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Ripple Effect of Gun Violence; Embedded with Ceasefire Illinois; Confronting a Crime Epidemic; Interview With Education Secretary Duncan
Aired August 22, 2009 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Jacqui.
All right. Now to the harsh facts about Chicago. So far this year, nearly 300 people have been murdered in that city. 258 were killed by guns. More than 5,000 handguns have been taken off the street. Add to that, 232 assault weapons. You get the point.
Police say homicides are down slightly. But that's after a stunning murder rate in 2008. Keep in mind, this year isn't over yet. Let's go to "Chicago's Deadly Streets."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON (voice-over): Summer is hot in Chicago. People are looking for relief. Not just from stifling temperatures --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's bad. It's real trouble. It's too much violence here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's sad. And, you know, I would rather be in the country. You know, the city is not for us.
LEMON: Relief from the heat of gunfire and a wave of violence gripping the city streets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: WGN News at 9:00.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER, WGN NEWS: A teenage girl is in critical condition tonight. Hurt in a possible drive-by shooting on the south side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: It is a war zone. Consider this -- this year 287 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan, 113 in Iraq. In Chicago, 293 people have been killed. 69 of those were under the age of 21. Most from the city's south and west sides.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because our young folks here (INAUDIBLE) problem, you know. As they resort to pick up weapons and try to resolve their differences. LEMON: 2008 was one of the city's deadliest in recent years, taking drastic steps, police brass saturated some city streets with S.W.A.T. teams. Arming officers with more firepower. Still, the violence and the shootings persist. So we go to Chicago to talk solutions and to hear from people living and dying in Chicago's deadly streets.
Like Matthew Ramirez, gunned down on his way home from a friend's house. He was just 16 years old.
MARIA RAMIREZ, MATTHEW RAMIREZ'S MOTHER: Someone went out there and took away his ability to make his mark on the world.
LEMON: At just 18, Terrell Bosley, a self-taught six string bass player and drummer, was shot and killed outside a church.
PAMELA MONTGOMERY-BOSLEY, TERRELL BOSLEY'S MOTHER: My baby suffered for what reason? He wasn't in a gang, didn't sell drugs. Didn't do nothing. He was a college student.
LEMON: And then there's Blair Holt, who died a hero at 16, throwing himself on top of a classmate when shots rang out on a city bus.
ANNETTE NANCE-HOLT, BLAIR HOLT'S MOTHER: There's nothing in this life left that can hurt me like that, than losing my son. And I'm sure all of the mothers here would agree, there is nothing else in life that will break you worse than your child being snatched from you like that.
LEMON: Kermit Delashment Jr., 21, a star college basketball player who dreamt of fame but not the fame he got from his shooting death.
MICHELLE LINTON-DELASHMENT, KERMIT DELASHMENT, JR.'S MOTHER: My son was killed three days before Christmas, an hour after I spoke to him on the phone.
LEMON: Christina Waters, caught in the crossfire, leaving a church function, shot in the head. The 18-year-old survived.
JAMIE ROSE, CHRISTINA WATERS' FATHER: She has a second lease on life.
LEMON (on camera): Is he right, it takes you back, is it always raw pain?
NANCE-HOLT: Every time we talk about what happened that day it breaks me down all the time.
RICHARD HOLT, BLAIR HOLT'S FATHER: I'm just as numb as that night. That afternoon, Annette, called me, and she told me that Blair had been shot. You talk about the worst feeling in the world, instant trauma to the emotions.
NANCE-HOLT: And you know, when I think back to what kind of child I had, it hurts me so bad, it hurts so bad.
LEMON: Most of you are carrying some sort of memento or something. What are you guys carrying?
RAMIREZ: My son was killed 3-1/2 years ago. As you can see, I still have his cell phone on. I just can't bear to turn it off because I keep having that stupid little thought in the back of my head when he walks back through the door, if he doesn't have a phone, he's just going to die.
LEMON: Does it ever ring?
RAMIREZ: I leave it on for his friends. You know, for them to, you know, text him, and, you know, they text him a lot.
LEMON: What are some of the text messages say? Do you get the text message?
RAMIREZ: Just, you know poems...
LEMON: Do you have any in there?
RAMIREZ: ...telling I love, I miss you. Things like that.
LEMON: You can read it. Do you want to read it?
RAMIREZ: I don't want to lose anybody else. This hurts a lot. I love you.
LEMON: You brought something of your --
LINTON-DELASHMENT: I brought -- program, an obituary, and also the newspaper article. Because he told me he would be in the paper.
LEMON: This is how he's in the paper?
LINTON-DELASHMENT: Yes.
LEMON: College student is city's 500th homicide of the year. This isn't how you expected your son to be in the paper.
LINTON-DELASHMENT: Huh-uh.
LEMON: Tell me your story, Mrs. Bosley, right?
MONTGOMERY-BOSLEY: Terrell was a base player, a gospel base player. He was at a church. Coming out to help his friend get drums out of the car. Somebody came and shot Terrell.
TOMMIE BOSLEY, TERRELL BOSLEY'S FATHER: I drove him to high school for four years. I drove him every day so that he wouldn't have to take public transportation. And the one place I never worried about was church. I never worried about him being at church. And to get a phone call that your son got shot, coming out of church, it was just unbelievable. CYNTHIA WATERS, CHRISTINA WATERS' MOTHER: I get a call from a complete stranger. They're coming from her and her friend were coming from a church function. And I get a call, you know, on my cell phone. It has her name. You know, calling to get an update, how's your afternoon going, it's 5:00 in the afternoon. A complete stranger. Telling me my daughter is laying in that alley, bleeding.
ROSE: We almost lost Christina. I feel very lucky that we still have her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I could say anything to that parent whose child cost my child to lose his life, I hope you never feel like I feel.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Their stories are just the beginning of what we're going to show you tonight. I spent a night embedded with Chicago's cease- fire. They took me to K-town, which is short for Killer Town. You will see what I saw.
But first, this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She fell right here. (INAUDIBLE), that was her head. That's where her head was, where the blood was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Our cameras were still rolling after an interview with a Chicago official when we got word a 15-year-old girl was shot in a drive-by. I will take you to that scene.
Plus, your feedback tonight on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or iReport.com. We want your comments, your solutions and your questions.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Guns and tempers, territory and respect. Deadly combinations and huge problems on Chicago's streets. That's why there is a stop the violence movement called cease-fire. They dispatch foot soldiers to step in between rival gangs. Director Tio Hardiman asked me to come to Chicago to meet some of the young men that they mentor and some who refused their help.
Our first stop, Killer Town.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON (voice-over): Tio Hardiman knows Chicago's deadly streets and takes us for a ride in a neighborhood so dangerous, it's been dubbed Killer Town.
TIO HARDIMAN, CEASEFIRE ILLINOIS: If you come up through Killer Town, and people don't know who you are, we can get shot right now for filming in this car riding down the street. We can get shot.
LEMON: Hardiman grew up out here, but now runs CeaseFire Illinois, a non-profit that tries to get troubled youth, gangs and drug dealers out of the neighborhood.
HARDIMAN: Chances are I know most of the people in the area. If I was to get out of the truck, and say, look, this is Tio, I'm doing something with CNN, they will give us a pass.
LEMON (on camera): But just for riding here, we're taking our lives in our hands.
HARDIMAN: You're taking the chance right now, Don. I have to be honest with you, because people shoot and they ask questions later. There's no method to the madness.
LEMON (voice-over): Madness, like a child selling drugs.
(on camera): So you're out here at 8 years old up until now. How old are you now again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 17.
LEMON: 17.
So what was the routine?
What did you do?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I walk up and down the streets, and I see somebody, and then I say, like, what I have. And I say, if I have weed, I say, weed. And I'd be like, is that what you want? And I'll go, sir. After that, (INAUDIBLE). It was fun at first. And then you keep on flipping, and then you just get -- usually you'll get tired of it.
LEMON: Did you get caught?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I got caught.
LEMON (voice-over): Yet the lure of the streets is like a drug, so powerful, it becomes a way of life for teenagers like Bill.
(on camera): Why is it so easy to fall into the violence, drugs, guns. Why is it so easy?
Money?
BILL: Money. A lot of the young cats like a lot of money, you know what I'm saying. Want to be like a rap on TV, you know, what I'm saying.
LEMON: What's the result of that?
BILL: Getting locked up or O.D.'ing, you know what I'm saying? Chasing a murder. LEMON (voice-over): The almighty dollar, the common thread. We call this young man Dave. He asked us to conceal his identity.
(on camera): So what do you do for a living?
DAVE: Sell drugs.
LEMON: You sell drugs?
Why?
DAVE: I'm my own boss. Ain't nothing like being your own boss.
LEMON: You, your own boss, but you know people, including your brother, who have been shot.
DAVE: Yes, I've been shot.
LEMON: That doesn't happen to me on my job.
DAVE: That's the life you chose. I chose this life. A wilder life. (INAUDIBLE).
Check it, two, three hundred every two weeks. And I can check two, three hundred in one sitting for one person.
LEMON: In one night, how much?
DAVE: That ain't even one night. In one night probably about faster.
LEMON: $5,000 or $6,000 in one night?
DAVE: Or better. Some people get $20,000, $30,000. I'm just a small player, but I'm eating.
LEMON: What's the violence for it? What's the whole reason for shooting? Why do so many people get shot?
DAVE: (INAUDIBLE) the traffic doesn't flow my way. You see, it's all about the almighty dollar.
LEMON: So if you kill somebody, you get rid of them, that's more money for you? I don't mean you specifically.
DAVE: Not me specifically. But some people.
LEMON: Explain it to me. What do you mean by that?
DAVE: (BLEEP), they just cut the middle man out. Some (BLEEP) in the way. Some people got to die for the next man, to get them to get on top.
LEMON (voice-over): The crude reality in a deadly business, and why some young men like Germaine (ph) and Bill are working with CeaseFire to turn their lives around. (on camera): Are you done with it?
BILL: Yes.
LEMON: For real?
BILL: Yes.
LEMON: Why do you say that? Why should I believe you?
BILL: I can only show you.
LEMON: You see these guys out riding their bicycles and kids, kids that are coming up. What's your advice, if you have any for them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's my advice? Man, stay in school. School is where it's at. You're not going to make nothing in the schools. You ain't going to see none of it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Well, just take a look at what one of our Chicago iReporters caught on tape.
(VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You won't believe the rest of what he caught on tape. We will show you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Continuing our conversation tonight about Chicago's deadly streets. Let me start by saying we repeatedly asked Mayor Richard Dailey for an interview to address this issue. His staff says his schedule is tight. I did have a conversation with Chris Mallet. He's been appointed by Mayor Dailey to specifically address solutions to violence in the city among young people. And here's just a glimpse of why they need him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON (voice-over): In Chicago, there is no hiding the violence anymore.
(VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Our iReporter writes in his report submitted on August 12th, "For the past several nights, residents of the uptown neighborhood of Chicago have been experiencing gang rioting beginning around 9:00 p.m. Last night, this reportedly led to three being wounded from gunfire."
(VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Send the "N" word to the hospital, beat him to a pulp. That's what they yell. The iReporter says, "I called 911 at 9:10, and again at 9:15, I began filming, and I called 911 again at 9:25. The police arrived some time after the third call."
(VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: As this is going down on Chicago's north side, I'm on the south side.
(on camera): Hello, Chris.
CHRIS MALLETTE, CITY OF CHICAGO: How are you?
LEMON (voice-over): Just about to tape an interview with the man the mayor hand picked to stop youth and gang violence, Chris Mallette.
(on camera): What's different about Chicago that percentage-wise it has so much of this happening now? That's what I can't understand.
MALLETTE: Right. I think if you look at other cities, other cities aren't necessarily counting. I think one of the things about Chicago is that we make ourselves vulnerable. We count how many young people have been killed. We make it public. We're not trying to hide records.
LEMON: What do you mean by counting? By counting.
MALLETTE: Right.
LEMON: If Los Angeles has 158 people shot, Chicago has -- the numbers are the numbers. I don't understand.
MALLETTE: Right.
LEMON: Los Angeles has not had that many. New York has not had that many. A homicide is a homicide. A shooting is a shooting. So what is different here? What is going on here that needs to be fixed that's not happening in other cities? That's my question.
MALLETTE: I think if I had the answer to that, or if anyone had the answer to that, we wouldn't be doing this interview right now. I think that it's something that we are trying to get to the root of.
I think there needs to be a substantial movement by all Chicagoans, including the media.
LEMON: In the middle of our interview with a city official charged with stopping this violence, we got word another shooting, a teenager shot in the head, caught in the crossfire.
CMDR. DANA ALEXANDER, CHICAGO POLICE, 4TH DISTRICT: She went to shield a child, that she was bending down, and, of course, she was struck by a bullet.
LEMON (voice-over): A 15-year-old high school sophomore, who lives just doors from the Alderman's home.
CARRIE AUSTIN, 34TH WARD ALDERWOMAN: And I believe that our kids have no sense of what -- how important life is.
LEMON (on camera): That's unique to Chicago?
AUSTIN: No, I think it's all over the world or all over the United States. I think it's in many other places besides Chicago. It's just had run so rampant in our city.
LEMON: So this is a crime scene, and that's your house.
AUSTIN: That's my house, right here.
LEMON: Did you hear -- were you here when it happened?
AUSTIN: No, I was down at the McCormack place for the 2016.
LEMON (voice-over): The 2016. That's how Chicagoans refer to the Olympics they're so desperately working to secure. And random shootings are not the kind of publicity city leaders want. But unless the gang bangers listen --
ALEXANDER: Put your guns down. Put your guns down. You know, we're out here. You know, we're shooting innocent babies. Put your guns down.
LEMON: And police get a handle on this, Chicago's hope of Olympic gold in danger of being tarnished.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: That 15-year-old girl who was shot during my conversation with Chris Mallette, her name is Taccara Swain. We spoke with her cousin, who was right there when the shooting happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHERRELLE MCCRAY, SHOOTING VICTIM'S COUSIN: We heard the gunshot and we thought they were fire crackers. We looked around, are those fire crackers? And my mom was like, no, that was gunshot. And I was about to run, but I remembered that my cousin was right here, and I turned around and she was on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: My producers spoke with Taccara's family. She is still in the hospital tonight in critical, but stable condition. The shooter has not been caught.
Stopping the violence in Chicago's deadly streets. We take you to the round table of Chicago's cease-fire, where gang members work out their differences.
Plus, secretary of education Arne Duncan sits down with me to discuss solutions. Chicago's deadly streets, let's stop the violence.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was in the car, and I heard like, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
LEMON (voice-over): The crack of gunshot, the wailing of sirens. Sounds all too familiar. The perpetrators and the victims, all too young.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It hurts me so bad.
LEMON: Tonight, the grief, the anger, the cause, the solutions on Chicago's deadly streets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Going into troubled neighborhoods and interrupting violence before it happens is half the task for Chicago's cease-fire. I had an opportunity to sit down with the staff, along with a couple of young men who had benefited from cease-fire's intervention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON (on camera): This looks like your boardroom to me. Is this the board -- once they come in, once you've got these two guys to come in and get it together, what happens after that? Do they come back and sit around this table and talk?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and they brain storm with us how are we going to meet the needs of the other guys that are still out there, you know? How are we going to get them to come in? Or if they're not ready to come in, how are we going to keep a constant flow of communication and able to stop them from making the decision to shoot someone.
LEMON: Easier said than done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
KARL BELL, CEASEFIRE OUTREACH SUPERVISOR: Well, if you keep your eye -- eyes open and your ears to the street and we try to catch everything on the front end, if we can catch it on the front end, it's simple.
LEMON: What does that mean, on the front end?
BELL: On the front end, it means that if I hear about them two having an argument, and I can calm them down and, like, look, man, that's nothing. It's only a girlfriend. She's not your girlfriend. It's not worth your whole life. If we catch it on the front end, we can stop it. But on the other hand, if someone has shot, it's a more difficult mediation.
LEMON: Like him.
BELL: Right. Now, his story is an exception to the rule. He got shot August the 1st of last year. I got a phone call. When I got there, they were putting him in the ambulance. And all of his guys was heated. It was hot. So I told him that it was a blessing from God, because he got shot point blank and he lived.
LEMON: Why did you listen to him?
NEKENYA HARDY, CEASEFIRE VIOLENCE INTERRUPTER: Basically, I think I really listened to him because of the fact of him bringing my -- both of my baby mommas in there like I said, and we were laughing that they're pregnant and the situation that I was -- that was going on with me that I probably, you know, I got to be here for my kids. He made me think about -- more about my kids instead of myself.
LEMON: See, you guys know where these guys are coming from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
LEMON: Because you've been there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
LEMON: Do you think that makes them respect you more, or listen to you more because you have been there before?
TIM WHITE, CEASEFIRE VIOLENCE INTERRUPTER: I believe that they know where we came from, it's underworld, you know. We live in a subculture, and they -- they believe that because we got out of it. There's a way out. And they need --- they need the information that we give them to get out.
LEMON: Will they listen to you guys, you think more? Because the police department tries -- they try to do the same thing with the gang task force and all of that stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No.
BELL: Nowhere near that. What the police do is oppression. You know, it's lock them up, throw away the key. That's it. That's all. What we try to do is change the norm. Let them know the behavior is abnormal. It's not normal to sell drugs. It's not normal to kill people.
LEMON: So when the police ride up, they scatter?
BELL: Right.
LEMON: When you ride up?
BELL: What's up? Credible messenger.
LEMON: Why is it, what's up?
BELL: Because in most of the community that we're in, we try to get people from that area, that are credible messengers that changed from the neighborhood. Like what Jacques (ph) was saying about me. I'm being homey. He knows I did a long stretch. He knows I changed my life. He knows I could have jumped back in, but I didn't. LEMON: Go ahead.
WHITE: I say, I mean -- listen, we don't have all the solutions for the economic problems, so some -- me, myself, I don't go out there trying to figure out how to change them from selling dope all the time. Because I don't have, I don't have nothing to substitute for what they're doing.
LEMON: Well, here's what's interesting. I spoke to the police department, and they said to me, it seems to be what's working for you is that what needs to happen in Chicago right now is not to get people to stop selling drugs, not to get people to do whatever, it's to stop the violence.
BELL: We don't care how you eat. Don't shoot. Don't shoot.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: We had amazing responses from you and a lot of comments here. I want to read some of them from you.
Here's what Ohthesweet says, "Gun control is needed. The sooner we face it, the better. It is not about taking your rights away. It is about keeping safe."
Yougogurl1 says, "Violence in this country has reached an all- time high in the world. Thanks for covering this important story about Chicago."
Another viewer writes, "I live in uptown, and I wish that we had more support from Mayor Dailey. While I could move, I choose not to because I love it."
Send us your comments, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or iReport.com. We'll get them on the air.
Coming up --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: It's the one area where I felt during my time in Chicago we improved in so many ways. This is one area where I feel like an absolute failure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan tells me his role in stopping the violence. What that is.
Plus, parents step up to the plate with their own solutions. Chicago's deadly streets.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan tells me his role in stopping the violence, what that is. Plus, parents step up to the plate with their own solutions. "Chicago's Deadly Streets."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: President Obama is from Chicago, so is his education secretary, Arne Duncan. As CEO of Chicago public schools, Duncan wrestled for years with the alarming rise in teenage deaths in his city. I sat down with him recently to discuss what can and should be done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON (on camera): When you see all of the kids, you know, it's all of the people who are killed in Chicago this year, it's terrible that it happened, but many of them are school-age kids. It's happening in and around schools. Solution?
ARNE DUNCAN, EDUCATION SECRETARY: First of all, this is a devastating problem, and it's unacceptable. And, you know, kids can't learn if they don't feel safe. It's the one area why I felt during my time in Chicago we improved in so many ways. This is one area why I feel like an absolute failure.
LEMON: Why do you say you feel like a failure with that?
DUNCAN: Look, because I look at trends. And from the time I started raising this four, five years ago when 20 students were killed, I think every year those numbers have gotten worse, not better.
LEMON: I know it's not just numbers to you. When you -- because Christina Waters was someone that you knew and you know her family.
DUNCAN: Well, this was by far the hardest part of my job in Chicago was going to classrooms after kids were killed and trying to explain to those classmates with an empty desk what happened and why, and trying to give some meaning to that. Going to the homes of loved ones who had lost their son or daughter. Going to the funerals of these children.
And I'm a father. I have two young children. I'm always a father first. And what these families go through is just simply unimaginable to me.
And these are innocent children. These are children who are going to and from school every day. These are children who are shot at 7:30 in the morning by an AK-47 in their living room, getting ready for school.
These are children, Blair Holt, who's shot at 2:30 in the afternoon on the way home on a public bus going home.
This is Christina Waters, who, thank God, survived, who was shot at a church picnic on a Sunday afternoon, two weeks before she leaves to go to college. LEMON: So you can name those kids by name. So then what do you do in order to help those kids back in your hometown?
DUNCAN: Well, we have to do a number of things.
First of all, we're trying to put unprecedented resources behind creating climate where students can be safe. And so money is a piece of the issue. We're looking for $400 million that we want to put out on a competitive basis to those districts, those communities, that are willing to tackle this courageously, tackle this head on.
Second, we have to really think more broadly. This is not just about school safety. And, you know, knock on wood, in Chicago, none of these, zero of these shootings have occurred in schools. This is all out in the community. And so while we should continue to take pride and work hard and be vigilant to make sure our schools become those safe havens, that's simply not enough.
I think we've been willing to sort of stop at the front doors. And if our children can't get to and from school safely, they still can't concentrate on algebra and biology and AP physics.
And so we have to really think about how we work with churches, how we work with community groups, how we engage the entire community to create not just schools that are safe havens but entire neighborhoods where children don't talk about if I grow up, not when I grow up. This is just crazy to me.
LEMON: It's not just what happens in school as far as reading, writing, arithmetic. Sometimes have you to teach kids conflict resolution.
Do you think that should be taught in schools? And if so, when? How early should it be taught?
DUNCAN: We have to make sure our children are fed and not hungry. We have to make sure our children can see the blackboard. And we have to make sure our children are learning conflict resolution skills and be able to interact with their peers and decrease stress rather than, you know, escalating everything. And, you know, so many of these shootings are over nothing, over absolutely nothing. And...
LEMON: Somebody stepped on my shoe or just, you know, looked at me the wrong way.
DUNCAN: ...looked at me the wrong way. Said the wrong thing. And to your point, no one's worked with the children to say that that's not a mortal blow. That's not a challenge to your manhood. In fact, if you were a man or, you know, a maturing young man, to pick up a gun to resolve -- have a resolution just destroys your life as well as the person you shoot.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: It's a very personal story for Arne Duncan and he had much, much more to say, and to watch the entire interview, interview in its entirety, just go to our blog, cnn.com/newsroom and click on Don. It was a very interesting interview.
Holding President Obama accountable for the deadly violence in his hometown of Chicago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our president of the United States is from here. He knows. He's from Hyde Park. He knows what's going on here. And it's time for him to address this as a major issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: We'll look for a way to end the violence on a local and national level.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: An immediate national intervention in Chicago. No one knows the need for that more than the parents of children who've been killed. Many of those moms and dads were born and raised in Chicago. Some of them say they no longer feel safe at home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Do you feel safe when you're leaving your house or when you're out in the city? If you feel unsafe, raise your hand.
Everybody except for you. You feel safe?
RONALD HOLT, BLAIR HOLT'S FATHER: I feel safe because, one, I refuse to live in fear.
LEMON: But the reality is...
HOLT: That's the reality. That's my reality. That's my reality. I refuse to live in fear. When my son -- our son was taken from us, I told myself, what else is there to fear?
LEMON: I don't hear you guys mentioning drugs.
HOLT: Well, it's tied together because that's the part of the underbelly of society -- gangs, guns and drugs go together like baseball and apple pie in America.
TOMMIE BOSLEY, TERRELL'S FATHER: And the prison system is no deterrent. They go in and they come out, and it's almost like the glamorous type. I mean, everybody looks at this guy who just got out as a, hey, it didn't -- it didn't break him, so it won't break me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So cool.
BOSLEY: So they don't mind. The consequences are not there.
LEMON: What would you like to see done? Is the city doing enough? Are parents doing enough, the community? I mean, what? BOSLEY: It's a combination of the things. I think the community has to be outraged and unfortunately, individuals don't get outraged until they become a victim.
Two, our president of the United States is from here. He knows. He's from Hyde Park. He knows what's going on here and it's time for him to address this as a major issue.
MICHELLE LINTON-DELASHMENT, KERMIT DELASHMENT'S MOTHER: It's a combination of all of the above. Everybody has got to band together.
LEMON: Do you agree with what he says? Is this a national issue now?
DELASHMENT: Oh, my God, yes.
LEMON: Would you like to see the president?
DELASHMENT: He needs to -- he need s to say no more. No more. Let's stop it.
CYNTHIA WATERS, CHRISTINA WATERS' MOTHER: That is the question -- how? I mean, realistically, because I'm still kind of cynical. I don't think that we'll live in a, oh, I love you, put the guns down kind of world. We just won't.
(CROSSTALK)
DELASHMENT: But weren't we like that the day he became president.
WATERS: Yes, we were.
DELASHMENT: Didn't we ban together and come to Grant Park. And it didn't matter if you pushed me or stepped on my foot or touched me. I had no fear of the city because we finally got an African-American president. We were a million strong in Grant Park.
So how come we can't be a million strong for gun control?
LEMON: A lot of this is happening near schools, school-age kids. Arne Duncan is from here, too. And Arne Duncan is very passionate about this.
What do you say to the education secretary?
HOLT: It's viewed as a national health and safety issue, which it is because the CDC has come out with four factors as to how to stem that flow of the gun violence away. It is on a national level right now. It should be taught as a curriculum in certain levels of school and elementary and in high school.
LEMON: What do you say to the world who's watching this about your son and about all of these people who are around you, who have lost or their kids were injured? DELASHMENT: No mother and father, sibling, grandparent, should feel like we feel. This is -- it's not easy sitting here talking about somebody who you want. You can't hold. You know, most of us who have lost children, we loved our kids. We had good kids. We enjoyed spending quality time with them. And it was taken senselessly. I hope you'll never feel like I feel.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Our conversation about the shootings in Chicago, our search for solutions, it doesn't end tonight. We remain dedicated to this story.
Tomorrow night, special agent in charge of the Chicago office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joins us live, along with a former chief of the Chicago Police Department. We'll ask them where the guns, the drugs, all of it, where it's coming from and what is being done to get it off the streets.
Now time for your feedback.
One of our viewers writes, "There needs to be a solution to the way the dealers are making money. Illegal drugs will always produce killing."
Another viewer writes, "They need to be taught that respect really is -- what respect really is. They need to learn when someone disrespects them, it doesn't mean have you to shoot them."
JenniferC says, "Yes, teaching conflict resolution is a huge part of the answer. Start in kindergarten."
Another viewer writes, "Daley does care. Community plus leaders working together will solve the problem. We need less apathy and more passion and hope."
Thank you for your comments. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or iReport.com.
In other news tonight -- she is a registered nurse who didn't have health insurance. Believe it or not. Then she was diagnosed with cancer. Now she's a CNN hero who is saving the lives of others.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right. It's time right now for our hero of the week. Her name is Faith Coleman. She is a working nurse practitioner and a mother of six. But like some 46 million other Americans, she has no health insurance. She was also diagnosed with kidney cancer and she had to mortgage her home to pay for her treatments. But Coleman has survived with the fierce determination to service a growing number of uninsured Americans.
ANNOUNCER: This is "CNN Heroes."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been completely denied all insurances.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have been unemployed and basically have no income.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they told me I had breast cancer and I didn't have any insurance, so I came here.
FAITH COLEMAN, CNN HERO: If they have no insurance and they have no money, what's going to happen to them?
In 2003, I discovered that I had kidney cancer. I'm a nurse practitioner, but I had no health insurance. I was able to mortgage my house to pay for the surgery. If it can happen to me, then certainly it can happen to anybody.
I'm Faith Coleman. I co-founded the Free Clinic for Americans who don't have health insurance.
Good morning, everybody.
We welcome every patient here who is uninsured and who meets the federal poverty guideline.
I'm Faith. Nice to meet you.
We usually see 80 patients every other weekend. We have what I call controlled chaos. It's a busy, busy, busy, busy, go, go, go.
Two x-rays and two CAT scans.
Having a kidney cancer was one the best things that ever happened to me, for the one main reason is because I can truly empathize with patients.
Any questions at all? Nothing you can think of?
All right. I will see you back in here in two weeks. OK. Awesome. Good.
I'm proud of you.
We are created equally and we all have the same rights. I'm sorry the right to health care is just right up there with the rest of them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: You can find out more about Faith or any of our heroes on cnn.com/heroes. And be sure to keep an eye out, in just a few weeks, we'll be announcing the top 10 CNN heroes of the 2009. Drum roll.
Banks, investment firms and carmakers, all of them received huge federal bailouts. But what about the country's largest employers -- small businesses? It turns out pickings are slim for them.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Want to create jobs?
One North Carolina restaurant owner says he can create 35 jobs in three weeks if you send some stimulus money his way. He just needs a loan. But as CNN's Christine Romans reports, it's a dog-eat-dog world.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Dinnertime in Lumberton, North Carolina.
ROBERT REDFEARN, OWNER, BLACK WATER GRILLE: Is everything good?
ROMANS: Restaurant owner Rob Redfearn.
REDFEARN: We did $1.2 million in 2007. It's not bad for a small town and a small restaurant.
ROMANS: He's got 35 employees, a crowded bar on weekends, a dependable banquette business. Five years ago, he turned a century- old mule stable into this.
He's confident he's got the ingredients to open another restaurant, here, 35 miles north on I-95, in Fayetteville.
REDFEARN: I'll hire 50 people in three months if I get the money that I'm looking for.
ROMANS: $150,000 to be exact.
REDFEARN: My issue is that stimulus money that everybody's talking about needs to flow through to small businesses like this one. I don't want a bailout. I just want, you know, open the door. I'll walk through it myself.
ROMANS: But so far that door is shut. We called BB&T Bank, the area's biggest small business lender, and asked them why. It turns out Redfearn's credit score doesn't match his confidence.
A spokesperson for BB&T, who recently paid back its own $3 billion bailout, said, "we would have turned him down based on his credit history."
Redfearn admits to bumps in the road that have dinged his credit. This is the new world of lending.
LEE CORNELISON, DISTRICT DIR., SBA, NORTH CAROLINA: Lenders are -- have returned to the old-fashioned lending standards, you know. They're making loans with the expectation that all of them are going to be repaid.
ROMANS: That means making fewer loans to only the best applicants. Even small business owners like Redfearn, who've had no trouble borrowing money in the past, are being turned away. STACY COWLEY, SMALL BUSINESS EDITOR, CNNMONEY.COM: We've sort of ended up in this chicken-and-egg situation here where the banks don't want to make those loans because the small business sectors as a whole has been having such trouble, but then small business owners can't get the financing they need to run their businesses normally to expand.
ROMANS: The number of new small business loans is less than half what it was before the recession, but the stimulus has helped. The amount of money loaned through SBA's programs has risen 50 percent since February.
Ever the entrepreneur, Redfearn doesn't have the loan, but he still has the vision.
ROMANS (on camera): And you look at this parking lot and you see cars?
REDFEARN: I see it full.
ROMANS: And you see a successful restaurant.
REDFEARN: I see it full.
ROMANS (voice-over): Christine Romans, CNN, Lumberton, North Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON": All right. When we come back, we're going to have your feedback. I'm on the social networking sites now. And you see this? This is a neck tie of one of the victims. We'll tell you about this and the emotional moment of how I got it. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: First some quick feedback. I found this one from Vicky. It's on Twitter.
Vicky says, "Watching and enjoying, solutions, gun control, education. What you are doing, shining bright light on issue."
Thank you so much, Vicky Robinson, for that.
I just want to share a little bit of my experience there. Obviously, a lot of the viewers know that I've moved here from Chicago, where I worked for a number of years when I was there. The president was a state senator, and Arne Duncan was a school CEO.
I want to tell you about an emotional moment I had -- and this is one reason the story was so important to me, because people were calling me from Chicago saying, Don, you've got to do something, it's just -- it's crazy here, it's a war zone.
This is Blair Holt. He was 16 years old. He died on May 10th, 2007. He was buying his mom a present for making captain with the Chicago Fire Department. I don't know if you saw her when she was grabbing the pendant, saying it hurts so much. That's his mom. He died shielding a classmate on a city bus. He threw his body over her. So he died a hero.
Anyway, his dad wears this tie. The men in the family wear this tie because they want to remember Blair Holt.
We had guns pulled on us when we were in Chicago, my producer and I. We were shooting after our photographers had left with our little high-def cameras and someone came around the corner, flashing a gun, showing it. And then there was a domestic dispute about 30 seconds later, no joke.
So things are serious there. They say homicides are down. They need to go down further. People are losing their lives.
I'm Don Lemon. I'll see you back here tomorrow night, 6:00, 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. Thanks for watching. Good night.
