my injury, I lived my life in the fast lane, selling drugs, carried a pistol, partying all the time. Didn't really care if tomorrow came. I was a gang affiliate. It wasn't no Boys and Girls Club. So that was my fraternity.
I didn't know how much I was really hurting my community.
My name is Eric Wilkins. For guys that don't know me, I run a foundation called the Broken Winggz Foundation.
NARRATOR: After taking three bullets in 1999 and becoming partially paralyzed, he turned his life around and started Broken Winggz, a program to help shooting survivors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A man got shot in front of me.
WILKINS: And he passed away?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Someone (EXPLETIVE DELETED) just pulled up and just started shooting. He died instantly. I didn't get hit at all. WILKINS: You know, in the '80s, my uncle was put in a wheelchair. He got shot and put in a wheelchair. In the '90s, I got shot and put in a wheelchair. And in the '00s, my son got put in a wheelchair. It's the teens now. Now, I will be damned if my grandson get put in a wheelchair. Somebody has got to draw the line.
NARRATOR: Eric graduated from Fenger High, where settling conflicts peacefully can save lives.
ROBERT SPICER, DEAN, FENGER HIGH SCHOOL: How many of you as parents have had somebody give you a second chance?
NARRATOR: Robert Spicer explains to new students and their parents how restorative justice works.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is for all the students, my daughter. Every student here, will they be safe? That's my main concern.
SPICER: That's definitely any number one concern. And especially hearing the old-school stuff that you have heard about the school, a lot of people may come thinking, man, what's going on? Safety is the priority. It's always been. And restorative practices, we believe and we know, works.
NARRATOR: But if more students don't show up for school, this program and others could get the axe.
DOZIER: If we don't find the kids, essentially, we will lose more money. The assistant principal and I have kind of already begun this conversation of, what position could we kind of, not necessarily do without, but how could we -- yes, how could we do without?
We have got to get 45 kids in this door, and we have approximately four days to do it. Like, that's it. Each of these kids, right, translates to around $5,065. It affects obviously our personnel, but it also affects the services we're going to be able to provide for kids.
This is like real, and it is going to impact all of us at this table. Like, it is going to mean someone at this table will not be here. Like, it's real. We have got four days.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELLODY HOBSON, BOARD CHAIR, AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS: If you are someone who's has done well, you are expected to give back to our society. It's sort of the price of admission of living in Chicago.
Thank you so much for being here.
NARRATOR: Mellody Hobson is an influential businesswoman and filmmaker George Lucas' better half. HOBSON: One more.
NARRATOR: She heads up After School Matters, a foundation that provides programs for more than 20,000 Chicago public schoolkids.
EMANUEL: These young men and women, we are giving them a skill and an education that gets you a career, so they can achieve a middle-class life.
NARRATOR: When it comes to Chicago's first family, there's only one clan that has the Obama's beat, the Daleys.
JUDY WOODRUFF, PBS: Between you and your father, you have run the city of Chicago for, what is it, 43 of the last 55 years. Do you think, Mr. Mayor, there should be term limits?
RICHARD DALEY (D), FORMER MAYOR OF CHICAGO: Definitely no.
(LAUGHTER)
NARRATOR: Richard J. Daley was Chicago's original boss. His power extended far beyond the city limits. Richard M. Daley followed in his legendary father's footsteps when he was elected mayor in 1989.
DALEY: I love being mayor. It's the greatest job in America. But you have a lot of issues. You don't blame anybody. You just solve the issues. You go ahead and solve them.
NARRATOR: In the late '80s, early '90s, Chicago averaged more than 800 homicides a year. That's nearly twice the number of murders in the city today.
DALEY: We became the laughing stock of the world, Beirut on the lake.
Chicago can do better. Chicago will do better. I welcome the challenge. Thank you.
NARRATOR: Daley's 22 years in office made him Chicago's longest- serving mayor. He took control of the public schools, tore down the gang-infested housing projects his father built.
Like his father before him, Daley had a vision to make Chicago a global city that attracted big business and a young professional work force.
DALEY: You always need a younger generation coming in at all times to keep the city flowing. And so gentrification is the best thing to happen to cities.
DR. MELISSA DENNIS, WIFE OF ANDREW A. DENNIS: We have been here now 15 years. Andrew and I grew up in suburbia USA. So, this is not what I thought I would be doing.
NARRATOR: Dr. Dennis and his wife raise their children in Roscoe Village on the North Side.
A. DENNIS: Let me see your hands. Can you wear all that to school?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone is always wearing them to school.
A. DENNIS: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh ,yes. You're wearing my bracelet.
A. DENNIS: I like it.
There's culture. There's museums. There's going to the lakefronts. At the same time, as a policemen, I see places that you would never take your family, because some of these neighborhoods, it's like living in a battle zone.
Bend your knees. Do what you can do. So you can shake your hip. Can you do anything with this one? Move your toes.
NARRATOR: Damien has a long, hard road to recovery.
A. DENNIS: Try. Well, they're going to get you up. The physical therapists are actually going to start moving you and trying to get you up and out of bed today. You have to learn how to transfer yourself from the bed to the chair, to the bathroom. All of the things that you do on a daily basis, you have to learn how to do again. OK?
Did you know the guys that shot you?
ENIS: No.
A. DENNIS: What were you guys doing?
ENIS: I was on my way home.
A. DENNIS: Look. Look at me. Focus on me. It's important that you focus on this stuff, OK?
WILKINS: People want to label our kids as thugs, hoodlums. They are just kids caught up in the system. They are losing their dreams. They are losing their hope. And when you have got to go to a funeral and you got to watch your friends die, and you watch your friends die and you watch your friends die, it's just -- it's overwhelming.
NARRATOR: As Labor Day approaches, Principal Dozier and some of her friends escape the city for a camping trip.
DOZIER: William, could you get my bag for me, please? There you go. You guys are so good at this.
Ooh, Jesus.
NARRATOR: For some of these kids, this is their first campsite.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to face this way because it's cool.
DOZIER: But should we be that close to this foliage over.. (CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Dozier, there ain't going...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look, if something happens and we have to scream and run, I don't want to run out into the woods.
DOZIER: Right. But we're going to come out this door and go that way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but if we -- but if it's dark outside and we are confused and hysterical...
DOZIER: I'm not going to be confused. I'm going to go that way.
(LAUGHTER)
DOZIER: I need you to think of one thing you want to leave behind from last school year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One thing I want to throw away is being late for school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My attitude.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to throw away my lack of confidence and my laziness.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to throw away all the violence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he knew his department would be tested this summer, and tested it was on Labor Day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A bullet hole in the front window, a gut- wrenching reminder of the shooting last night that took the life of 16-year-old Maurice Knowles. He was shot in the chest as he sat on his front porch at 105th and LaSalle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's crazy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's sad. And I tell them every day, watch your back. Stay out of trouble. You know, try to do what's right. But they getting chased. They getting shot at. What are they supposed to do?
WILKINS: Maurice Knowles was a kid, you know, a young boy 16 years old.
NARRATOR: Eric watched Maurice grow up. Now he tries to comfort his family and friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be totally honest with you, it ain't even really kicked in with me. It's just senseless. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have known Maurice for 16 years. I love him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These kids, half of their parents, they're scared to come to school. School? I love school. But I can't walk to school or get on the bus to school. You never know what will happen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Father God, we are gathered here tonight for Maurice, praying for his soul. We are a strong family, and we will make it through.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody on edge. So, if it -- if it trigger off in between here, man, will nobody be able to come outside.
NARRATOR: After the memorial, some of Maurice's friends head to a party down the street.
Eric worries things could spiral out of control.
WILKINS: I go out and hit the blocks on these 100s, and I try to defuse the problem. If it means me putting -- putting my life on the line for it, I'm going, and everybody know it out here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This ain't that type of car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None of your business. None of your business.
NARRATOR: At times like this, even a little jealousy could spark a gun battle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, stop. Y'all stop. Hold on.
NARRATOR: Eric tries to break up the fight. No one's listening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop, stop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's wrong with y'all?
(GUNSHOT)
NARRATOR: As the police arrive gunshots scatter the crowd.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NARRATOR: Chicago's influence on American culture is undeniable. Today, the city's art scene pumps more than $2 billion into the economy and attracts top talent from around the world.
RICCARDO MUTI, CONDUCTOR: Chicago is the most elegant city in the United States. But what is beautiful is also bright and good.
NARRATOR: World-renowned conductor Riccardo Muti has led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 2010.
MUTI: It's supposed to be a prayer, not "Aida." With the elephants coming.
An orchestra is something that reflects the way of living in the city. Music is one of the most powerful weapon that we have to create love. That's the reason when I came to Chicago the first thing I thought is to bring music to the parts of the city that are far away from the music and not from their fault.
NARRATOR: They aren't just far from the music. Slow, unreliable public transit also keeps many South Siders far from many other opportunities downtown. The CTA has worked to improve the crumbling Red Line as one way to address that, and Rahm sped that project along.
EMMANUEL: Hey, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning. Welcome aboard.
NARRATOR: Politically it was a big gamble for the mayor.
EMANUEL: You're going to reroute 200,000 people on a daily commute? Nobody had done this. Very politically risky.
NARRATOR: You could call it Red Line roulette. If something went wrong, South Side community leaders were ready to blast the mayor.
EMANUEL: If this wasn't on time and on budget, our view would be on the other side of this microphone, but you all wanted to be part of this, because it did.
People now talking having about all the commercial development that comes with a modern station.
I took a bet. And we delivered.
NARRATOR: For Damian, it's about taking the first step.
DR. ANDREW DENNIS: He actually has some function in his legs left. How much comes back is going to be really related to how much his body heals and how much his mind puts forth to working hard. The rehabilitation and the convalescence are all the hidden sides of what happens after violence and injury. These are hidden things that people don't normally see.
NARRATOR: Chicago pays a hefty price for its gun violence. The annual tab tops $2 billion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't move it at all. That's hurting me.
NARRATOR: At the Cook County trauma unit, nearly 40 percent of patients are victims of violent crime.
DENNIS: I don't think about the costs. We take care of people.
I'm late.
I think all of us exist in multiple worlds in the city of Chicago. Here where we see people in their lowest moments. But I'm very fortunate. I live in a beautiful house. I have, you know, beautiful kids, and I live in a fairytale world.
NARRATOR: Dr. Dennis may work two jobs, but he always makes time for his kids.
And after a grueling stay in the hospital, Damian is finally well enough to return back home to his son. He faces so many obstacles to his recovery.
Eric's been down that road before and offers his support.
ERIC WILKINS, SURVIVOR OF GUN VIOLENCE: You picture yourself walking?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I know I can. I've got to. I've got to. I have two kids need me to walk. I hope I beat them to walking.
WILKINS: OK. That's what's up. How many times did you get shot?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Six times. I could have been dead.
WILKINS: I look at it like this. When I first got put in my chair, it was just time for me to sit down. Instead of me going to -- going to jail, I ended up sitting in a wheelchair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because that's life trying to let me know to slow down. And I learned my lesson. It took a bullet to hit me for me to sit down.
WILKINS: It ain't worth it. Ain't worth nothing.
NARRATOR: Just blocks away, the shooting continues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chicago police start another week of trying to put a stop to gunfire on the streets of Chicago. This weekend saw nine people dying, including a teenager.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tit for tat going back and forth. Young guys, nobody over 30.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Days later after Maurice Knowles (ph) was murdered, there was another shooting that appears to be retaliation. Eric knows the temptation of revenge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I actually had a chance one time, one of my friends, we caught up with some of the guys that had something to do with it. A young boy couldn't have been more than 16, 17 years old, and the devil was like, "Yes, man, hit him, hit him." But a calm came over me, and I didn't want to hurt nobody. I realized that wasn't for me. So I just said, "Man, I'm through."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maurice was just 16. Word on the street is he got killed by a rival clique over a stolen gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He gave you to me (UNINTELLIGIBLE). In the 16 years that I had you, I enjoyed you, Maurice.
NARRATOR: Each shooting that claims a new victim has the potential to spark retaliation and set off a deadly chain reaction.
GARRY MCCARTHY, POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: When documented gang members become the victim of gun violence, you can be assured they are going to retaliate to that gun violence.
NANCY HARTY: I don't mean this to sound as callous as it may sound, but if the people who should be spending more time behind bars end up getting killed, doesn't that kind of resolve the problem for you?
MCCARTHY: No. Come on, that's crazy. I'm not even going to respond to that. The answer to that is no. Because those individuals have -- they have children. They have parents. They have brothers, and they have sisters. What we're saying is if they get killed it's OK? That's outrageous. What's the cost to the mother of the gang banger? What's the cost of a human life?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I came to Chicago you were either you were a White Sox or you were a Cub fan and you hated the other team. It's not a rumor that Mayor Daley is a White Sox fan. There's no question about it. The current mayor, he's a Cub fan, but we'll take him on opening day.
EMANUEL: I'm going to give him that as a going away gift.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You didn't make a bet with him? No bet?
EMANUEL: How do you know we didn't?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chicago's baseball team stunk up both sides of town over the summer, and the whole city's ready for some football. Nothing unites Chicago like the Bears.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You throw some burgers on. You throw some brats on. You get a couple of tall frosty adult beverages and are having a fun time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's how you do it!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prediction, I've got Bears winning the Super Bowl.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another Super Bowl record, the first Refrigerator to score.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's almost 30 years later, but people still live it like it was yesterday.
NARRATOR: At Soldier Field, tailgaters get the party started with cold beer and grilled meat. Lots and lots of meat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In case someone has a heart attack they can go right in the ambulance, and they're all set.
NARRATOR: But almost 400,000 Chicagoans live in food deserts. EMANUEL: I made a pledge in the campaign that we were going to cut 400,000 people in the city of Chicago who live in what are designated as food deserts. That is, they have to travel more than a mile to get fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. We've had a great partner in Whole Foods, and they have made a major decision to invest in a part of the city that usually gets passed over. They're not getting passed over anymore.
WALTER ROBB, WHOLE FOODS: When the mayor called and the mayor called personally to ask us, you take it seriously.
EMANUEL: And then I became a bad penny. Bad penny.
NARRATOR: Some people say they're surprised the mayor recruited Whole Foods to Englewood, since most locals can't afford to shop there.
He brings Walter Robb to visit Growing Home, Chicago's first high- production organic farm.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do lots of programming around gardening, nutrition, healthy living.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: so what do you think so far of what you see?
ROBB: I'm so impressed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People continue. Look at these, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Growing Home hopes to bring jobs and fresh produce to Englewood, but money is tight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They need about 100 grand more to do that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So Rahm gently encourages the farm's future neighbor to fork over some cash.
ROBB: You need 100 grand to make that happen? Is that right? Marco (ph), what do you say, you do 50, I'll do 50?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Deal.
RAHM: Deal.
ROBB: A hundred thousand done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much.
ROBB: This is fantastic, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take your 100,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.
DOZIER: OK. So let me have your attention. If you know of my students that are out there who are not yet at school, they've got to get learning. So if you bring a student to school, we have a McDonald's gift card for you.
Let's see. Who do we have? Jamark (ph) Slayton brought someone in. Where you at, Jamark (ph)?
Maybe, like, what $700 if they brought all the kids in. Right? It's a small personal investment I can make to potentially save over $100,000 in, like, kids' services.
People might not understand, like, what does a student advocate do or what does a dean really do or how is a peacekeeper circle. What's that really mean? It's all bits and pieces of the puzzle that makes the school function. We basically have, really, one day left.
I've already started thinking about who's going to have to go.
All right, guys. We saved -- all right. Bye.
(SIRENS)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A 14-year-old boy was killed yesterday afternoon blocks from his home and minutes from this very parish.
NARRATOR: Another homicide. This time it's 14-year-old Tommy McNeill, who's one of Maurice's friends. Eric has watched these kids grow up, and he joins Big Red in pleading with them to change their lives before it's too late.
WILKINS: You can't do that no more. That's a decision you've got to make. You've got it in you, man. I've seen you change.
NARRATOR: Big Red's son also was friends with Maurice, but she's terrified he could be next.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. In and out of the house, running with your friends. Your friends has died. As you can see that, you're going to have it. Three of them have died within a week and a half period of time. You done tried the street life. Try to change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been trying to stop doing all that stuff that she talked about. Because I see what's going on here. I feel like that could have been me. You never know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard for me to see you out here. I see Bone face. I see Tommy's face. I've seen Maurice face. They all on Facebook together. Tommy and Maurice come, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and what's going to happen next? Is he going to be next?
LEONETTA SANDERS, PRINCIPAL, HARPER HIGH SCHOOL: We talk about police response after a shooting. We have to go deeper and see that there are some other needs that have to be met.
NARRATOR: At a community meeting in Englewood, neighbors vent their frustrations to the mayor.
SANDERS: Every day we have to sit and work with these kids, but you're telling me to go to school and go to college when I'm dealing with the fact that my boy got shot, my uncle and cousin got shot, my uncle got shot, and we have to deal with that on a day-to-day basis. So it's much deeper, much deeper than just a police presence. We've got to get together and wake up the sleeping giant, you know, that's not doing what they need to do.
EMANUEL: There are kids I've met who have had their youth stolen from them because of what they've grown up around. And that means we as adults haven't live up to our responsibility. And I don't know whether I have the ability to affect that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
EMANUEL: We have some serious challenges, but even though the valleys can be very painful, I'm going to continue to do what I think works.
But I've got to run here, OK?
NARRATOR: Rahm focuses on things he can control: quality of life issues like adding bike sharing and turning the dirty Chicago River into an urban playground.
EMANUEL: If you can't have people go outside and walk and enjoy and run, you can't be a modern city today. Livability is part of it.
You know, we have the fastest growing downtown residential and commercial area in America by factor of four.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really? This is going to be called the Rahm walk.
EMANUEL: As mayor, you learn things all the time. That's why I love this job.
NARRATOR: At Fenger, the school year hasn't gotten off to such a smooth start. After submitting her final student count, Principal Dozier gets her budget.
DOZIER: We've got, it looks like, close to 100,000 we have to cut, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. About 100,000, exactly. It has to be positions, because when you look at your non-position lines, which you have like supplies, I mean, that doesn't even add up. All of it won't even add up to the amount that we need to cut.
DOZIER: Yes. That's what I'm looking at, too. So you said Spicer, Willborn (ph), or Gordon. Right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Spicer, Willborn (ph) or Gordon. Yes.
DOZIER: Bottom line, we have to cut positions. And so right now it's looking like it is going to be Mr. Spicer's position will have to go.
ROBERT SPICER: It's difficult for Ms. Dozier to do what she would like to do because she's lost a lot of those funds, but it all takes money and it all takes resources. And it has put a strain on what we're trying to do.
NARRATOR: Unless something changes soon at Fenger, Spicer's days are numbered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Benadryl doesn't treat pain, man.
DENNIS: One of the patients got ahold of his number directly. So he's been calling him every hour asking for IV Benadryl.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't cry, man. It's not -- there's nothing we can do about it. It's not -- we're not going to lose our medical license to give you medicine you don't need. You can't move? You're paralyzed now?
NARRATOR: Riccardo Muti and the symphony take their rendition of Verdi's "Requiem" to the masses with a free simulcast at Millennium Park. Under the Pritzker band shell, Dr. Dennis and his wife share a relaxing moment, finally.
DENNIS: It's very soothing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is.
DENNIS: See, aren't you feeling the stress melt away from the day?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
DENNIS: I am, actually. This is very, very destress-ifying. We should have been doing this all summer. What the hell's wrong with us? Why didn't we do this? I didn't know this existed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did.
DENNIS: I didn't. If you knew it existed, why didn't you share?
Now I'm destress-ified.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
WILKINS: I love Chicago. Downtown street lights. Man, it's bright. And like anything is possible. Come out here, it's like every man for himself. I'll do it. So it's no longer neighbors; it's just a hood. I just push through. Push through.
NARRATOR: Next on CHICAGOLAND.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gun fire triggers a new round of anger and frustration.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody in the city of Chicago has a gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's life or death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a genocide. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody always wants to move into a nice neighborhood. It's harder to get people to make their neighborhood nice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I constantly emphasize you guys are going to change Englewood and save it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More police. Police, cops.
DOZIER: We don't have a school right now. We're not doing this.
MCCARTHY: My officers face down a firearm like this, that person has got to go to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I was the mayor of Chicago how can I stop it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
