Ex-Chicago gang member works to end violence

While he was growing up in Chicago's Northwest and South sides, it was normal for Geno to see people getting shot and dealing drugs.

The son of the founder of a prominent gang in Chicago, Geno, who is now 37 and under house arrest after being released from prison last August, was born into gang life and has been through horrors.

Geno has been in prison three times for drug charges, was shot in the back and the arm, stabbed twice in his leg and arm and was almost kidnapped. Hundreds of his buddies are dead from suicides, bullets or overdoses.

Geno knew he had to change, but the realization came when his sister was fatally shot six years ago at a nightclub in Chicago.

He couldn't take waking up in the night covered in a cold sweat.

He couldn't believe he was still alive.

Not only was he committed to getting out of gang life and changing himself, he is now dedicated to helping others, stopping youth from joining gangs, and is planning his own program: To Reach Urban Children Everywhere.

"My goal is to go to young kids, tell them the money, the drugs, the girls, it's not cool," he said, adding he wants to write a book. "I would like to start a crusade for free to help kids, provide them a place to go when things are bad, or not bad, let them talk about problems instead of keeping it all inside so they know someone is there for them and there's help."

Talking to children in schools to warn them of the dangers of gang life is an important part of prevention, said Magdalena Pagan, the director of the violence prevention initiative at Alliance of Local Service Organization in Humboldt Park and Logan Square.

Churches and after-school programs also help keep children off the streets without the intimidation of the law. Other programs that target an older population and educate with a "been there, done that, it's not worth it, and I'm going to help you" message also helps.

Ceasefire, the now-defunct organization whose goal is to reduce shootings, hired ex-convicts and retired gang members to reach the at-risk youth without a police presence. Even though the program technically hasn't existed since its funding was cut, the outreach workers are still volunteering.

The unconventional and proactive prevention tactics from the unexpected advocates of peace do help reduce violence, they say, and those techniques the organizations employ work better than the rounding 'em up and kicking them out strategies police tend to use.

But police are important because they pick up the pieces after a crime is committed.

"Those harassing techniques [police have], I give low marks for keeping kids out of gangs," said the Rev. Tom Terrell. His church, Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Albany Park, sponsors a tutoring program after school and a weekly basketball night so kids can have a place to go.

Terrell said he always put his efforts into helping the community's children and realized how much was needed after one of the regulars at basketball night was gunned down near his church almost three years ago.

He said that although constructive programming works better for prevention, communities need law enforcement.

"Outreach workers have a different form of communication, and [the at-risk youth] needs outreach to keep them from crossing the line, but when they do cross that line, we need police to do their jobs," Pagan said.

Shootings in communities with Ceasefire outreach have decreased an average of 42 percent from 1999 to 2005. Overall, shootings in Chicago decreased from 4,038 in 1999 to 1,667 in 2005.

"[Police] realize it's better for a crime not to be committed, then for them to work it," said James Highsmith, the deputy director of mediation services at the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, located on the city's South Side. "They respectfully let us do our job."

The message former rival gang members send by promoting peace in a community they once terrorized is very "unconventional and powerful," and proves to be a crucial prevention tactic on the streets, Pagan said.

"Violence has got to stop," Geno said. "The experts [won't stop it]. Someone who has the experience can."

Lindsay Hyland, who used to work at Ceasefire as a consultant, said using those people is totally unconventional and effective because at-risk youth can relate better and will listen to someone who has been there. But she said it is a weird balance because the outreach workers' names have to be well-known in the community or they will have no influence.

"We use our unique abilities to talk to guys similar to me. My caliber and qualifications are different from most groups out here," said Highsmith, who spent four years in prison. "Our job is very necessary because most of us had been our target population and had a chance to change."

Geno said he can reach the youth and prove how unglamorous gang life is.

"Average gang member doesn't make it past 21," he said. He wants to give these youths something that his friends never had, just as Ceasefire's reformed after-dark workers want to give back.

"The first 10 years in prison, I was really angry," said Alex Olivera, an outreach worker at the Humboldt Park/Logan Square Ceasefire, who also does charity work like food and toy drives. "But the second 10 years, I came down off the rush and realized this wasn't the life I wanted. I don't give back because I have nothing better to do, I give back because I've taken so much."

When Olivera was a boy, he used to love school, but he had no one to show off his grades to; his father died when he was a baby, his mother worked second shift and his older brothers didn't care about his grades.

By the time he was 11 years old, he was hanging out on Humboldt Park corners and was embraced by gang members who told him they loved him, they were his brothers and that they would die for him.

Olivera started a 20-year prison sentence when he was 15 on charges of first-degree gang-related murder. Like Geno, he knew he needed to help break the cycle of perpetual violence in communities.

"A lot of the younger generation think people who come back from prison are almost a hero, but what they don't realize is how awful prison was," said Pagan, who used to sit at her window and watch the gangs in her Humboldt Park neighborhood shoot at each other every day.

To hear these influential gang members' stories totally challenges how they think about violence, Pagan said, and teaching them it's not an acceptable or normal behavior, is crucial to reducing violence and stopping youths from joining gangs.

"These kids get shot because of their lifestyle," Olivera said, adding that if his clients come to him wanting to hurt someone, he tells them they could, but tells them to first imagine their mother crying and screaming at their funeral.

He tells them of a cousin of one of his clients who got shot seven times in the back. The victim's mother lined her hallway leading up to her bedroom with pictures of her dead son.

Prevention works best at a young age.

Geno, who said gangs are recruiting kids as young as 7, wants to target young kids before the gangs do. Terrell's and other constructive community program give school-aged youths a place to go so they don't spend afternoons on the streets.

Ceasefire works with the ones others have given up on.

"We deal with the worst of the worst of the worst," Pagan said. The outreach workers work shifts from the early evening until midnight or 2 a.m. and find dangerous corners to talk to the high-school dropouts who are already in gangs.

"We're never going to be able to remove the gangs," Pagan said, "but I think if gangs can still exist and not kill each other, then we've made progress."

Terrell will keep his programs going for as long as he can. And, as for Geno, all he wants is to give youths a chance to grow up and to help them avoid the terrible things he has seen.

"Why would you want to spend the rest of your life listening to someone else?" Geno said.

"I want to show kids there is hope and there are good decisions they can make. I want them to know there is a way out. Hopefully, it will make a difference."