- [Presenter] Funding for this program si provided by the city of Philadelphia.

- I was shot when I was 17.

I'm in 12th grade, and I'm about to graduate, and like, you know, you in 12th grade, you got so much swag, you don't even know what to do with it.

You know?

(soft ambient music) Just imagine in one moment, your body can do everything you want it to do, and in an instant, you can't do anything.

And...

I remember what it feels like to lay on the ground, and feel your blood coming outta your body.

Dying.

You know?

Drifting.

(unnerving ambient music) And you feel your life leaving you.

And you feel yourself just like, at 17.

And you like, "I have so much to live for.

Am I dying?

I think I'm dying.

I don't wanna die."

(soft dramatic music) - [Reporter] The gun violence crisis now led to more tragedy this afternoon in West Philadelphia.

- [Reporter] More violence in the city of Philadelphia tonight.

- [Reporter] The police there, investigating a shooting that left three young people dead- - Multiple shootings, including a teenager and a man now- - [Reporter] Now in other news tonight, a mother was shot inside her own home in Frankford.

- [Speaker] Demetrius Moore, a ninth grade student.

Jahsear Pitts, a ninth grade student.

- [Speaker] Talvird Jackson.

- [Speaker] Rasheed Clement, a 10th grade student.

- [Speaker] Kathleen Pichardo.

- [Speaker] Namir Johnson, a 10th grade student.

- [Speaker] Alexander Martinez.

- [Speaker] Tommy Frazier, a 12th grade student.

- [Speaker] Andre Martinez.

- [Speaker] Jordan Murray, a 12th grade student.

- The city is in crisis.

- [Speaker] It's a crying shame what is taking place on a daily basis amongst the youth in Philadelphia, specifically young black men.

- [Speaker] Amir Simpson, a recent alumnus.

Juwan Scott.

- Homicide rate is up, body counts are up, more mothers mourning.

- I can't count how many times I've seen a black man take his last breath.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen a mother fall to the ground and scream, "They've taken my baby!"

- [Reporter] Two teens are dead, after they were shot on North 56th Street.

- [Reporter] An 18 year old man is shot tonight, the latest victim in what has been a epidemic of gun violence that police are trying to get a handle on.

- [Reporter] Philadelphia police detectives working their 10th shooting... - This is a curse on our city, on our people.

I mean, this gun violence, that we hate each other so much, that we gotta kill each other.

- [Reporter] The city is on pace to surpass last year's homicide total.

- We know that black men have the lowest life expectancy at birth of any other group.

- And when I think about if I was a principal, and I was in a surrounding suburb, would this be okay?

(soft music) I'm not gonna lie, like I'm afraid sometimes going outside, going to the store.

'cause all types of stuff is happening for no reason.

- [Reporter] One student likens his commute to high school to passing through a war zone.

Some educators are... (mellow music) - With gun violence and the ripple effect of it, we're destroying families.

It's just continuous, it's just a cycle of pain.

- You don't just lose that person to the family, you lose that person to an entire community.

- There are so many moments, so many issues, so many systems, so many structures that precede the moment where someone shoots someone else.

- A lot of 'em don't know their self-worth.

And a lot of times they feel like, "Look, what reason do I have to live?"

- [Reporters] Many of the people responsible for the gun violence in our city, have actually been victims or witnesses to gun violence before.

- Our safety is very much tied in with these young people who feel the most unsafe.

We have to regard their safety on par with our own.

- A lot of 'em don't know, you know, what they're worth, until someone comes to them and say, "Look, I believe in you.

I wanna see you succeed.

And I love you enough to wanna see you 20 years from now."

- [Speaker] These stories are the stories that don't be told.

(melancholic mellow music) It was a beautiful day.

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday.

Sun was shining all bright.

It was like, wow, the perfect day.

Family was there, my father-in-law, some friends.

Jarell was in the basement doing his clothes, getting ready for school.

And some guys came up to the door and asked, "Is Jarell here?"

And Rell said he'll be up in a minute.

So I went out on the porch, because I felt kind of funny about these guys.

You know, you have a feeling about things.

Jarell came out on the porch, he talked to them for a hot second.

Said, "No, I don't know what y'all talking about.

And so we go to turn and go back into the house, I see out the side of my eye, the boy turned around with a gun, and shot Jarell twice in his back.

At that moment, Jarell fell to the ground, he was biting his tongue.

I was putting my finger in his mouth, and stopping him from hurting himself.

A neighbor ran across the street and tried to do CPR on him and everything.

We was trying to save Jarell.

All I could say is, "Help me God, help me God!"

Please help me get Jarell to the hospital.

So, Jarell weighed about 195 pounds.

And that dead weight was like, he was super heavy.

But I picked him up and carried him to the police wagon, it wasn't even an ambulance.

That's what killed me so hard.

And I laid him on the floor of the police wagon, my dying son.

(melancholic piano music) And they said, "Joel, you can't go."

And I said, "Man, you must be crazy."

They said, "Joel, you gotta testify and find those guys that just did it to him.

We'll take care of Jarell."

So they closed the door on my son for the last time that I would see him, and they took off in the back of a dark police wagon with my son laying on the floor.

(tense music) - The police are told that they're coming.

We all will go outside, gowned up.

You can hear the sirens, you can hear 'em.

The police car will come bailing down the ramp.

They'll come to a screeching halt, we'll open the door, and because of the halt, we have to pull the patient out.

Sometimes they get stuck.

It's six or seven of us.

First thing we do is we feel for a pulse.

If there's no pulse, someone gets on the chest, and we start doing chest compressions.

As we come to those trauma bay doors, once we make that right hand turn into that trauma bay, first thing we scream is, it's a trauma code.

We have several crash carts that we will blow through, with every medication we can possibly use to get this person's heart beating again.

The student doctors, they're all are lined up, taking turns.

Everyone's on the chest for two minutes.

Rotate, two minutes, rotate, two minutes.

You have another nurse in infusion, blood, just massively.

You have the doctors cracking the chest.

They're putting their hands in there.

They're pumping their chest, pumping their chest.

If we get anything of a half of a heartbeat, they're rushing that patient up to the OR.

(flat line beeps) If not, we'll call time of death.

The attending will, you know, "Hey, let's take a time for prayer."

You look at the floor on both sides of the bed, all you see is... You would look at the floor and say, "Wow, I didn't know I could hold that much blood in my body."

So this person who was breathing 20 minutes ago, an hour ago, is now in the back of the police wagon, being taken down to the city morgue.

(melancholic music) When I see them walking over to the room to tell the parent, I walk the other way, 'cause I don't wanna hear it.

'Cause if I hear it, it's gonna break me.

To hear a mother scream, "They've taken my baby!"

To hear a family member saying, "What are we gonna do now?"

I walk away and I cry.

'Cause it's hurtful.

'Cause you can't take the pain away.

(melancholic music) I usually go to the supply room to regain myself and my composure, to go back to my assignment.

You have to be able to pray and keep on moving, because it's gonna be more before you finish your prayer.

(melancholic music continues) - Jarell was good at everything he touched.

He loved basketball.

He made beats.

He could box.

Everybody loved Jarell.

He just had a magnetic personality.

(melancholic music continues) That first night, I never cried so much in my life.

I never felt such pain.

It was like I was in hell, in the agony of crying.

I cried until I couldn't cry no more.

My wife was screaming and crying all night long.

This is all we did.

We had just lost our Rell.

I kept seeing what happened.

I kept seeing Jarell on the ground, and I would get the shakes, and I would shake.

And my heart would beat all fast, and I was totally traumatized.

I didn't think I was gonna be able to make it.

Come to find out, these boys lived around the corner.

A block away.

A block away.

Both of these boys came to my house to murder my son, to get back at somebody else.

That Jarell didn't have nothing to do with this.

And people came by, family, friends, they came by with their guns and said, "Yo, what you want to do?"

(mellow catchy music) - What do you think is going through the minds of the shooter?

You know, what's the why?

Right?

- People caring what other people think.

You know, feeling like they gotta do this to be accepted.

Mainly that, people trying to fit in.

- It's complex.

And before the trigger's pulled, 1,001 thoughts go through their head.

Saying "No, no, no.

Yes, do it.

No, no."

If the shooter feels like that opposition is thinking the same way he's thinking, he want to get him first.

- Because at first, when you first get a gun, you hold a gun, it isn't more so of a...

I'm gonna shoot the first person I see, to see what happens.

It's more so of a reaction of, "Oh shoot, I'm Free Willy now, I can do what I want, do as I please."

- It's never just one answer.

It's always like, multiple.

Whether it is, "Oh, I just wanna protect my family.

I just wanna protect my friends.

Oh, I just wanna protect myself."

- I'm 25... Oh, next month I'll be 25.

And I feel like to raise a family, there's a level of protection that has to be like met.

And I'm the person that has to like, provide that.

And it's so hard on a man, because the man wants what's right for the family.

But at what extent?

Like, do I have to end somebody's life to protect my family?

(mellow music) - A key problem with the violence epidemic that we face is the way that this society conceptualizes masculinity.

And really, hyper-masculinity.

We're taught that manhood is measured by our capacity to dispense violence, our capacity to withstand violence.

How tough we are, how strong we are.

If we're taught that to be men, we gotta be violent, and we're taught that violence is normal, and then we live in a country that has all these guns, then we're creating a recipe for a violence epidemic.

A gun violence epidemic.

(tense music) - Growing up and during grade school, I was teased a lot.

What we call today bullying.

My father spoiled me so much.

He would pick me up from school, he would... And sometimes children can be mean.

And they didn't like that.

And I felt like, you know, I wanted to be respected.

And I wanted friends.

(tense music) So from the age of 17, I made a choice.

A decision to run the streets, to sell drugs, to be involved in illegal activities.

That led me to over 25 years in and out of incarceration.

(tense music) I just want to say that my father was a tremendous man.

He taught me what a man was.

Provider, a protector, just an honest man.

I learned that growing up... (tense music) But I made a decision to walk away from that.

And I feel that that decision broke my father's heart.

And I feel so guilty about that, because I feel that I took my father to his grave because of those decisions.

(soft dramatic music) Selling drugs, that's synonymous with guns, the gunplay.

You sell drugs, guns come with that.

Shooting a gun and shooting at people, people respected you, feared you.

In my mind, I was a legend.

You know?

And I felt like they did respect and feared me, but that was only in my mind.

(soft dramatic music) (upbeat music) - When you walk out your house in the morning, the evening or whenever, whatever, what are your thoughts about, "Will I come home tonight?"

Do you ever think about that?

- I think about that all the time, every day.

You know.

I got a past, and just because I changed, that don't mean other people changed.

So, every day, I still gotta be cautious.

- [Gabriel] When you say that you changed, can you describe what you mean by you've changed?

What did you change from?

- Running around in the streets.

Being a part of the crime rate and violence.

- [Gabriel] So, what was the moment for you that made things change then?

- My son, and losing my brother while I was incarcerated.

To gun violence.

- [Gabriel] And how old is your son now?

- He's one.

- One years old.

- Wow, that's powerful.

Powerful.

Your son means everything to you.

- [Speaker] Yeah.

- What do you see in your son that allows you to say, "You know what?

I can do things differently now."

- The future I got planned for us.

(mellow music) - You don't know what it is to be a young Black man in Philadelphia unless you walk in those shoes.

You're dealing with peer pressure, you're dealing with retaliation, or the need to be on social media.

They've created a world where as though you have to be this person in order to survive.

But sometimes someone might be acting like a tough guy, and that's not who they really are, but they have to project to be this person on social media.

Before, you had to see someone in person that you might've had a beef with, now a person could send a threat on social media, then, you know, everyone is on high alert, and know that, "Look, when I see this person, I'm gonna have to kill 'em, because they're gonna kill me first."

(mellow music) - Are there things that you do specifically, like, for instance, I know for me, I don't sit in parked cars.

Too many guys get sprayed up in the car.

Like you know what I mean?

Like, you're just a sittin' duck.

I don't do that.

I haven't done it in decades.

Literally.

- I rarely do the Ubers.

- So you rarely do Ubers?

- Yeah, I need to be in control of my navigation.

You know, if I need to speed off real quick, I want to be able to press that gas and speed off.

- I check my shadows, and I try to check for the way a person is moving, see whether they're moving fast, whether they're moving slow, to make sure that if I need to dart, I'mma dart.

- And even at the gym, it's always like, Okay, gotta park right there in front.

Or gotta park away from these cars, and walk.

But I can't walk in between cars, I gotta make sure that I'm in the light.

So that way if anything happens, like somebody in the gym can see me.

- Walking near groups of people, especially at night.

And if I feel like I need to go to the corner store, and there's tons of folks outside the corner store or whatever, I say fuck it, I'll go in the morning.

You know what I mean?

Because I just...

I got that sense of uneasiness walking near groups of people.

- You're basically in a hypervigilant state of mind, right?

So think of it as like, your brain is on overdrive, right?

Because you're doing this, you're looking for this or whatever.

And so your brain is...

Think of it like, it's a muscle, right?

So think about, when you work out or whatever, at some point, you're tired, you're exhausted.

Same thing here, is that you're mentally exhausted.

(mellow music) - Gun violence is not the issue, it's a symptom of many, many issues.

We can talk about food insecurity, we can talk about housing insecurity, we can talk about police relations and neighborhoods.

We can talk about policies, and what are we promoting, and who are we giving resources to.

All of that goes into the impacts of gun violence.

- You're living in the hood, there's only two or three things that's gonna happen now, you're gonna go to jail, you're gonna get shot, or you're gonna die, right?

As a kid, I'm not going... 21?

I don't know what 21 is, right?

I don't know what 21 is.

- As I sat with young people in the hospital, many of whom were in pain and recovering, I began to hear them talk about the fact that in their communities, they experienced a fair bit of trauma, if not directly then indirectly, by seeing their friends injured, or by being targeted by the police.

The very people who were supposed to protect them were targeting them.

(soft music) And so at the beginning, even before their injuries, many of these young people did not feel safe in their communities.

And then on top of that now, this person's been injured.

That sparks a cascade.

You have these symptoms of trauma, and you have to deal with them.

On the other hand, you may feel this pressure to let people know in the community that you are not a sucker.

That you do not tolerate victimization.

That may mean reestablishing yourself.

Sometimes that means getting a firearm, confronting the person who did this to you, in order to let them know that you don't want to be a victim for everyone else.

We find ourselves in a situation where the traumatic stress, the lack of protection from the police, and a pressure to demonstrate respect, all lead in a direction that predisposes to re-injury.

What's important about that is that it's a complicated arc.

And there are many places along the way that we can intervene.

- I had systems and structures in place that allowed me to be protected.

You know, I had two parents at home.

I was in programs.

I went to music school on a weekend.

You know, I played basketball.

I did things that we know work to insulate people from certain kinds of violence, to some extent.

But beyond my individual choices, I was born into a life circumstance that gave me a better shot.

And for so many young people, they are not born into those circumstances.

They don't have access to those resources.

They don't have access to those networks of nurture that make it a little bit easier.

And it doesn't mean that our communities don't care about each other.

It doesn't mean that we hate each other, it doesn't mean that we don't love each other.

It doesn't mean that.

But what it means is, is that if mom is working full-time, and dad ain't home because he's working full-time, and I'm coming home after school by myself, and I'm walking home 10 blocks from school to get home, I'm vulnerable to all kinds of stuff just on the way home.

And I don't have the luxury of getting a ride home, right?

I don't have that luxury.

- The first thing that I want to name and stamp, is that our students are not a monolith.

Our families are not a monolith.

And they come to us with vast experiences, they come to us with different things in terms of like, what they define as success, what they want for their students.

(soft piano music) What I will say though is that, when I think about the North Philadelphia neighborhood and communities, those are communities that have been traditionally underserved, overlooked, forgotten about.

And so many people have made promises as to what they were gonna do for the community, that haven't come to fruition.

And despite it all, students and families, they're not only living, but they're fighting to survive, and they're fighting to thrive.

(soft music) I go to almost every athletic game, but there was one Friday in which it was just a really long week for me.

And I was at home, and I was having a great conversation with my wife.

I had a glass of wine in my hand, and I looked away from my phone, and I came back and picked it up probably about five minutes later.

And I realized I had probably received what was about 25 phone calls and or text messages from staff members on my team.

During a football game, like football players had actually hiked the ball, and they were mid play.

About a hundred feet from where the game was being played, open fire had just taken place.

Hundreds of people in the stands, people trying to get into the football stadium.

And some folks thought it was appropriate to engage in gunfire.

(soft dramatic music) And if you can imagine the impact of that, being a young person playing a football game, and your life immediately becomes in danger, think about how traumatic that is.

And that goes back to the misconceptions that folks have.

"Well, if you just do the right thing.

Just go to school, show up on time every day, play sports."

That's exactly what these young people were doing.

And they were impacted by gun violence.

(soft dramatic music) What I see from students when I talk to them is a sense of hopelessness.

And of course, of course students want the violence to stop.

They want that, but they don't believe it's gonna happen, based off of, for so many kids, this has been their entire lives.

- I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

North Philly, to be exact.

Mostly, it was the hood, you should call it.

At the age of four, I seen my mom use the pipe.

And the only way I knew it was a pipe, because I used to look at the TV, and at that time they had the commercials coming on, "Say no to drugs."

I just seen this on TV, knowing that this ain't cool.

As a kid, I used to go outside and sit on the step, and just look at the stars and I'd talk.

I talk to God.

And the shiniest star that I'd see, I just would look at that one.

It kept me outta trouble a lot, you know?

It kept me outta trouble a lot.

I just wanted to get away from all the bad things that was going on.

It was like therapy to me, at that age.

Because I just like talking to God, for real, for real.

I got off work early.

Me and a friend of mine was supposed to meet up, play the video game.

We got like two blocks, and I noticed a gold car.

I just had a feeling.

I see this guy that's pointing a gun, it's pointed already.

So I turn around, I'm like, "Oh, shit!"

So I tried to take off running, and it was a bike chained to a pole.

I tripped over the bike, right?

The guy come right right behind me, as I'm rolling, and let off shots.

(melancholic music) I got shot in the side of the head, I got shot three times in this leg, and this leg I got shot twice.

I got shot in the back, and it came out the stomach.

I had to wear a trache for like six months to a year.

It was the worst days of my life, me getting shot eight times, and not knowing why.

You know, or who.

For me, it was like, I'm not a street guy.

You know, I don't have any beef with nobody.

I'm 30, what, 35, 34 years old.

Working man, taking care of my family.

So for me, it was like, what the hell?

It left me, like...

It left me destroyed, because I knew the person I was before I got shot, like athletic, working guy.

And when I got shot, it was like all that just stopped.

I had to learn how to walk again, learn how to eat again.

And the only thing I could do is just go back till them days as a kid talking to the stars.

So at that moment it was like, "All right, now I'm talking to y'all again."

They help me out, they keep me from dying.

Because the hard part is just beginning.

(soft music) - The haze of trauma is the kind of all-permeating nature of the experience of trauma, and what happens after it.

And so the haze of trauma is very much about the nightmares and the flashbacks.

It's about the dissociation, or what we often talk about as "numbing".

And the haze of trauma also is about feeling unsafe all the time, even in the face of things that didn't seem threatening to you before.

So we hear these stories about some young person gets on a bus, steps on somebody else's foot, suddenly a fight breaks out, someone gets shot.

And people say, "That's senseless, that's crazy."

And I understand that characterization.

But for a person who has traumatic stress, something like getting their foot stepped on can feel life threatening.

And so if we understand trauma, we can understand how that circumstance could devolve into deadly violence.

But if we don't understand it, then we simply write it off as savagery, or somehow people who have no sense of remorse or have no sense of control.

- Imagine being a young person who is impacted by gun violence, and now you can't shake that.

And every day and every second you think about that, and you wonder when the next time is gonna happen, and you can't be in a large crowd of people.

I've got a thousand kids in my building, so imagine walking down one of my hallways.

Kids are all over the place.

And so it's very much a significant and continued and sustained impact.

- It scared so many of my friends.

I think I was like 6 foot 2, tall.

Like, you can't miss me.

And so just imagine running around lively all the time, to seeing somebody, that person, now in a bed strapped up to a whole bunch of tubes, and just can't move, can't talk.

I had a trache in, I couldn't speak, and just like bloated and all just looking horrible.

And I could see the fear on some of my friends' faces when they came to see me.

It was just like, some of my closest friends, it was too much.

- This pain don't never, ever go away until you dead.

So, you know, I'm like a time bomb.

Everybody with post-traumatic stress got a problem, and we need help.

We need help.

We need to be talking to somebody.

(soft music) - I was 16 years old when my ex-boyfriend tried to take my life.

(tense music) I was like beat, thrown over a bridge, shot at.

And then literally minutes later, my boyfriend was murdered in front of my mom's house.

You know, and I just remember, after the murder of my boyfriend, sitting at the prison and asking that person, "Why did you take Talvird's life?"

And I didn't get the response that I wanted, but his response was, "Because you didn't deserve to live."

But that look in his face said... Trauma.

Undealt with trauma.

He had experienced some immense trauma.

Like, he was a victim of gun violence.

And what frustrates me is the family knew that he needed help, and they didn't get him any help.

So not only was he a victim, now he's a shooter.

(soft piano music) My brother was a loving kid.

He was very energetic, loved fashion, loved designing, loved to do our hair and our makeup.

My brother was approached, along with my nephew, by two guys on his way to pick up dinner.

And they robbed him.

And after they robbed him, they shot him anyway.

And then they just left him on the street.

I remember going to the hospital, waiting there just for 10 hours for an update, pacing back and forth, trying to find out if my brother was gonna make it out of the OR.

And after like the 11th hour, he didn't make it.

(tense music) My dad, who dealt with the loss of my brother in ways that most men do, they don't cry, they don't know how to mourn.

It was too much for him.

And you know, he literally willed himself to death.

Like, you know, every day.

"I can't find my son's shooter, I just wanna go to sleep and not wake up."

And that's just, you know, that's what happened.

He literally went to sleep one day, and never woke up.

(soft music) - As time moved on, we were still having trauma.

I was still shaking, I was still going through.

So I think after the first week, me and my wife talked.

And we said, "Look, we need help.

We ain't gonna make it through this."

We went and got counseling.

All the time, in the back of my mind, I still wanted to get them boys that killed my son.

They didn't have 'em yet.

I wanted 'em.. And so as we went through counseling, the lady used to tell us, "Don't look at me, face each other.

And tell your wife how you feel.

And tell Cheryl to tell Joel how you feel."

And Cheryl was like, "I just don't want him to go out and do nothing.

I just don't want him to go and hurt nobody."

And I was like, "Wow."

And I'm telling her, "I just don't want you to blame me for not saving your son."

And I was like, "Damn."

Cheryl's pain was like, I didn't know how to heal her pain, man.

We just kept going to counseling.

We kept going.

And we started healing as we went.

We kept talking to one another.

Oh, counseling.

You can't go through this without help.

You just can't walk this off.

Everybody that deals with a death or something like this, you gotta have counseling.

You've gotta talk to somebody, to help you to talk it out.

(melancholic music) - Like I tell people, being as though God gave me a second chance, there's no way I can mess this up.

And I prefer everybody... You don't even have to be in my position to get therapy.

You see what I'm saying?

Or to want to help.

You know?

Like I learned, if I would've had therapy at the age of 3 and 9 and 13, like it would've been totally different.

You know, coming from where we came from growing up, how I grew up, the therapy let me know that the problems wasn't my problems.

The actions wasn't my actions.

You know, I'm a kid.

If a grown up tell a kid to do this, I have to do it.

Half the things that I thought was my fault, where I had no control over.

Now that I got to therapy, it's like I understand it way better now.

(mellow music) - Have any of y'all ever considered any type of therapy, or counseling or even had therapy or counseling?

And how was that experience for you?

- I've done therapy in the past.

I actually just started therapy again.

But we don't call it therapy, we call it coaching.

And you know me, I had a problem where I don't speak on nothing, I let it build up, and I just snap, man.

- Right.

- So it was like, having this opportunity to talk to someone, is like a blessing for me.

I'm able to basically speak my peace, instead of bottling it in and exploding on someone.

- After my second deployment, and I came back from Iraq, and I knew I was in a dark space.

I knew I was.

Everything was suggesting that I was, but I was trying to ignore it.

And I remember a gentleman saying to me, "Do you sleep at night?"

I was like, "Nah."

He said, "Well, do you want to at least get a good night's rest?"

And I was like, "I can't say no to that.

I wanna get a good night's rest."

So he invited me to come to a support group.

This was the trickery, right?

Because he ain't call therapy, he just said it was a support... You know, just guys hanging out, guys who served.

I was like, "Fine, I'll do that or whatever."

- [Speaker] Right.

- Came, and it almost mirrored what we doing here right now.

Right?

Couple guys, just, you know, busting it up or whatever.

And I remember, I didn't know it at the time, but it ended, and that night, I went to sleep.

Like I went to sleep.

- [Speaker] Sleep, sleep.

- You know that sleep, right?

Where you wake up, and you're just like, "Dang, was I sleeping for like 20 hours?"

'Cause you got stuff on your face and everything.

I had that kind of sleep.

And that just made me feel so good, I just was going back for more and more.

And then that was the stepping stone, or what launched me into eventually getting into actual clinical, as we call it, therapy.

And really working through some really hard stuff or whatever.

So I applaud you, and if anyone else kind of fits that bill, like, you know what, you take those small steps.

Right?

And therapy, or things that are therapeutic can look like any number of things or whatever.

It's about finding that thing that you can attach yourself to and feel comfortable with.

(mellow music) - This needs to be made a priority.

I want people to think, like right now as you're watching this, when's the last time you heard someone say, "The amount of guns on the street in the city of Philadelphia is a priority, and we must fix it now, and we are gonna act boldly.

We're gonna act boldly as it relates to preserving the lives of young Black and brown youth, to make sure that there's no one else that's lost on our watch."

That's what I'm looking for.

(soft music) - There's a way that, at the policy level, we know what works.

We know what reduces violence, we know what reduces death.

After school programs work.

Job training programs work.

Mentoring programs work.

Sports work, arts, it works.

Public libraries, it works.

The more access people have to resources and protections and institutions, the less likely they are to be engaged in this stuff.

We also know that if we reduce access to guns, if we reduce access to straw purchases, if we limit straw purchases.

If we extend the window before people can purchase guns.

If we strengthen ID checks.

All these things reduce the chances of guns getting in the wrong hands.

There's no perfect system, there's no foolproof system.

But we do know that there are things we can do.

(soft music) - "Unity in the Community" is an organization I started.

Started off with just a block party.

We started giving out scholarships to young kids that want to go to college.

We would do back to school drives.

We would do expungement clinics.

We would help people pay their rent.

Having young people find jobs, and helping returning citizens find jobs.

And one of the things we wanted to do is, we wanted to be at the beat and the pulse of what's taking place in the neighborhood.

When you're out there on the front lines, getting things done, people tend to come to you with all types of problems.

And sometimes you may be talking to a young man that's at risk, who happened to be playing with guns, or heading down the wrong direction, and you're able to be there for that family, and look at those young men and say, You know what?

I was able to help restore that young man, and help him get to the next level so he wouldn't have to walk down that negative path.

(soft music) Just recently, two weeks ago, we was able to take 16 at-risk young men to Cleveland, Ohio for NBA All-Star Weekend.

And a lot of these young men never experienced that.

Young men had a great time, you know what I mean?

Looking at Ohio, understanding, look, this is the Midwest.

And, you know, taking them to different restaurants.

Even being at like the Slam Dunk weekend, and seeing some of their favorite artists.

Exposure.

I think exposure challenges the mindset to want more, making them wanna do more, and even seeing more.

(catchy instrumental music) - What do guys your age, in your position, what do they need, that you think will put 'em in a more healthy place?

From your perspective.

What do they need?

- I'm gonna say guidance.

More community resources, you know, more recreation centers.

More basketball courts, swimming pools, stuff like that.

- I feel like they need an ear for someone to listen to them, and to make them understand that their circumstance is not their fault.

And be like, "You're not in a situation where you have to blame yourself, or feel like you are the problem, because you're not given something that you need."

- We need to make space fo brothers to not be okay.

Sometimes you may not be okay at that day, or at that moment, and to live with that.

But learning about yourself is an everyday struggle.

(melancholic music) - [Marc] We don't often appreciate the real toll of all of this death, of all of this loss.

There's so much talent, so much potential.

There's so much Black genius, so much Black beauty, so much Black promise and possibility, and it all goes away.

It all gets extinguished far too early, when we have a society that enables and normalizes this level of violence.

(melancholic music) - [Interviewer] And where does hope fit in in all this?

- Hope.

(chuckles) Um...

Sorry.

Sorry.

- [Interviewer] Very human thing.

- So, hope for me...

I think has allowed me to actually move forward, I think.

Hope for me has been one of those things that, if I didn't have it, I probably wouldn't be here.

You know?

A lot of times when you experience the immense loss, you do lose it for a bit.

You lose that hope.

And then when you find it, you find it with a vengeance.

(melancholic music) - We need to put a positive turn to this.

And the only way we can do that, is talking about it.

And telling our stories.

And telling that there's another way to live.

When I went back to prison, and I was with somebody that was a cellmate that had life in prison, and I seen his outlook in life, looking at his children growing up through pictures... That's not what I wanted.

That's not what I wanted.

(soft piano music) And I looked back at everything that I went through.

I took it as an education, as a purpose.

I survived all those things for a reason, and I think I'm living my purpose today.

And that's why, you know, today, I believe I'm part of that solution today.

(soft piano music) There's such a need for people of lived experience like me to be out there doing this work.

And I say that because I know how they feel.

At one point in my life, I was them.

It was a lot of therapy.

It was a lot of knowing where my anger came from, why I felt so disrespected, why I felt that I needed to be respected, and why did I feel like I had to be this tell all person, this legend.

And I had to go back to trying to fill my father's shoes.

My father was a great man, and I never thought I could fill those shoes.

I know today that I might not have filled his shoes, but I created my own shoes, and I know he's proud of me.

(soft piano music) - So what I decided to do with all the grief and the pain, and all of these things that I was experiencing, I don't wanna sit in that mourning phase the rest of my life.

So, action was the course that I chose to take, Just helping families any way that I could to help families solve cases.

(soft piano music) Talking to detectives, talking to community members, store owners, you know.

Helping families navigate through systems that were broken, and really giving the voice to mothers and sisters in a way that, if they see us doing it, that they will wanna do it.

And then I've learned that, when you give a mother this bullhorn, right?

And she hears herself for the first time, she never puts a bullhorn back down.

So that's one of the most powerful things that I see a mother can do for a child that was taken from her.

(soft piano music) There's a lot of holes that I try to fill as an outreach worker.

I shouldn't be the one like, reversing so many overdoses, plugging up gunshot wounds like I'm some kind of street surgeon.

It's a role I take on because it's what's necessary at the moment.

One of those things has really made it full circle for my life is, working as a Temple trauma advocate in the very hospital that my brother was murdered.

Years ago, there was nothing.

We sat in silence and in fear and in frustration.

And knowing that I sat in them same hallways that I sit with now with mothers and fathers, that it's not vacant anymore.

There's people to talk to them about updates, providing resources after the fact, and connecting them to services.

You know, when I'm able to literally make that full circle, it says something about what trauma doesn't have control over.

And it's important that we control our life, and realize what trauma can do, and what we're not gonna allow it to do.

(tense music) - Hate is hard.

It's hard to hate.

It's something that digs away at you.

It takes away from your freedom to live.

So the best way to deal with hate is to deal with it in love, and turn it around, and do something that's positive, and do something that's helpful.

(soft music) After we started our foundation, the Jarell Christopher Seay Love and Laughter Foundation, what other name would it be, right?

And so, as the foundation grew, we met more people, we did more stuff with children.

We started going and doing something nobody else was doing.

We started going to the daycare, from the daycares to the colleges.

Trying to let people know that gun violence ain't the way.

(soft music) We have backpack giveaways.

At Christmas time, we'll go around and do a toy and coat drive for all the children.

And our main target is children that have been affected by gun violence.

So we go out and grab them babies, and those same children, we make them a part of our foundation, our family.

That's part of the healing, part of the love and laughter.

The part of who we are.

The part of who Rell was.

Part of the love that we got for Rell, we wanna share with all those children that are missing that.

(soft inspiring music) When I'm gone, Jarell, the work that we do with our foundation will still be carried on through the youth that we helped and we work with.

Some of the youth that we work with, they've been with us for 10 years.

Their family became a part of our family.

So we're like magnets.

We just like Jarell was, like a magnet.

(soft inspiring music) (lighthearted keyboard music) - [Gabriel] Tell us a bit about Network of Neighbors and the work that you do.

- What I really love about the Network of Neighbors, is it is community driven.

They have the opportunity to decide the type of supports they receive, where they wanna receive the supports, and also who's going to be in their safe space session.

(mellow music) When people have been impacted by a traumatic situation, their sense of safety and trust has been violated.

- Sure, yeah.

- Right?

- I can understand that.

- So we have to create that safety and trust.

And that's why we only come out and support communities when we have been invited in to do so.

- Tell me a a bit more about the greater impact or larger impact of one homicide, or one murder in our community.

Who's impacted by that?

- Whenever there's some type of homicide in our city, it has ripples.

One particular neighborhood may be impacted, because that's where the particular homicide happened.

But there's also the neighborhood of where that particular person lived, and there's also the friend groups of that particular person.

If that person was connected to a rec center, the rec center's impacted, the school is impacted.

It's just a rippled effect.

And what I like about the Network of Neighbors, we support several impacted communities regarding one particular incident.

So sometimes a lot of focus is placed on that particular block where the situation happened.

But if you think about the rec center and the school, they need support as well.

So we will support them.

During the groups that we facilitate and what I see in the city, a lot of people are just traumatized by what's happening.

- Yeah.

- Their sense of safety is violated.

And when I say safety, not just physical safety, but also emotional safety.

- Mhm, mhm.

- And we really help people to talk about their reactions, and talk about practical ways of taking care of themselves.

And I think what's really important is, we focus on the strengths that already exist within that community.

We never go in and say, "Oh, you should do this."

The community's the expert of themselves.

When it comes to our city, I just strongly believe nothing will happen without the community say so, and the community support.

And if we can support communities, and really listen to what they're saying and what they're asking, and what they feel will be helpful for them, I think we will see a change.

(upbeat music) - One of my dreams is, I wish there was a rec center on every corner.

And every one of 'em would be different, because everybody needs something different.

So, if we can, everyone speak.

What is your dream?

Or dreams?

Don't be hesitant, don't be thinking, "Ah, this is kind of crazy."

Say it.

- I wanna see garden spaces where the young people are engaging with gardens, growing their own food and then selling that food, and then getting paid to work on the garden again.

So that way, you know, they're getting paid from the market, and also getting paid to grow their own food, and also to keep their own food.

So like, they're solving issues of food insecurity while also getting paid to do this over and over and over again.

- I think one of my dreams, I have a lot of dreams...

But I think one of my dreams is for us to have multiple spaces like this going on every day in Philadelphia, South Philly to Uptown, and everywhere in between.

Where, you know, men of color can gather, no judgment zone, feel safe, feel welcomed, and they know that they're coming to a place that's healing to them, and is an environment that's gonna support their needs.

- Everything we're doing, every initiative we're creating, we're fighting for, you know, the safety and harmony of Philadelphia.

And every day, we're pushing towards that.

- My ultimate dream is to see everybody stop killing each other, you know?

- And so I really appreciate all that you've shared today, and I'm honored to be, you know, at this table with y'all.

So if we could leave maybe with one word of just how you're feeling after the time that we've shared today.

You know, it could be one word or it could be a phrase.

How are you feeling now as we begin to close?

I'll start by saying I'm feeling hopeful and encouraged.

- I'm gonna say determined.

- I have to say more open, if that makes sense.

(mellow instrumental music) - Oh, I'm motivated.

Oh, I'm motivated, yeah.

- I'm hopeful and curious.

- I wanna quote Kendrick Lamar.

He said, "Am I worth it?

Did I put enough work in?"

And I always ask myself that question, and the answer's always the same.

I'm always worth it.

And I always put enough work in, because I feel like I do my best every single day for my family and for myself.

And I live with the results every single day.

- I love it, man.

I love that, man.

- I always wanted to say cut.

(people laughing) Cut.

(mellow music) (mellow music continues) (mellow music continues) - [Presenter] Funding for this program is provided by the city of Philadelphia.