‘We all mourn the same’: How Chicagoans affected by gun violence are helping the Highland Park community

CHICAGO (CBS) — Hope and healing spans beyond Highland Park.

The reality is trauma around gun violence across our area is constant. CBS 2’s Steven Graves talks to community leaders.
They are looking at the tragedy here as an avenue to enact change on a broader scale.

There is sympathy and empathy from community leaders in Chicago watching Highland Park’s tragedy play out. And with that, comes a hope that a collective voice can address important issues around gun violence.

Right now, there is a setback for Englewood Pastor Gerald Dew’s community work.

“That’s like the loss of an intimate friend.”

His church had to enlist therapists to help cope with losing their historical building in April to a fire. A mainstay that served as a pillar in the community. A refuge for young people who experience gun violence everyday, is now gone.

“Those persons that have experienced loss in Highland Park, out of every tragic event comes opportunity to make positive change.”

Pastor Dew and his team point to resolving issues they’ve been raising for decades.

“Gun laws. Something stronger.”

Also mental health and systemic issues.

“I think coming together to think about how we can heal through action could create a larger coalition.”

Cecile De Mello with group Teamwork Englewood uses what she calls “community building” to address violence in the city. She hopes to see more national conversations surrounding the mental state of people on the South Side who commit gun crimes.

Exploring backgrounds and root causes of gun violence, something that happens with mass shooters. Work that her team and many violence interrupters do everyday.

“What can open up as we have those kind of conversations could also lend to the kind of investment we really need,” De Mello said.

Doctor Rashad Saafir is a psychologist working with gun violence trauma on the West Side for the past 43 years. Have things gotten better over the years?

“A little bit, but not much,” Saafir said.

In his community, he said it starts with addressing family dynamics.

“You have the added factor of structural racism that is influencing the lives of people in ways that some don’t realize,” Saafir said.

But those doing the sometimes hard, constant, unrecognized work to address gun violence, like Darryl Smith, everyone’s hurt and pain fuels them to keep going.

“We’re all human beings. We all bleed red and we all mourn the same,” Smith said.

It is a call to action that community groups hope involve legislators to change laws and investors to provide resources.