Crime Lab 'I'm amazed by what they do'
Chicago Tribune Digital Edition
By Colleen Kane
In a small classroom at St. Agatha Catholic Church in North Lawndale, it was Tarik Cohen’s turn to speak.
The Bears running back had sat quietly in a group conversation circle for more than an hour Monday listening to leaders of a Chicago anti-violence program talk about how they strive to change lives in the city’s most vulnerable communities.
Kyle, one of the program’s participants whose last name is being withheld for safety reasons, told of being “a normal boy from Austin — selling drugs, running up and down the street, playing with guns. Just bad stuff.”
But a friend told him of READI Chicago — short for the Rapid Employment and Development Initiative — and in August he joined the program’s job training and cognitive behavioral therapy, aimed at helping the group of mostly 18- to 32-year-old African-American men at high risk for gun violence to make better choices. In the months since, Kyle faced temptations to quit — the lure of drug money, anger over a family member’s death — but has made the decision daily to attend with the hope of being a good father to his coming baby.
