Put the Guns Down: A World Epidemic (2025) Movie Script

[melancholy violin music]
[gunshot, siren wailing]
[person speaking indistinctly
over megaphone]
[gun cocks]
[woman sobbing]
[gun cocks, seagulls crying]
[hydraulics whirring]
[distant siren wailing]
- I was born in 1945.
I'm what they call a war baby.
My mother was pregnant
in Texas, in the South.
And she decided that she
did not want her baby,
no matter what it was,
born in the South.
And she took the first train
smoking and came to LA.
- So, when we arrived
here in Los Angeles,
this particular neighborhood
right here was majority white.
The schools
were majority white.
The elementary schools
and junior highs--
all were already white.
Because there was
so many of us,
they started taking flight.
[upbeat music]
- To properly discuss guns
it's essential to delve
into their historical context.
In 1964, during
the Civil Rights Movement,
notable figures,
like Martin Luther King Jr.
and President Kennedy,
advocated
for the Civil Rights Bill.
This legislation ignited
a significant migration
within the Black community
in search of improved
opportunities
and a brighter future.
- When I grew up,
the neighborhood
was just predominantly Black.
- Maybe 85%, 90% Black,
10% Hispanics.
The neighborhood was...
- A great experience.
My childhood was filled
with traveling.
It was good to go
from this park to that park.
It was always some type
of family picnic
or something going on.
Being able to be amongst
each other was a good thing.
- For once, minorities
felt the air of freedom.
Things were finally
on the up-and-up.
But tragically, this would
come to a halting stop.
[music distorting, fading]
- The afternoon fires
added to the chaos that is now
Southeast Los Angeles.
Riots, which had quieted down
during the dusk,
sprang again into full-scale
violence this morning--
- Watts Rebellion, rather
than "riot," because it had
a political dimension to it.
It wasn't just the Frye family
that sparked the Rebellion
of 1965.
It was the years and years
of police abuse
that had built up.
- The Watts Rebellion
lasted for 6 days,
resulting in 34 deaths,
132 injuries,
and 4,000 arrests
and ending in the destruction
of 1,000 buildings,
totaling $40 million
in damages.
- You know, you just had the
assassination of Malcolm X,
and you had a lot
of movements,
organizations began to rise up
'cause of the Watts Rebellion.
And that was a political
dimension of it.
- Watts Riots was just
a spark of a continued action
of terrorism and militarism
in our neighborhoods.
- After the Rebellion,
several community-improvement
suggestions were made
that would improve schools,
employment,
and relations
with the police department.
But in the end,
there was little follow-up.
A new era of do-it-yourself
local activism
blossomed in Watts, including
reformed street gang members
who joined
with the Black Panther Party
to rebuild
and monitor police access.
- Sojourner Truth!
- Mary McLeod Bethune!
Marcus Garvey!
Malcolm X!
Martin King!
- We had to fight
for our civil rights and fight
for the Civil Rights Movement
amongst ourselves,
our leaders,
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X,
Fred Hampton Sr.,
Huey Newton, Angela Davis,
all the rest of them
during this time
of the Civil Rights Movement,
pushed the line
for our civil rights.
- The Panthers grew out
of a street justice,
the pursuit of street justice
for watching police
and defending themselves.
The Sons of Watts
used to be the Orientals
and the Royal Gents--
Willie Sampson and them.
The El Rukns
used to be Blackstone Rangers
out of Chicago.
They converted during the '60s
because there was
a Black movement,
street gangs moved to those
type of aspects of protect--
Even the Crips even
said that they started
to protect their community.
- This was the first time
that I seen armed Black men
and women
ready to stand up
to deal with oppression,
injustice, and the systemic
issues of racial imbalance.
And I seen a power base
being developed
that was unapologetic
in standing up
for the value and the respect
of what Black people
at that time
had to stand on, because
we did not have anything else
to stand on.
- It was going to be
a point in time and place
to where the conscious mind
is starting to wake up.
- The Panthers were a saving
grace for the community.
Not only did they fight
for what was right,
they also helped feed
the youth, teach them,
and celebrate the community.
So why was this
a bad thing, you ask?
- Let me be real clear.
The Black Panther Party
was the first time
that we said we
unapologetically have the right
to combat a system that
at that time period
was designed to totally destroy
more so the individuals
that were in the movement.
Remember, there was
a social movement going on,
a social narrative that was
going on at the time,
which was finally bringing
in self-determination,
self-reliance, et cetera.
So had the party not developed
and had the nation
not developed,
had those components
not been put in place,
we probably would have been,
as a people, decimated,
because, again,
the concept before,
the generation before our
mothers and fathers were
of the mindset of integration,
were of the mindset of,
we're going to just try
to get in that mix,
and hopefully they will
accept us at the time.
And that didn't happen.
That was not happening,
especially
for younger brothers,
like myself at the time.
I was not buying
into the concept
of turning the other cheek.
I dang sure was buying into
the concept of, give me a gun,
let me fight this madness,
and let me do what I got to do
to get some value of respect
for what I stand for.
- And this is what scared
the government--
young Blacks having a mindset
to be able to think
differently
and stand up for what's right.
So what did the government do?
Interfere.
- The counterintelligence
program was developed
by J Edgar Hoover during
the Nixon Administration,
specifically after
they had identified
that one of
the most significant threats
to the safety and security
on a national level
for the United States
of America
was the existence
of a healthy Black family.
- Shocking.
Martin Luther King was able
to touch so many people.
They soon figured out
that to his success,
he had a healthy home
and a great education.
So, to stop this
from happening again,
they decided to fracture
the Black family home.
- And so the
counterintelligence program
specifically was designed
to infiltrate any environment
where Black leadership
was being nurtured,
penetrate that environment,
and disrupt it.
And so they did that
to the Black Panther Party.
- The FBI accomplished this
by sending in an informant--
William O'Neal.
He was sent
into the Black Panther Party
to infiltrate the members,
particularly Fred Hampton.
- And saw where what had
taken place and where he died,
and it was shocking.
And then I was--
I just began to realize
that the information
that I had supplied
leading up to that moment...
Had facilitated that raid.
I knew that indirectly, I had
contributed, and I felt it,
and I felt bad about it.
- FBI headquarters
authorized the payment
of a $300 bonus to
an informant, William O'Neal,
for uniquely valuable
services,
which he rendered
over the past several months.
- And that was how they were
able to attack
the Black Panther Party
and make people support
their attack
on the Black Panther Party
publicly.
They wanted to destroy that,
and that's what
they created it for,
and it was highly successful.
- The conspiracy
of genocide came in,
the conspiracy, meaning trick,
and a genocide,
meaning just do away--to do
away with the leaders.
So that left multitude of
the Baby Boom generation lost
no leadership or nothing.
Only thing they had
leadership was for violence.
- History informs us
that over 1,000 years ago,
Chinese monks
were experimenting
in their laboratories,
seeking to develop an elixir
that would grant immortality.
Ironically, it was
during these experiments
that they stumbled
upon a mixture consisting
of saltpeter, sulfur,
and charcoal--
boom, the main ingredients
for gunpowder.
What was meant
to preserve life
has become one of the most
destructive weapons
ever created.
[dramatic music]
I'm not a total gun reformist,
but I think there has to be
some kind of control put down.
We are infested with guns.
There's more guns in
the United States than people.
The number of civilian-owned
guns around the world
is estimated at 650 million,
and 270 million
of those handguns,
rifles,
shotguns, machine guns,
and improvised craft guns
belong to people
in the United States.
- If you add up all
the Caucasians in the world,
they make up maybe 15%
of the world population,
but they dominate
the majority of the planet,
of the people of color
through their use of weaponry.
- There are 90 guns
per 100 Americans,
giving the country the honor
of the highest gun-ownership
rate in the world.
- In the UK, you can't
have a gun, period.
The police
don't even carry guns.
- Unlike the US, the police in
England don't carry weapons.
Less than 5% are armed.
- I like the lights.
I like to know that the police
are taking care of things.
For kids to have guns,
in the beginning, yeah,
I was all for it, because
we had to protect ourselves
or so we thought, because
the streets was violent.
- And I had to make these
decisions when I was a kid.
Did I want to be a robber?
Do I want to be a dope dealer?
Do I want to be a car thief?
And I just couldn't see myself
sticking a gun in somebody's
face, thinking that...
I could be taking their life,
or I might do great
bodily harm to him.
So...
I'm going to be
honest with you.
I'm totally for those guns.
- The US stands alone
for high gun ownership
and high gun violence,
despite being one
of the richest countries.
What's the missing link?
Is it a lack of gun laws?
Or is it something else?
- Every state is not the same.
Texas can have--
as racist as Texas is,
they can have open carry.
- In September of 2021,
it became legal for Texans
to carry a handgun
without a permit.
- LA can't.
Tennessee can have open carry.
Cali can't.
New York can't.
See, in states where it's
heavy, heavy, blatant racism,
they let you carry
motherfucking guns
out in the open--
Florida.
We don't have it.
Why aren't those laws changing?
- The issue of gun ownership
and gun violence
in the United States--
it's a complex
and contentious topic.
It's influenced
by a combination of factors,
including cultural,
historical,
social, economic,
and legal aspects.
- With the Kyle Rittenhouse,
it was a very tragic,
tragic event.
And the reality is,
he got off scot-free
because the Constitution
protected his rights.
But the reality is,
his defense put up
a damn good defense.
- We, the jury, find the
defendant, Kyle H Rittenhouse,
not guilty.
- Personally...
I hate that it was going
to come down like that.
But watching it
from a professional eye,
I knew that
he would be found innocent.
- Nearly half of guns
in this country
are not locked away properly,
and guns accidentally kill
kids in the US
10 times more often
than any other developed
country in the world.
- First time I seen a gun?
I'm going to say
seventh grade.
Took it out to the field,
started playing around with it.
It was one of my dad's guns.
- Many parents
of young children
want to keep them
away from guns,
but a growing number are now
actually putting guns
into their kids' hands.
- I remember one day,
Mom telling us
to come inside before
the street lights came on
and get ready for bed.
You got to take
a bath, shower.
She went out to a club,
and I woke up and went
to go look for my pop gun.
I looked for the gun
and couldn't find it,
but I found a gun in the back
of the TV, which I thought
was my pop gun.
But it was my mama's real gun.
And I was chasing my little
brother around the house,
and I slipped and fell
and the gun went off.
Pow!
The story went, as she thought
my brother was bleeding,
because he had a bad nosebleed
when he was a kid.
But then she pulled
the cover back,
she didn't see no blood on him.
She pulled the cover back
and blood was all over me.
And so I almost bled out,
you know?
I think it was about eight
years old, nine years old.
- In 2 1/2 weeks, getting
ammunition is going to get
a little more complicated.
- Starting July 1st,
the change in the law
requires any individual
buying ammunition
to go through an instant
background check.
- This bill will go
one step further,
by requiring that persons
wishing to purchase ammunition
first acquire a permit,
then pass an extensive
background check.
It is tough for me to fathom
that we can ask people
to obtain
a license to hunt
in the state of California,
but we cannot ask them
to pass a background check
to purchase ammunition,
much of which is principally
designed to kill people.
- They have
more than enough laws
in the state of California,
and we deal with only
the state of California
that we can make
a difference in.
The gun laws that they
are implementing here
on these young men are laws
that are basically being
set up to help perpetuate this
new industry called prison.
[indistinct chatter]
- My baby brother
was in transition
of leaving the streets
and trying to do better
with himself, and he
got in a situation
where he let his anger
get the best of him.
And now the first offer
that the white man
gave him was 8 years.
A month later, they just
offered him 60 years.
[cell door clinking, closes]
- Nowadays, if you have any
type of possession
of a firearm, right,
and meaning that you don't
have any type of license
for this firearm,
you don't have a serial code
or a number that's attached
to your name for distribution
of this firearm,
you're already getting 10 to
20 years of your life
taken away just off the jump.
- Lieutenant Holloway,
you were outside
when the group came up.
What did you see out there?
- I was called down from the
upper floors of the Capitol
and went to the west
entrance of the Capitol.
And I saw a group
of approximately
four male Negroes,
all carrying weapons
of one sort or another
with a smaller group
behind them.
I stopped them
as they came up the front
steps of the Capitol,
and I was handed a pamphlet
by one of the members
of the group.
- This is a pamphlet that
the man presented me with.
It's called "A Statement
of the Black Panther Party
for Self-Defense"
on the Mulford Act,
now pending before
the California legislature.
- So the Mulford Act
just was overt action
in the state of
California because
of activity of the
Panther Parties at that time
to go to Sacramento
with unloaded rifles
just for demonstration
and for attention.
But at the same time,
it's always been
a part of a white codes
to punish Black people
if they thought
they had a weapon.
Look at how many
Black people were killed
prior to the Panthers
and the Mulford Act
for white folks saying, oh,
I thought they had a gun,
or, I thought
they had a weapon.
[helicopter blades thrumming]
d Growing up in an
urban neighborhood,
you're taught to
hate the police.
Last thing I sweat's
a sucker punk cop
Move like a king
when I roll
I mean, can you blame them?
From unarmed killings
to unlawful beatings
and just hands down, treating
the urban community
as unhuman.
But as history shows,
this was the definition
of being a police officer.
- The purpose of slave
patrols was to bring terror
in the minds and the hearts of
those Black people traveling,
either with or without a pass.
- Slave patrols,
but also known as patrollers
or paddy rollers--
these were white men.
Their function was to police
people of color,
especially those who escaped
or were viewed as defiant.
- Whites could do
anything they wanted to
to those people
that were moving about
or those that were actually
going to be apprehended.
And it is important
that the message be sent
to the other African people,
other Black people
in those situations
of enslavement,
that they found out
what happened to those people,
because that's
what it's about.
It was a psychopathic
racial terrorism act
on Black people.
- Slave patrols were
first formed in 1704
and lasted over 150 years.
This was followed by the
vigilante group,
the Ku Klux Klan.
Though there are similarities
between the two,
you can't put all police
officers in that group.
Many police officers
today try their best
on making their community
a better one.
- I had a dream,
and that was to become
a law enforcement officer.
I have no regrets.
It changed my life.
It helped me to mature
as a young man,
gave me a different optic, not
only the city of Los Angeles,
but for a variety
of different communities,
particularly
marginalized communities--
what they lacked in
terms of resources.
- Living in South Central
California in the '80s
was an experience defined
by contrasting elements.
On one hand, there was the
allure of sun-soaked beaches,
vibrant culture,
and a growing music scene.
On the other hand,
the region was grappling
with the devastating effects
of a drug epidemic.
The presence of drugs
such as cocaine and crack
was pervasive,
and their impact was felt in
both urban and suburban areas,
leading to a surge
of crime rates
and a destabilization
of communities.
- When the pandemic
was real strong
with this crack pandemic,
it was almost like no way
of getting around it.
If you was from the community
or if you from the hood
or the neighborhood, some way,
this pandemic
was going to catch up to you.
If you was selling, smoking,
buying, using at some capacity,
it's going to catch up to you.
- So when I joined the police
department in the 1980s,
Darryl Francis Gates
was the police chief.
So I really didn't know
what to expect.
I knew that I had friends
and family growing up
who had angst
with the police department,
that I was going to treat
people who look like me fairly
and appropriately.
And so that was
my only mindset.
When I became a police officer,
I treated people the way
I would want someone
to treat my son.
And that was what
I did for 20 years.
- In every good thing,
bad seems to linger
right behind it.
But what happened next,
no one could have predicted.
[helicopter blades thrumming]
[indistinct chatter]
- Videotape obtained
by Channel 5 News
shows what appears to be
a group of LAPD officers
beating a suspect.
- As soon as it hit
the airwaves,
it created a firestorm--
video recorded by a man
named George Holliday
from the balcony of his
apartment in Lakeview Terrace.
- The verdicts
in the Rodney King
civil rights trial are in.
- Lawrence Powell,
not guilty of assault,
not guilty of filing
a false report.
Timothy Wind, not guilty,
not guilty
on the two charges
against him.
Ted Briseno,
not guilty, not guilty.
14 1/2-year veteran,
not guilty, not guilty,
not guilty, not guilty.
And that's the way
things stand right now.
If we go over some of...
- When the police beat up on
somebody and you can see it,
it's like--
and they say he's not guilty.
- This is what y'all
going to do.
Okay, well, it's more of us
than it is of y'all.
Y'all going to have to call for
backup while we already here.
[sirens wailing]
[person speaking indistinctly
over megaphone]
People were like,
y'all going to cheat.
Y'all supposed to be law,
protect and serve, huh?
Y'all don't got to serve us.
We going to help ourselves.
- Ceasefire
amongst each other--
the Blacks, the gangs, and
everybody went to go loot.
- We didn't understand
destroying our own neighborhood
is gonna be our shortcomings.
- In LA '92, it was families,
whites, Blacks,
because of the injustice
that happened
to Rodney King and
the fact that you had
various forms of street gangs.
Korean gangs were in Koreatown
moving on Korean businesses.
It was just an onslaught
of a multicultural rebellion
of people of color
and poor whites
at that time of LA '92.
- Today's time hasn't changed
from yesterday's time.
It's only getting--it's
actually more freer now
to do as they will.
I have a son that's locked up
for a longer time
than this man who just
recently been found guilty,
gets found guilty for some
part of murder or something.
He gets 23 years.
My son got 24 years
with no victim.
He's been saying,
you got him on camera.
You got people talking to him,
telling you the man's
not breathing and he's sitting
staring at you like this,
and he got his boys
looking at you.
It's the same thing.
It's just more--they feel
more freer to do it now.
They have more liberty
to kill now.
- Making things better in
the community between police,
if you want to change,
particularly the LAPD,
you need to get on the job.
You need to get
on any police department,
because, listen, DOJ has
already told us in a report
that they're recruiting KKK.
They're getting those
people on the department.
So why wouldn't you want
to be on a department
so that you can
make a difference?
Change is going to
come from the inside.
- We figured
it would get better.
It has only gotten worse,
from the killings
of Trayvon Martin,
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd,
with many more on the list.
Reckless cops are set free and
are given a slap on the wrist.
When will things change?
- [sighs] What it was like
growing up in Compton
was fun, hanging with your
brothers, your friends
that become teammates
playing Pop Warner.
And then there was also a side
where you were paranoid
because of your surroundings.
What were
the police going to do?
Constantly looking
over your shoulder,
difficult stress
for a Black man or Latino.
- Los Angeles was
chaotic for me,
just living
in a gang-infested community.
I guess the good part, though,
was that I was born and raised
there, so I knew everyone.
So my kids didn't have
to grow up as strangers,
like, moving into a community.
- At this time,
the minority communities
were spinning out of control.
Without the safety of police,
the communities
had to turn
to something that would.
They just didn't know
that it would turn into this.
- I'm a soldier at war, and
I dip through these alleys
It's that mack,
blue and black
Got them sights
fully stacked
These codes gots my back,
that's where it's at
South Central
to my heart...
- At that time,
gang banging was at explosive
Hiroshima time.
You know what I mean?
It was the drive-by shooting.
It was the crack epidemic.
It was a lot of people
offer Sherm
and young girls pregnant.
- Back in the days
when I grew up,
you had to really watch
your step.
You really did, because if
you wasn't from the red side,
you couldn't wear red.
If you wasn't
from the blue side,
you couldn't wear blue, because
it was real colorful back then.
[laughs] If you got caught with
either one of those colors,
you had to be from somewhere.
- It was brutal,
especially during
the late '70s, early '80s.
That was a game changer for me
in my community itself.
- But it wasn't always
like this.
Gangs were referred to
as clubs,
similar to the Boy Scouts
or an Elks Lodge.
These different clubs
offered an opportunity
to meet and cultivate
lifelong friendships
and network
with the community.
- Now, Slauson gets
the name Slauson in 1952.
The ones in the 40s east of
Central were called Crown 40s.
The ones that lived
across Central,
on the west side
of Central,
mainly in the 50s,
were called Roman Pearls.
Roman Pearls and Crown 40s got
together, became businessmen.
Then they had Ross Snyders.
You had 20s,
Outlaws, and Pueblos.
They were social clubs.
They had club meetings
and all that kind of stuff.
Where the turf comes in at
all got to do with going
to a party
or you came
to visit your cousin,
and you bebopping down the
street, somebody looking at--
who are you?
Where did you come from?
And blah, blah, blah,
and you get to talking.
Now you could get a pass.
Or if you thought
you was somewhere
you was out of line, you're
going to get an ass whuppin'.
- If you got my back,
I got your back.
And I wasn't going
to let nobody happen
to nobody that we were friends,
because nobody mess
with my friends.
And that's just the way it was.
- Now, back in the day,
we had reputations
for the best fighters.
If you want to gain respect
and become known
and have people give you
your props,
you had to fight,
and fight you must.
It was no way around it.
- That whole aspect
of violence and gang culture
is America's culture.
Gates said he had the biggest
gang in LA--8,000 members.
Most minorities
who are oppressed,
they imitate their oppressor.
Envy, greed...
drives violence.
- Well, the '70s
in South Central LA,
we saw the birth
of the Crips and the Bloods.
- Crips stands
for Community Revolution
in Progress Service.
We stick together
with morals and principles.
- It was only supposed
to be protect
what's in your neighborhood,
not going out to kill anybody
or nothing like that.
- Raymond Washington--
he constituted
the Crips protocol,
which one
of the main things were,
Crips don't kill Crips.
As we've grown big, as we
expanded from the West Side
to the North Side
and all the way to Long Beach,
we had everything with that
but the Crip Constitution
of morals and principles
and structure.
- What changed
from then to now
and how they do it,
one, the guys who were actual
leaders in the beginning,
in the time that Munson
and Raymond
and all them other guys from
other neighborhoods came in,
they started off fairly
well, but they never really had
full control
over their neighborhood.
- And this is where things
started to turn for the worse.
Certain Crip members began
to branch off
and start their own gangs.
This led to rivals and
conflicts among one another.
- Unfortunately,
things got so bad,
in the late 1970s,
it was that dangerous
just walking to school.
And where I lived at
in South Central LA,
we had the Crips in one part
of my neighborhood.
But as I walked
to school down Avalon,
we started making our way into
the Blood part
of South Central LA.
- When somebody asks you
those deadly words,
where you from, and you say you
from a certain neighborhood,
that just automatically
would affiliate.
- It was an incident
that occurred in '79--
some 16-year-olds out
doing mischievous things.
One of them end up dead.
And he was so loved
throughout the community
that it just created a war
that haven't ended yet.
- The fights
amongst each other
aren't the worst part
about it.
It's when the infamous boxcar
conspiracy comes into play.
This changes everything
forever.
- I've heard about it.
Now, is it true?
I don't know.
- Well, Dr. Ernie Smith
talked about how they had
a train or something in
the Watts area of Los Angeles,
and they let the people know
there were guns on that train.
And people from the projects
and through the Watts area
went and got
a bunch of weapons.
- Well, it's been documented
that the cocaine and the guns
and all of the vices that
were put into our community
and thrust on our youth
caused much of the uproar
in our communities.
- Everybody's world was
changing because crack was in,
and the community
as a whole was changing.
The love of life, I'm saying,
the love of family
was decreasing tremendously.
- And I would agree,
because prior to the dope
that came into our community
and the money that could be
made from selling that dope,
it was just football teams
fighting against each other.
- The life of a G hustling
Trying to get my play
in this game
Trying to survive
every day on the grind
See my pockets to show...
- There was more
street-gang violence
in Los Angeles overnight.
At least five people were
killed and six others wounded.
- The '80s was violence.
It's not like they dropped
crack cocaine
in the jungles only.
No, crack cocaine,
as you see on these
other shows, was all over.
Every hood was being
empowered with guns,
and violence
was on the uproar.
- This dude pulled out a gun
and put it to my head.
- How many times you get shot?
- Five.
- It was about territory now.
- It's about getting some
money and getting out.
It just happens to be, when
you start making the money,
you want more.
And that's when
the greed come in.
Your being of wanting
to turn whatever
went bad into something good,
and it just didn't end up
that way.
The dope game killed
everything we loved.
- I know it's all
like a prayer
You barely surviving
But your players
conquer the game
And never stop rising
- Good morning again.
Thank you for coming out.
Our purpose for being
here today is very simple.
We are here to,
first of all, allow
some young men and women
from this community,
who we sincerely feel
has made a concerted
effort for peace,
that they are coming
together, bonding together
so that we can live peacefully
in this community together.
- Now, when the peace
treaty came about,
it was about us
really realizing
that we have a common enemy.
Our common enemy
is not each other.
Our common enemy
was the police.
- But blue means Crips,
and red means Bloods,
two vintage gangs
that have grown
into enormous and loose
criminal federations.
- To me, the same formula is,
we're dealing with gangs
and just dealing with
our culture, our people.
You don't have to join a gang.
You could be your own man.
It's up to you where you stand
and how you choose
to move around
- Be your own man.
Don't let some gang
or a group of people
kind of mold you and shape you
to who they want you to be
because you're
going to wake up one day
and say, man, this is
not who I really am.
I've become what they
wanted me to become.
- But the thing is that
there's so many blessings
that, you know what,
that we can have,
but it's all about choices.
- You want young men
that's going to come out
of this community that's going
to come back and better it,
not to keep destroying it.
And I think we done let this
self-hatred towards ourselves
go too far,
instead of holding
each other accountable
for the hatred we
hold to one another.
Because there's no reason why
we should walk down the street
and have to fear another man
that look like me.
- ...survive attacks,
though, shot five times
and paralyzed for life.
- I joined a gang
at a very young age,
and I feel a sense
of obligation
and atonement,
that it's my responsibility
to teach others different
in my community,
that there's a better way.
The violence, the prisoners--
it wasn't worth it.
- Look at every nationality
that has gangs in it.
The Hell's Angels, and they're
into the drug trade--
the heroin and the glass
and the speed and all that.
The Japanese have the Triads.
They're into the real estate.
The Hispanics--their gangs
are into the drug trade.
They're evolving.
What have Black gangs
evolved into?
Nothing.
Well, because we're
not putting Black first.
We're putting
our bandannas first.
- You see Republicans
calling themselves red coats
and the Democrats calling
themselves blue coats.
You see the Crips
calling themselves blue
and the Bloods calling
themselves red.
They get all that from America.
America have a flag.
The Crips have a flag.
America have a Constitution.
The Crips have a Constitution.
They're just mimicking society.
You cannot take the land
from the Native American,
impose slavery on Africans,
exploit Asians and Latinos
without violence,
without guns,
and without a culture.
This is America's culture.
- The treaty is
still being pushed.
They're trying to push it.
They're trying--all the OGs
are trying to push peace
because we've seen
what has happened
as a result of the gang wars.
- The streets could either
make you or break you
or swallow you alive.
And you could either learn
from it or get caught up
and be corrupted by it.
- All gang banging has to stop,
even religious gang banging,
even political gang banging.
And when we realize
that what we need is unity,
not uniformity,
meaning, Nation of Islam,
bring what you do best.
Christian Church,
bring what you do best.
Black Panthers,
bring what you do best.
NAACP, SCLC--but let's unite
and fight together
to uplift our community.
And we need to stop begging
white people to do for us
what our unity can do
for ourselves.
And this is what the youth
is waiting for.
- Don't try to scare me,
Count Dracula.
[suspenseful music]
Here, the secrets of life and
death by Dr. Frankenstein.
Memorize them, operate yourself
if you're in such a hurry.
- I have other ways of securing
your cooperation.
- You're wasting your time.
My will is as strong as yours.
- Are you sure?
Look into my eyes.
Look.
- Extensive research shows
the power of manipulation
in influencing people.
Over the years,
manipulation and propaganda
have been used through media
to control individuals.
Media remains
the favorite tool,
shaping beliefs
through reading
and visual perception.
[hip-hop music]
- These games are so realistic
in these days.
It's more like a simulator.
They training them to be
killers with a simulator,
I mean, through video game.
I mean, dang, that's how real
these video games can get.
- Right now the video games
have a real tough impact
on our kids.
One is because,
in their memory bank,
that's all they think about--
is that video game.
Like I said, I have a grandson.
That's all he do--
is play that video game.
And, I mean,
now, I perpetrated, too,
because I bought him
the video game.
- There's a growing concern
that violent movies
and video games have
contributed to the emergence
of young male perpetrators
of murder,
both in the United States
and other countries.
- When children are watching
video games
or watching movies that
contain a lot of violence
or are listening to music
that pertains a theme
of violence,
then they're more than likely
to display
some behavior related to it.
It may not be
the exact act, right?
But it's the power
of suggestion
that comes into the mind.
- The focus of debate
surrounding
violent entertainment
with our politicians
and other stakeholders
primarily revolves
around its production,
disregarding its reception
by the public.
- I believe that
the gaming industry
has played a part in hardwiring
our young people
to want to be excited
about engaging
in using deadly force.
A gamer believes that,
I can press a button
and start over.
[dramatic music]
[gunshots]
[goofy cartoon music]
- Consequently, the level
of violence to which children
are exposed to
in their daily lives
and the responsibility
of toy makers
in perpetuating this exposure
have become a pressing issue
in the industry.
- You've just seen
a demonstration
of the most authentic Western
toy cap guns in the world.
You can tell they're Mattel.
They're swell.
[dramatic music]
- When we were coming up,
the only way
that we were exposed
to violent acts
was basically going
to movie theaters and TV.
[indistinct chatter]
[people screaming]
But now violence
is almost promoted
on a daily basis.
- I watched "Colors"
when I was younger.
I'm fascinated by that movie.
I think I saw that
when I was in Texas.
I was like, I'll never be
in California, you know?
But it was fascinating to me
to see these guys run around
the streets and just do
all this craziness
and feel like they're
on top of the world.
And then, boom, you know,
we went to California.
[chuckles] And I started
studying, you know?
Not books, I started studying
the streets.
I knew where everything was.
I knew who everything was
and what street was what.
And it just was like--
it consumed me.
It was my profession
to know about that.
- It's a very thin line when
you talk about entertainment.
You have to ask yourself,
what is exploitation?
What is pushing
the negative agenda?
When you watch "Goodfellas"
or something like that,
it's a gangster movie,
but is it just entertainment?
Now, does that make people
want to become
those characters?
That's up for debate.
Psychologists have
predominantly concentrated
on studying the effects
of violent entertainment,
while neglecting to explore
its root,
that is, the landscape
of the suppressed environments
we call ghettos,
projects, and the hood.
- The media don't give a damn.
They don't care
because there's brothers
going to school or something
or there's brothers finna be
a doctor later on in life.
- Yeah.
- They don't give a fuck.
- If you look at something
as simple as Spider-Man...
Peter Parker,
you know what I mean?
He had to get the top story.
You know what I mean?
He had to be
this exciting writer.
You know what I mean?
Their news station
has to be better
than the other news station.
- And these inner-city things
that's going down--
is the media supposed to care?
The media ain't the ones going
through it.
Are they supposed to care
what's going on
when we not caring?
- Really, nobody cares
because it happens so...often.
- I'm going to put it
to you like this...
What other genre of music does
the government manipulate?
I'm going to wait.
Time up.
[chuckles] None.
So if no other--
if there's no other genre that
the government manipulate,
who's getting paid off this
gun violence and these crimes?
- It was reported
by some top artists
that they was pulled together
at a special home
in California.
And they were surprised
when they got to this home
when they saw that the CIA,
national security was involved
in the music industry.
- In today's world,
the police have discovered
a powerful weapon in the fight
against crime--social media.
It's become
the information highway
that leads straight to jail.
- Why are you here,
if not to solve a problem
as existential as this?
- Oh, my goodness.
We have just gotten
devastating news.
- Investigators are now saying
the accused gunman
barricaded himself inside a
classroom,
killing 19 children
and 2 teachers
inside that classroom.
- No school shootings
in England.
This year there have been
no school shootings in Japan.
This year there have been
27 school shootings in America.
- Nowhere else do little kids
go to school
thinking that they
might be shot that day.
- 17 people killed
in a mass shooting
at a Florida high school.
We're learning more tonight
about the 19-year-old
suspect's weapons
and about clues
from his social media.
- Gun violence
is still evident
mainly because
of social media.
I think that keeps it cool.
That keeps it sexy.
There's no consequences
when I'm on camera
or on my phone with a gun,
no consequences at all.
As soon as I hit stop
on your phone
or the camera stops rolling,
the consequences become real,
because now I have
a gun on me, right?
And I'm thinking I can...
at any time,
anywhere, any place,
and have anybody around me.
But as we know,
that's not the reality of it.
The reality of it is, you pull
that trigger one time,
your life is changing.
- Sometimes a potential
threat is right there,
posted on someone's page.
It begs the question--
where are the whistleblowers
when you need them?
Where is the power
of cancel culture
to swiftly remove a dangerous
individual from society?
[upbeat jazzy music]
- When Alonzo was a kid,
Alonzo grew up
on Curtis Mayfield and all
that Black revolutionary music.
I wanted to be
a Black Panther.
I saw Black Panthers
walking down the street.
Music is the most powerful
art form known to man.
- Howard should not be put
to death
because of a mitigating
circumstance.
But he had been incited
to kill Trooper Bill Davidson
by listening to a particularly
violent form of rap music.
- Because when you keep hearing
something repetitively
in your head, you going
to start catching on to that.
And I talk to my
boys about this.
The music that you listen to,
that's the type of lifestyle
that you either want to live,
or that's the lifestyle
you have.
- Hip-hop has done more damage
to Black and Brown people
than racism
in the last ten years.
- Most rappers are artists.
So, therefore, they rap
about what they see,
what they experience
through their homeys.
So you put that out on wax,
that was your expression
to do that.
So, basically, you were
the voice for your community,
for your neighborhood,
for your era.
[hip-hop music]
- Back when we were growing up
in the '70s and '80s,
we had a balance of music,
you know what I mean?
You can listen
to a "Sexual Healing,"
and then you can listen
to a Marvin Gaye.
"What's Going On."
You can listen to
a Gil Scott-Heron.
- We had Michael Jackson.
[laughing] You know?
We had some old school--
The Whispers and those type
of folks that...
they played theirs
in the way that they saw it.
But it wasn't to bring us down
or to put a curse on us.
I think it was uplifting
versus what it is today.
- It's the music executives
who are pushing
this poison
throughout our community
and causing disruption
and murder and violence
in our neighborhood.
- This year's record-tying
homicide count
has left police
with three explanations--
gangs, guns, and drugs.
But a local woman
thinks the root cause
could be something less often
mentioned--hip-hop music.
- When you look
at the entertainment
and you are rewarding
bad behavior--
My son is an artist.
And he said, "Pops, when
I talk to the people at Sony,
they asking me, is there
anybody I got a beef with?"
- I was getting
a major-deal situation,
and I was watching
the Bloods and Crips unite.
Mac wore the red rag.
Dub wore the blue rag
onstage, right?
So this is showing that
there is unity within this
because there is
money being made, right?
But outside of that, it was
still conflicts and things,
you know, spilling out
in the streets.
- "Nobody can stop this war
but us."
- This music they have now
is garbage.
And it's music that has,
I think, created more bloodshed
and violence
throughout Black America,
where we have
these gangster rappers
glorifying gang violence.
- Kids that are in that life
are really, like, living
their life.
It's their reality.
So, for them to rap about
how they're really doing it
and whatever, you can't
look at it as negative
because it's just reality.
- So welcome to the ghetto
Where you can straight get
played out like a cello
The man got
the projects boarded up
And the whites
and the Blacks all sorted up
Some gangster rap
is influential
to listeners in certain ways.
It never influenced me
to go out and do some shit
that I wouldn't naturally do.
It had nothing to do with
rap music, none of that shit.
I was just on some other shit,
you know what I'm saying?
By the time
the rap music came out,
and then it was gangster rap,
it was like, damn,
I heard Ice with "6 'N the Mornin'."
It was like, "6 in the mornin',
police at my door."
- 6 in the mornin',
police at my door
Fresh Adidas squeak
across the bathroom floor
Out my back window
I make my escape
Didn't even get a chance
to grab my old-school tape
- This is like
the first time I started
thinking about being
a rap artist, like, okay,
he just fucking rapped about
what the fuck did last night.
Fuck that. Fuck that.
Give me a pen and pad.
- When I started
making records,
there was so many hood cats
calling me,
like, yo, what's up
with that music, Ice?
What's going on with that?
You getting paper?
- You mean I ain't
got to sell no dope?
I ain't got to go shoot
no niggas
and jack no motherfuckers
and shit to get the money?
All I got to do is rap?
That's kind of cool deal.
- Players are always
looking for new lanes.
So when they see
one of their own
with a new lane, they're like,
what's up with that?
I mean, why do you think
there's so many drug dealers
in the rap game right now?
Because it's a lane.
They're like,
yo, I could take this money
and do something legit.
Only a fool wants to keep
taking penitentiary chances.
All you got to do
is slip up once.
- I just did a song,
and I said, hip-hop saved
more motherfuckers than
the Super Friends and shit.
[laughs] And it did.
- 6 in the mornin',
we didn't wake up to ask
- What?
[epic music]
- Violence has been
a form of entertainment,
even in ancient times.
The Romans, for instance,
used to subject people
to the brutality of lions
for public amusement.
Furthermore, the first
recorded act of murder
occurred when one brother
killed another
out of jealousy.
This begs the question--
is violence inherent
to human nature?
- [screaming]
- Now at 11, a Fourth of July
celebration turns to tragedy.
[fireworks exploding,
indistinct shouting]
- When I was 13, I seen
my cousin get smoked
right in front of me.
It was Fourth of July.
Everybody out there playing
football, popping fireworks,
and then we started
hearing stuff.
And, basically, everybody
thought it was fireworks.
We looked down the street,
flames this long coming
out of barrels and
everybody duck and hide.
And, sadly, my cousin
ain't make it.
My cousin was out
in the middle of the street.
All his kids seen him
like that, everybody.
- Oh, I don't even
know where to start.
Do I start at my ex-husband
murdering
his current girlfriend
after trying to kill me
and the kids?
Do I start at when I got shot
when I was a child?
Do I start at the young man
that died in my arms
and I prayed over him
as he took his last breath?
Gun violence is prevalent.
It seeps into every aspect
of our community.
Bullets have no color.
It doesn't matter if you're
young or old, straight, gay,
short, or tall.
That bullet will find you.
- I saw my first dead body
at nine years old.
On Saturday, when
Moms got to go to work
and you got your brother.
I'm probably about 9,
my brother about 12.
And you got to
stay in the house.
So I decided to sneak out the
house, go to the corner store.
And it was a man
on the ground,
looked like he was trying to
get something out the gutter.
So I just kept pushing, and
he came back, he didn't move.
So a nine-years-old child
kicked this man foot,
and it felt kind of weird.
And it was a dead body.
And I saw blood leaking.
I saw bullet holes.
And I was the one
that called the police
to report the incident.
And at the time,
911 wasn't even there.
I had to dial the entire
number on the rotary phone.
- I lost my son's father
in '76.
I was 5 1/2 months pregnant
with my son.
I lost my son
September of '99.
And then there's
multiple other people
that we know that were
close to the family
that have been killed
by gun violence,
senseless gun violence.
[dramatic music]
2009, my son...
had just turned 21 June 4th.
July 17th, he went to a party.
While they were letting
the party out,
these two young men come down
Don Felipe, identify my son.
They were wearing hoodies.
There was two girls
sitting in the car.
They saw these guys
hand off weapon,
one to the other,
and fatally shot my son,
who succumbed to his injuries.
So my life was changed
indelibly forever.
My birthday is May 4th.
His birthday was June 4th.
When he was born,
I held him first
as he came out
his mother's womb.
So there was a covenant
relationship between us.
July 5th, there was a shootout,
and there was a drive-by.
Tragically, my grandson was the
one that got hit in the head.
His passing affected us
really, really hard
because he was
my first grandbaby.
[voice breaking] If I was ever
able to see my grandson again,
I think the first thing
I would do is just hug him,
kiss him,
tell him that I miss him
so much...
That I regret not being there
the day he left.
[sighs shakily]
- The first time I heard
a woman howl--
1972 murder.
Last name Green.
If you was there,
you know the first name.
And I was there before
the crime scenes were famous
as they are today.
I was 14 at that time.
And I've heard
a howl nightly, weekly,
monthly for 40-some years
since then.
And what happens is this.
You're always going to hear
that mother,
hear that family howl,
and you'll never forget that.
That's the first thing
you're going to hear.
- [howling]
- Please, all you young kids
out here, young mens,
would y'all please
put the guns down.
- Yes, put them down.
- Put the guns down.
[indistinct chatter]
- Guns are an evolved tool
that allow people
to do more proficiently
what we've been doing
since the beginning of time.
I mean, since...
we're on biblical grounds...
Cain and Abel--
the first murder
we see biblically...
between brothers.
However you slice it,
this is not just an issue of...
the weapon of choice,
which is a firearm today.
It begins in the human heart.
- I was on my way to work,
and I was driving
up Wilmington.
And I had just crossed 124th,
and I saw two fire trucks.
You know how the fire trucks
being like at a catty corner
so you can't see what's
on the other side?
And so I kept on driving,
and I went on to practice.
And when I got to practice,
my cell rung.
And I looked down at it,
and it was an emergency text...
saying that something
had happened to Gabriel.
- That day, May 23, 2005,
I was going
to a friend's house
for him to drop me off
at the practice,
waiting for him
to change his clothes.
And I was expecting a son
that year as well.
On the phone,
last thing I was looking at
was on the phone,
looking at my shoes and
fiddling around in the dirt,
not knowing that I was shot
in the temple of the head,
not knowing that I was down
there for 45 minutes
while the paramedics were
there and the police...
bleeding out from the head,
not even knowing
and conscious.
So I went through
four major brain operations.
They reconstructed my face from
my forehead to my cheekbone.
My nose was broken.
I'm more comfortable about it.
This is the reflect
of 2005 looked like.
A bullet went through here,
came out my right side.
My eyes are sitting on my face.
I'm looking a mess.
So this is what
it was looking like,
the aftermath of May 23, 2005,
and the doctor telling me
that I've been in an accident.
I don't know
what type of accident,
but told me that my vision
wasn't there.
And I was all
of 22 years of age.
- When I was
just five years old
and my brother Saeed
was only two years old,
we lost our father due to a
senseless act of gun violence
during a robbery at our
family-owned cell phone store
in Van Nuys in 2013.
The day started out
very normal for my father.
He was an ambitious and
dedicated small-business owner
who was very successful.
And the day that my father was
killed was anything but normal.
Although I was
just five years old,
I knew from that day forward
that things would be
completely different.
I just realized that me--
I need to take a stand,
because many people dismiss me.
And that's when I started
social media,
and I realized, this is
a very big issue worldwide.
- My daughter, her name
was Ky Alicia Thomas.
She was killed
December 1, 2020.
She was 28 years old.
She had just had a son.
He was 3 1/2 weeks old.
Her daughter was 8 years old.
You know, as a mother...
you know, I was upset.
I was shocked.
But as we're
getting ready to go,
that instinct told me
that my daughter
wasn't going to make it.
We made it to the hospital.
I never got to say goodbye
to my daughter,
because when I got there,
they told me
that I had to wait.
So I never got
to say bye to her.
It's taken a toll
on my family.
However,
I'm pushing through it.
I found that my faith
got me through, however.
Sometimes you don't want
to hear that.
And so I know
what worked for me
may not work
for the next mother.
But if she has
a good support system,
let your family love you.
And just don't allow
the bitterness
to consume you.
You have to live
for the rest of your family.
I had another child
that I have to live for.
I have a granddaughter
that I'm raising.
And I could be a blessing
to other mothers
by them seeing my strength
and seeing the light in me.
Just because, you know,
our children are gone,
we always have their memories.
You took my child, but you
didn't take that from me.
And I know where she's at.
And that's why I have peace--
is because she's at peace
and I know where she's at.
- Facing the possibility
of the death penalty,
Roy Harvison stands
before a Franklin County judge,
pleading not guilty
to murdering his estranged wife
and his former brother-in-law.
- I'm often asked,
what has been so difficult
about this.
Death has not been difficult...
because I understand
that we all live to die.
And that is just
a part of life.
But for me...
what has been challenging is
every day after...
my children were murdered...
the things that people
have no idea...
that I've had to endure.
[sniffles]
And that I had to go home
and have a conversation
with a five-year-old
to explain to him
that his mother
was not coming home
that night.
[sniffles]
And I believe
the most damaging...
out of everything was when...
my granddaughter Royce
started talking
and I became Mommy.
And every time
she would say, "Mommy,"
I would say, "yeah, yeah,"
and she would say, "Mommy."
And I would just cry.
That's when I realized
I needed counseling.
- A mother that has lost
a child through gun violence--
the pain is never going
to fully go away.
But in being there,
listening to their stories...
Presenting with an open heart
and an open mind
for that parent,
not having the answers
is okay...
but letting them know
that their feelings
and their pain is valid.
- November 2000,
a few weeks
before he was gonna turn 22,
he was gonna come over,
but my husband had
a toothache, and he said,
"Let's have him
come over tomorrow."
That was Friday morning.
And Friday morning
we got a call that...
I just heard my husband
say, "No, no, no."
And I was like, "What? What?"
He said, "That was Jenny.
She went to pick him up
to go to work,"
because his car
was in the shop.
And the police were there,
yellow tape everywhere.
And they said
somebody there's been shot,
in the apartment's been shot.
And so she called us,
freaked out.
And we're like...
[groans]
We didn't know what to do.
So we just started
driving over there.
And then we got
another call from her
that said,
"Go to the police station,
"go to Northeast
police station.
Whoever was shot
did not survive."
I remember my body felt
like it was out my mind.
My soul was outside
of my body looking down,
because I realized...
[voice breaking] The pain
that I was about to suffer
was unbearable pain.
It's really the worst pain
a parent could ever suffer--
is to lose a child.
I'm talking
about a loving parent,
somebody that's your life.
That's your life.
Your child is your life.
[sniffles] You nurture them.
You want the best for them.
And they're gone,
just like that.
And then you realize
that somebody
did that and for nothing,
for nothing, you know?
It's just--
it's too unbearable.
So that's why my body was--
my mind was outside of my body,
because that first shock,
it was initial shock, you know?
And that shock, that shock,
it lasts a long time,
and that's what trauma is.
- Tonight we look
at the first layer of victims,
the bystanders, the people
caught in the crossfire.
A woman shot and killed
near the LA Coliseum,
a case of misidentification.
A 13-year-old shot, his
father and sister killed
because the boy wore
the wrong color hat.
- Mental health
means everything.
Anytime you witness so much
loss of life,
a lot of people suffer trauma
based on what we've seen
growing up,
based on what we're still,
unfortunately, experiencing
throughout our nation
with the rise in gun violence
and the amount of innocent
people losing their lives.
- Gun violence has always been
a tragic thing
in Black America.
Recently, mass shootings hit
the US like a damn storm.
You know what?
That ain't just
about the physical harm.
It's about the mental scars.
We're talking
about a rise in trauma
and mental-health cases.
- When we look at it from
a mental-health perspective,
we look at it as something
that we anticipate
in terms
of experiencing violence,
because there's really
no just cause
for us to experience it
at the level that we have.
- Mental health is, like, taboo
in African American culture.
Like, it's just something
you don't talk about.
It's something that your
parents will deny,
but it's real.
- The truth of the matter is,
is that Black folks are scared
of hospitals
and mental-health systems
because they experimented
on us, and they still do.
Nobody wants to be 51-50'd.
Nobody wants to say, you know,
I'm having an emotional,
psychological break,
because you go there.
They don't offer
counseling and therapy.
They don't try to lay you
on the couch
and listen to your story.
What they going to do is pull
out that bag with the pills
and like, which one you one
of these are going to try?
- In the small town
of Tuskegee, Alabama,
from 1932 to 1972,
the US Public Service
conducted a medical experiment
that would become one
of the most shameful episodes
in our nation's history.
This experiment was
called the Tuskegee Study
of Untreated Syphilis
in the Negro Male.
It began with the promise
of free health care
and medical examinations.
Fast forward to today,
and the effects
of this atrocity
still reverberate
within the Black community,
which leads to the reluctance
to seek medical help
when needed.
- When you think
about generational trauma
and how it relates
to gun violence
and police brutality,
you have to look at it
from a historical perspective,
from even us coming
over here from Africa
and the level of brutality
that we experienced.
- One of the most enduring
legacies of this injustice
is the toll it's taken
on the mental health
of Black individuals.
- Why I understand what most
of these young people
go through when they don't
have a value of life,
because I went through
a whole numbing period of,
I don't have a mother,
and she was taken.
I don't have a value for life.
If I take
another person's life,
you know, it is what it is
at this point,
because I'm numb to everything,
because I'm really numb
and don't know how to express
that my mother is dead
and my whole world
has changed.
- If I were to say
all of it in one word,
it traumatizes the individual
and most definitely traumatizes
the community
because the young person
or the individuals
that happen to see
or be a part of that scenario
is traumatized for life.
- When you say
the mental health, you then--
you know, once we know
that we're traumatized,
there's a form of depression
that comes with that.
There's a form of isolation
that comes with that.
When you're hurt
and you are in pain
and, you know, you believe
that nobody really,
really understands
the pain you go through,
which sometimes we don't,
because it's all different.
- Because you're not
mentally able to go make
those necessary steps--
you think you might be,
but it's not like somebody
snatched your purse,
especially when somebody
killed your child.
That's the whole--
your mind is not set for that.
Your mind is like
a total circle.
But when someone kills
your child, there's an open,
and it never closes.
It never--
No other child can replace it.
It don't go like that.
There's no medication they can
give you to straighten it out.
That don't work.
- Oh, mental health...
Wow. Mm.
Mental health, you know...
took away my oldest child
about a year ago.
She was a great person.
She was a great student.
She did all the things
we call the American way.
She went to college.
She graduated from college.
She got married.
She had my first grandson.
And then all it took was...
one thing to go wrong,
and now she was 51-50'd.
I know that it was because
of a lot of the trauma
that her dad, me,
put her through
when she was
just a little girl,
you know, because we all
think that...
Sometime what we do to hold
your family together
can still create trauma
in that process.
And it might not affect them
then, but as they get older,
it can affect them even worse.
I can remember the last time
that we talked,
and she called me, and she
said, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy."
She said, "I love you,
I love you, I love you."
And I said, "Baby,
I love you, too," you know?
And it was because I took
her son by to see her,
and he was really
her medicine.
But, you know, in this world
we live in,
they said you can't take
a child around somebody
who is mentally ill.
Three days later, my baby was--
she fell asleep
and never woke up.
And so...
That...
[stammering]
Yeah, that was tough.
And so...
Mm.
- Studies show that children
who are exposed
to gun violence
at a young age,
there's many side effects,
short- and long-term
negative side effects,
including anger,
post-traumatic stress,
withdrawal,
"desensitation" to violence.
And if you aren't familiar
with "desensitation,"
it basically means
you're exposed
to higher levels of violence,
which leads
to less internalized stress.
And usually people who
have experienced that
prove to have higher levels
of violence as they grow up.
And that just continues
the cycle of violence
as we know it.
- When there's a shooting
in the Black community,
especially with young people
or with schools,
we don't see
the mental-health professionals
coming and talking
to the young people,
to the families,
and to the community.
But if the shooting happens
in the White community,
we'll see the mental-health
professionals
going to the school,
talking to the students,
making sure they have
everything they need
to make sure
that, psychologically,
it's not a permanent impact
in the mental-health capacity.
- My help came from learning
to believe in God,
just trying to change
my whole psyche, my mindset.
I never got the tools--
or helped me with the fact
of dealing with the friends
and family members
that I lost in the streets.
Not one person have ever,
ever came and told me,
how could we help you
with that situation?
- I realized the effect that
was having on the kids who
who lived in Watts,
because what I noticed
when I would drive around is,
I would see
all these memorials
where somebody
had been killed,
with candles and flowers,
maybe a picture.
And I thought to myself,
how can a child be walking
to school,
walk past one
of these memorials,
knowing that somebody
died there
either last night or within
the last couple of days,
and then go sit
in their chair in school
and learn their times tables?
That's just not realistic.
- One thing
that I am very serious
and intentional about
is making sure that parents
are treated
for their mental-health issues,
and effectively,
because when they're treated,
then you're not just
helping them.
You're helping
generations to come.
People still don't accept
that a life experience
can cause us to go off rails
for a while,
or the death of a loved one
causes someone to not function
the way they were before.
We've got to get to the point
where the dialogue
is consistently open
about mental illness.
- Mentally, there is
this mental diagnosis
that they called--
I think
it's post-traumatic stress.
And when you see that,
that kind of stress,
that kind of pain
go into our community
and you see it for so long,
scientists say
that once you suffer trauma
for more than 20 years,
it develops cells
in your bodies.
So not only is that trauma
being experienced by us today,
but that trauma,
through our DNA,
is passed down
into our children.
So our children are born
with this resolve,
are born with this pain
already ingrained in them.
And this is what
we have to stop
and why we have to stop it now.
- But they don't care.
All they see is
a Black nigga that's dead
at the hands of another nigga.
But who's getting
paid off of it?
The system, the 911 caller,
the police that responds,
the coroner,
the jailer,
the judge.
So what does that make us
in today's terms?
We are the bag.
Another nigga in a body bag is
the bag that they're chasing,
because no matter
what crime we commit,
they get paid off of it.
Gun violence, gang banging,
robbery, homicide,
we're the bag
that they're chasing.
Next question.
- Well, we need to have
more resources
to help educate our babies.
I've always said,
how do you educate
a child that lives
in a war zone
and don't know
that he's in a war zone?
And then you expect
for him to get straight A's,
you expect for him
to be an honor-roll student,
but he has to go home
to an unsafe environment.
He has to be in a condition
where he may witness abuse,
drugs, violence,
and still we want him
to succeed.
What I've come to learn
is that trauma
turns into mental illness.
And mental illness
is what we see
all around the world now.
- There's direct services
that people need to receive
in terms of trauma support,
you know,
and those services have to be,
like, pointed and directed
towards certain populations,
you know, folks who are
participating in the violence.
Then there's the business
of trauma services
and support services.
So these two things have to be
cultivated in communities
because I see this as a part
of the public-safety
ecosystem.
And in this country,
you say public safety
and people say, police, right?
You know, when police are
only one aspect of the process.
The hospital, you got
the police department,
you got the jail system,
you got the courts,
all of these folks are making
a gazillion dollars off of us.
We have yet to, like,
really organize ourselves
in a way to build, like,
institutions in the community,
to where we can accept and
receive these type of dollars
and provide services
to our own folks.
- My stepfather used to make
us do chores every weekend,
and one of those tours
was pulling up weeds.
He didn't give us tools
or anything.
He gave us some gloves.
That was our tools.
Two weeks later, we would have
to do the same chore,
which is go back
in the backyard
and pull these weeds up
all over again.
After a while, I told the man,
listen, we're going to have
to dig this thing up,
because if we're just picking
the weeds at the surface
and don't deal
with the root issue,
this problem is going
to continue to persist.
Where there are issues
of jealousy...
envy,
where there are issues
of discord,
where there is pronounced lack,
where people are unsure
of their standing
with God and with others,
there's human conflict.
If we don't deal
with these internal issues,
these spiritual issues,
this weed we call
gun violence...
will never be fully dealt with.
[hip-hop music]
- As a result,
Black Men March on LA--
we pulled together.
Within two months,
we had a march
from Staples Center
to City Hall.
And we had a rally.
At this rally,
we had prominent leaders,
prominent politicians,
prominent religious leaders
as well
to address police reform.
During this time, we were able
to draft four initiatives,
and we placed them out
in forms of a petition
to address police reform.
With these four initiatives,
I'm not asking
anything punitive
against the officers.
I'm asking something that's
actually basic common sense.
I'm asking that they be treated
like the regular
average citizen.
So, again, the first
would be liability insurance.
Secondly, would be
self-defense funding.
Third, restrictions
on employment.
And fourth, firearm revocation.
So, with Black Men March on LA,
as the executive director
of the organization,
these are the four initiatives
that we have in place
at this time
that we're pushing for.
- Because now people act like
it's normal to be murdered.
They act like it's normal
for you to be a victim
of gun violence.
They act like it's part
of the norm for everyone
to have someone in the family
being a victim
of gun violence, and it's not.
We're bringing up a generation
that's looking at that
and sees it.
And they're thinking that,
hey, why should we do anything?
Why should we say anything?
You all said it was okay.
You all are glorifying it.
You all are saying it's part
of the norm in every fashion.
And I think we all got
to think about that
when we talk about guns.
We got to look at it like
we look at other things.
Just like we don't put
alcohol in our kids' hands,
we don't put drinks
in our kids' hands,
and we will be furious
if someone else did it,
furious.
We need to think
about that with guns, too.
- Me and my crew,
The Fathers in Hip-Hop,
we go out
to these foster homes,
and we talk to these young men
and teach them the importance
of getting themselves together
and putting themselves
in a position
to be able to be good fathers,
because a lot
of them themselves,
being in those type of homes
don't have fathers,
and it caused them
a great deal of pain.
And they take that pain,
and they translate it
in these streets to violence.
So we want to catch these boys,
we want to catch them as boys
and show them
what manhood looks like.
I think if we want to solve
some of these problems
that's going on
in our neighborhood,
we got to reach out
to the fathers.
We got to get the men in
the community to come together.
And just as hard as we banged
our neighborhoods,
if we could put that same
passion, loyalty, and intensity
into fatherhood, I promise you,
we can see a better day
in our hoods.
- We need to support
these intervention programs,
you know,
stopping the violence.
If you start in your community,
in your home,
encourage your mom--hey, Mom--
There's many city council,
your own congresswomen
or congressmen
have meetings
on topics like this.
Either weekly, monthly, or
throughout every other month,
they hold meetings like that.
And it is welcome
to the public
for anyone who's interested,
and you can get involved.
And you can learn
all the backgrounds
about the amendments
or these rules
or when it's time for voting.
You can learn more deep
about them,
and that's how you can help
in your community.
- So I actually started
a softball league
amongst Crip sets
because everybody thinking
that it's always
a Blood and Crip war
that's going on.
Actually, there's internal
wars that's going on
in our community
between the Crips,
and same thing
with the Bloods--
they have internal wars
going on.
But we feel that we can
all get together
and try and unite
with this ourselves
and be able to unite with
the Bloods that's going on,
doing the same thing
with our softball league.
We can be very successful
knocking down the violence
and gun violence
in our community.
[dramatic music]
- What we need is,
we need not people like me,
not politicians.
We need people
with lived experience
who are older and wiser,
but also the young people
who get it
to speak out and say, we have
to stop killing each other
because that's
what needs to happen.
It can't be the politicians.
It shouldn't be
the politicians.
It can't only be sports people.
It has to be people
in the community
who are respected,
who can say, we have
to stop killing each other.
And it's okay to get help,
It's okay to be supported.
And that's, in my opinion,
where we need to get.
And I feel if we can get there,
if we can get the right people
to be talking to these kids,
if we can get these kids
the support they need
while they're growing up,
then that's the only way
we'll really see
a decrease in the violence.
- In order to help solve
the problems and the issues
that we have going
on in our communities,
it's going to take all of us
coming together
and working together as one.
We need
the community activists.
We need the police department.
We need government officials.
We need the whole entire
village to come together
and start sharing
the different knowledges
that we have in our community
to bring this thing to a halt.
- Well, I'm definitely not
trying to improve
the way of life
in the community.
I'm improving the way
of life in the community.
I am saving lives every day.
Yesterday I saved
hundreds of lives.
People robbing each other
and hollering out
different neighborhoods--
come to find out,
it's not that neighborhood
and find out the person
who robbed the person.
And, man, can we get
this stuff back?
Also, I have
a group of ambassadors
at Leimert Park, where
we asked the community,
can you not call the police
for the homeless situation?
Can you not call the police
for mental health?
I have five ambassadors
that walk the Leimert area
every day.
They're out there
now passing out food.
Can you call 2nd Call, as
opposed to calling the police.
Let us deal
with the situations first.
What are some of the things
that we can handle ourselves
without getting law
enforcement involved?
And that's what
we do as 2nd Call.
We do those things.
- I would say
that the number-one thing
that I think that we can do
in terms of helping people
put the guns down is to address
the emotional
and physical
and psychological abuse,
especially for Black men,
you know?
And I ain't trying to create
the trauma Olympics and stuff,
with Black women and other
people who have been harmed.
But this is a study
that says that...
that Black men are the least
helped, the most harmed.
And it's time for us to engage
our healing journey.
I know that it's possible,
you know, because I see
it happen all the time.
And I'm like, there's
a level of vulnerability
that we as Black men
have to bring to this work
if we're going to be
the real, like, champions
for this whole nother--
you know, this next phase
of healing and transformation.