Those of us who have been kissed by the sun, there appears to be a target on our backs 
In 1996, aged thirteen, I had a special bond with the city of Chicago. I’d never been to the United States, let alone the Windy City, but from the comfort of my smelly teenage bedroom, I’d transport to Chicago weekly. Channel 4’s short-lived basketball show NBA Live fronted by Mark Webster and living legend Scoop Jackson afforded me a virtual courtside seat to witness arguably the greatest starting five of all time.
Longley, Pippen, Harper, Rodman and, of course, Michael Jordan were gods among men. I watched the legendary ’95/’96 season in awe, claiming ‘the Chi’ as if I’d been born and raised there. It was Jordan’s returning season after a year out playing Minor League baseball and every game was an event. He led the team to a record seventy wins and an NBA Championship all while wearing the now classic Jordan XI shoe.
I coveted those bloody sneakers but didn’t have the money or opportunity to buy myself a pair until a whole five years later. May God bless the year 2001 and the flawless reissued ‘Bred’ colourway that nearly brought me to tears the moment I held the box in my arms.
Just so you’re aware, I’m doing everything in my power not to have a massive rant about how sneaker culture has deteriorated into a money grab for the internet generation. My love for footwear stretches back to my childhood where I’d sit silently for hours drawing sneakers I’d seen in catalogues and magazines but couldn’t afford. To me, those shoes, that team, that season, that city – Chicago meant Jordan and an amazing moment in time.
Outside the Jordan years, there wasn’t much pulling my tiny attention span back towards Chicago. Oprah Winfrey emerged as juggernaut of media but didn’t feel connected to the city in the way those five men in red did. A few years passed and staying up late to watch a live basketball game happening on the other side of the Atlantic no longer spoke to my hunger for connection in the same way.
I was now in my mid-teens and every thinking moment away from scripts and girls I didn’t have the balls to speak to was dedicated to hip-hop. The Source magazine became my bible and my favourite MC was a man who not only had one of the most distinctive raspy tones, but through his words I rediscovered Chicago. In the year 2000, Like Water for Chocolate was released. This was the fourth studio album from the rapper and Chicago native Common.
Orchestrated by one of the greatest producers of all time, J Dilla, the album tackled race, love and poverty – themes I’d wrestled with for the entirety of my teens. I explored his entire back catalogue, and with lyrics like ‘I’m comin’ from the South Side, where roughnecks reign; If you can’t stand it, don’t go outside’, his Chicago was a world apart from the sneakers and slam-dunks I knew. It was angst peppered with the realities of a life on the fringes of society.
Drugs and gangs ran the South Side, and Common’s music became a vivid window into the lives of those who’d never make it to the stands to cheer on The Bulls. By 2004, Common had joined forces with fellow Chicago rapper Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. music label. Kanye went on to become … Well, Kanye, a man whose influence has gone global.
Kanye Omari West would go on to produce the entirety of Common’s 2005 album Be and the two musicians would continue to collaborate for years. With their hometown a regular theme in their collaborative efforts, it wasn’t until Kanye shone a light on a young rapper from the Windy City that my understanding of Chicago would change yet again.
On 2011’s Watch the Throne, Kanye rapped ‘I feel the pain in my city wherever I go, 314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago.’ This track, ‘Murder to Excellence’, didn’t pull any punches about what was happening on the city’s South Side. I was now in my late twenties and stories of loss of life suddenly held so much more weight. This wasn’t just music any more, the lyrics spoke to a bloody epidemic claiming young black men. Kanye doubled down: ‘The old pastor closed the cold casket and said the church ain’t got enough room for all the tombs.’
A year later, a teenager by the name of Chief Keef saw his fame skyrocket when Kanye remixed his biggest hit ‘I Don’t Like’. The power of West’s influence threw the then 16-year-old (already huge online) into the speakers of out of touch hip-hop fans in their late twenties and early thirties … like me. Under house arrest for UUW, or Unlawful Use of a Weapon, Keef wrote and recorded his verse for the remix in his grandmother’s lounge. Rapping, ‘I got tats up on my arm ’cause this shit is life’, Keef openly referenced his gang affiliation.
I was totally side-swiped by the teenager and fell into a wormhole of videos and think pieces online. The kid already had a loyal localised following, but going viral meant mainstream and global interest. Video after video of Keef and his shirtless teenage friends mugging at the camera clocked up millions of views online. They waved gang signs, tattoos and guns and their audience seemed to eat it up. To the Sonics of local teenage producer Young Chop, they had their own sound in Drill Music, and a growing audience declaring them as rap’s newest superstars.
Once again, music would be the catalyst to a new level of understanding Chicago. These kids were rapping about a gang-infested, segregated city with the highest murder rate in the country. The South Side had such an unrelenting body count that it earned itself the unwanted nickname Chiraq. It was Chicago’s own Middle East. While Keef’s mix tapes and YouTube fame netted him a record deal with Interscope records worth $6 million, there were thousands of other kids just like him who didn’t make music but were just as young, living just as dangerous a life.
What were the chances of escaping such an environment, and surviving the double whammy of police brutality and black-on-black crime?
It was 2016 and I’d experienced what I thought could be every kind of on-camera challenge possible. My twenty-fifth year on screen was my thirty-third year on the planet and my desire to grow on a personal level had been fast-tracked after I’d invested in more regular therapy. The transparency I was willing to deliver would only help the film and my relationship with an entirely new team.
A few months earlier, I’d found myself in one of my favourite restaurants on Soho’s Dean Street sat opposite Toby Trackman. He is a director and the production company had suggested I meet him for the yet to be commissioned Chicago film. Quickly bonding over his musical Bristol roots we chewed each other’s ears off about club nights and B-sides spiralling into the depths of geekdom.
But just how hard would I be pushed? He made a point of wanting to challenge me in some of my moments of reflection. The best work I’d delivered outside of conversation with contributors had continually come from discourse with my director. Through so much shared experience, my usual collaborator Sam and I found a short hand and fluidity. But what would the new outlook of Toby’s bring to the conversation and more importantly, what would he expect from me?
I knew Chicago had recently seen an increase in gun violence and I was heading right into the thick of it. To read about lives being lost was eternally different to being surrounded by it. I honestly didn’t know how I’d manage, but knew whatever reaction might find its way to the surface I was ready to examine it on camera.
Those of us who have been kissed by the sun, there appears to be a target on our backs
Once again, I’d arrived in the US knowing I’d be making a film about the black experience. Unlike Ferguson, however, there wasn’t currently a media spotlight shining on Chicago and my relationship with this city was a constantly changing love affair that had lasted years.
America was at a crossroads; what had for so long been the plight of some was now fighting for the attention of many. The country was gripped by allegations of police brutality and an increase in gun crime was tearing the country apart. But I started my journey knowing that, in this city, police violence was only part of the story.
The national outrage towards police shootings was the big story, but in Chicago, gun violence was also out of control. As the city struggled to cope with the carnage, who was responsible?
It was our first day filming and our drive wasn’t long but gave us enough time to establish a healthy rhythm of name-calling and playing music loudly. Toby made the mistake of mentioning that his friends had sometimes likened him to Bart Simpson’s best mate, Milhouse. Well, I could see their point: he had the glasses, the haircut and, now and then, the geek-like demeanour. It seemed like it would almost be rude not to call him that.
We arrived and Millhouse, sorry, I mean Toby, had me dive right in the deep end, starting the shoot with a small demonstration outside a local police station. Three young black men stood silently holding stop signs in front of the police building. All three signs were tagged with words below the bold STOP in white. I found myself fixed on the youngest of the three, whose sign read ‘STOP KILLING US’.
As well as the silent stop sign protest, a mass of sullen faces stood before news cameras. The demonstrators were holding a banner filled with the faces of African-American victims of police violence. ‘The police are killing our women and children,’ said a man in an immaculate suit. He had the air of a community leader elected to speak for the families, but his linen and matching fedora contradicted his plea, as he looked less like a community leader and more like a 1950s Harlem dandy. He continued, ‘Those of us who have been kissed by the sun, there appears to be a target on our backs.’
Outrage at black deaths at the hands of white cops was rising across the country and Chicago was no different. Emotions were at boiling point. In 2015, police in America killed 306 African-Americans, eight in Chicago alone. The well-dressed spokesperson was almost pleading with cameras begging for change. His tone was a conscious and deliberate whine, not too unlike a preacher begging for his followers’ agreement: ‘The Chicago police do not get to be judge, jury and executioner of our children.’
Sadly, his content and delivery were so familiar that they felt like clichés. I’d heard men speak on behalf of black communities in America this way my entire life. It felt reminiscent of some of the loudest voices from a bygone era where change was pleaded for. When a young guy in a baseball cap and hoodie got on the mic, his measured, no-nonsense style didn’t ask for, but demanded change.
One of the two men had lived through the civil rights era; the other was a millennial with a totally different level of expectation from the country he called home. Speaking to the cameras with pure confidence and clarity, he took aim not just at police brutality, but also at gang violence. He didn’t shy away from problems in his community, but insisted on accountability from the people supposedly protecting them.
I attended the monthly police review board, a forum giving locals the chance to air their grievances. With frustrations already articulated to the waiting media, I was expecting things to only get louder once we’d headed inside. The board took place in a conference hall-like space and was packed with concerned locals. A media line-up stood at the back of the room, waiting to cover what would unfold. Their presence was more than justified as the tension in the room was palpable.
Those who’d arrived were not only impassioned but clearly connected to the issues. Many were wearing funeral-style tribute T-shirts displaying the names and faces of lost loved ones. This certainly wasn’t a room of weekend warriors, they’d been personally affected and, by the looks of things, directly galvanised to do something.
One after another, bereaved mothers stepped up to the mic berating the police. ‘And you all don’t give no fucks because he wasn’t one of your kids,’ rang out of the speakers as the tearful parent let loose on those she saw as responsible. I could hardly watch as the board of police and city officials silently sat and listened with no apparent show of emotion. A few flashed signs of empathy, but most sat blank-faced and could easily have been wondering what to have for their dinner that night.
The more scathing the comments made by grieving parents, the louder the reception from the audience became. Claps and cheers filled the room every time furious parents dismantled the system and its mute representatives. It must have been cathartic for them, but would it really change anything?
As the board wound down, I got talking to a twenty-two-year-old father of one whose son was fast asleep on his shoulder. Ja’mal Green was a local man and activist who’d attended hoping to hear or see something different, but was about to leave unimpressed. He smiled, admitting the sessions always get heated but ‘No solutions ever come out of it, that’s the problem.’ Ja’mal continued, ‘When you see our neighbourhoods looking like third-world countries with no resources, no opportunities and no jobs, its regular.’ For someone so young, I was surprised by his lack of optimism:
‘You live in it so long there is no hope.’
I got talking to Antoine Hudson, a polite thirteen-year-old who was there with his mother Tambrasha. Antoine’s brother Pierre had been shot dead by police at just sixteen years of age. As Tambrasha spoke passionately, the room erupted into applause. Antoine watched proudly with an air of maturity I’d never before seen in one so young.
‘Black young males are dying left and right every day in Chicago,’ he told me. He was matter of fact and didn’t flinch at what was more than a statement; he was describing his own situation. Antoine wore a look of acceptance, seeing the environment he’d grown up in as broken but constant. He knew no different and as a result had decided that crying wouldn’t help. Holding everything in, he’d chosen to put his feelings aside in an effort to support his mother who he described as not being as strong. His tone was adult but his baby face made the whole conversation surreal as I kept forgetting I was talking with a child.
Tambrasha was wearing a t-shirt bearing the name and face of her beloved late son, Pierre. She’d made some kind of peace with losing one child but had become increasingly protective of Antoine, insisting he wasn’t safe. ‘I pray for him every day.’
Her eyes glassed with tears as she explained the forces she’d battle against were gang related. Until the incident, what ultimately took her son was the least of her concerns. ‘I always prayed about the gangs and the violence, but now it’s sad that I have to cover my kids and pray for them against police shootings.’ Antoine comforted his mother as she began to cry again. He was being strong for her but who was being strong for him?
‘What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!’ rang out. The young, straight-talking activist I’d watched speak to the cameras led the crowd out, chanting in unison. Grieving mothers hugged each other as the review board shook off the weight of the last hour of being shouted at. It was strange watching the community desperate to be heard leave through one door, while those with all the power to change things quietly exited through another. Those with the power to help and those in need may have been in the same room, but they felt worlds apart.
I’d spent years learning about the city through the verses of some of my favourite rap records; now I was finally here but I hadn’t emotionally prepared myself at all. During the review board I looked around the room to see people that looked just like my family members tearfully recounting the most horrific of stories. I couldn’t help but imagine the faces of my loved ones at the podium, or worse yet on a T-shirt. The unmistakable pain and levels of violence I’d just heard about made everything I’d read and heard in the music aggressively immediate and suddenly very real.
So-called black on black crime; we call it state-sponsored crime
African-Americans make up one-third of the city’s residents, yet in 2016 Chicago police killed nine people and all but one were black. The drive from where I was staying to where the majority of filming would happen gave a visual to the disparity in the city. North of the river and surrounded by a bustling city centre, the financial district led to the tourist hubs and hotels I returned to every night. South and west of the city were predominantly black and had the highest levels poverty.
One such area was Gresham, where in 2013 Pastor Catherine Brown was aggressively arrested in front of her children. Ironically, Brown was a volunteer working with the police to help improve interactions with the black community. Her children, aged eight and one, screamed as a police cruiser deliberately crashed into their car. Threatened at gunpoint, Brown was then pulled from the driver’s seat, dragged across the bonnet of the car, tearing her skirt off, and then beaten in her underwear. Laughing, the officers silenced her screaming kids by spraying them with pepper spray.
Pastor Brown talked me through the incident, as she’d obtained police dashboard video showing the entirety of the ordeal. It was a sickening watch and an experience which has left her eight-year-old daughter wanting out of Chicago, and with a newfound hatred of the police.
Pastor Brown referred to her role as a police liaison and community volunteer in the past tense. Her days of trying to help the black community and local police get along were over. Following the incident, Catherine was prosecuted on charges including aggravated battery, assault and two counts of attempted murder. She was eventually found guilty of reckless conduct, a misdemeanour for driving in reverse, while all other charges were dropped.
She still works with the neighbourhood, but Catherine had taken a step back, minimising her interactions with the law while doubling down on her relationship with local community leaders. She regularly hosted a group of elders who’d discuss their corners of Gresham and what could be done. I was invited to join the round table and felt instantly welcome the moment I arrived.
Catherine Brown’s house was a real family home and she was clearly a pillar of the community. Family pictures filled the walls, the stove was always on the go, and the fridge held enough food to feed the whole of St Louis. She was a great hostess, but I knew if I ate much of the wholesome food she offered me, I could soon be falling asleep.
The table was made up of older men all itching to unload their issues with the current state of Chicago. The minute I saw the older brother in a dashiki, I knew we were bound to hear some home truths: ‘So-called black on black crime, we call it state-sponsored crime.’ The belief at the table was that the system had created an environment in which no African-American could truly prosper. They said violence wasn’t just about guns – having their schools, day centres and mental health facilities closed down constituted violence on their communities. I had never heard the word used in that way, but it was impossible to disagree.
Englewood had long streets filled with beautiful homes; the majority of which were unfortunately in a state of disrepair. Fish and chicken spots sat on most corners filling the sticky air with that oil stench that’s impossible to get out of your clothes. However, I’d been in town for around a week and as the South Side became more familiar, it began to feel much more appealing than north of the water where I was staying. There, the perfect streets and global chains filling every commercial space gave the area a homogenised numbness. There were no defining characteristics to the skyscraper-heavy city centre. I could have been anywhere in the world, but not when I was South Side. The energy on the streets you could feel, the people sat in front of their homes made life in Englewood tangible, immediate and vital.
I didn’t expect residents on the south and west sides of the city to stop living their lives because of the frightening numbers relating to violence. But I was surprised at just how much I was drawn to the forgotten and separate side of Chicago life just on the other side of the water.
They don’t go to work and think, today I’m gonna shoot somebody
Cases of police brutality dominated the front pages of local papers and countless hours of screen time. We put in an official request for an interview to the Chicago police department but they declined to be a part of the documentary. However, Toby and my producer Becky Reid had an idea how to get around that.
Hungry and super-smart, Becky spoke quicker than I did and had so many ideas about how to make the film even stronger than the pitch the channel had already commissioned. Totally genuine in her opinions of my previous work, Becky was straight up about what she thought I could do better and I bloody loved it. A sign that things would go well with any team I worked with usually came in the god-given ability to give and take insults using profanity with poetic flair. Becky was from Croydon; she could hold a master class on insults. Quickly realising we’d probably attended the same club nights in our younger years, my tight shoes and loud Moschino shirt combination matched by an admission of her flat cap and Chinese patterned slippers gave us no choice but to click in our embarrassment. Becky and Toby quickly felt like old mates. Like Diana, Becky had a talent to get anyone on side and her way with people would go on to prove invaluable.
Becky had learned about an event called The Blessing of the Bikes and we drove out to one of Chicago’s nicer suburbs to see it. It was a huge motorcycle meet and ride out, which excited me as I’d been taking motorbike lessons at home and had my test set for when we got back. However, the closer we got, the more my excitement faded. As I rolled the car past a churchyard packed with hundreds of gleaming motorcycles and massive blokes with beards, leather vests and patches, I realised that these weren’t Hells Angels. They were off-duty cops.
Growing up, I didn’t have the best experiences with London’s police. Getting pulled over in my car on a regular basis wasn’t fun but it almost became an expected part of being on the road. It sounds incredibly clichéd, but my interactions with the law have been either cordial or the total opposite. The fact that I’d left home, had a mortgage and a decent lifestyle by the age of eighteen didn’t prevent me being stopped and asked, ‘Why are YOU in this car?’ nearly every time I got behind the wheel.
Arriving at the Blessing of the Bikes I didn’t feel particularly comfortable. A welcoming committee most likely wasn’t on the cards and with personal experience teaching me that healthy interaction would be thin on the ground, I was apprehensive. I was essentially ambushing a sensitive off-duty event attended by hundreds of officers. I look at that in hindsight and think how easily things could really have gone left. Cheers Becky.
The church’s surrounding streets and its own parking lot were lined with motorbikes. Predominantly Harley Davidson hogs, the sun pinging off of polished chrome was almost as difficult to compete with as the sounds of the engines.
Wives sat and scrolled social media while their husbands ogled each other’s machines. We were unannounced and the off-duty cops weren’t pleased. I started to try to talk to some of the guys regardless and the few that didn’t walk away were friendly and chatty. Sat on a huge Harley in a leather vest peppered with badges commemorating fellow officers who’d lost their lives, Al Francis opened up about the dangers of their job.
Al was the president of Wild Pig, a police-only motorcycle club. He described policing Chicago as being dangerous depending on the area. We were sat in a beautifully manicured neighbourhood where a lot of officers lived but Al was adamant that bad guys were everywhere.
We started to discuss the criticism the force was facing regarding the police shootings, but were promptly shut down. A stern-looking biker in wrap-around shades approached, shook my hand firmly and warned Toby not to point his camera at him. My time at the event was clocking no more than ten minutes and already it was looking like we were done. The organising officers wanted to know what we were shooting and, more importantly, our angle. Becky clicked into full charm offensive mode and assured him the film we were making was grounded, bound to my journey and aspired to a balanced view.
Granting permission to continue, Mr Wrap Around Shades pulled Becky to one side to ensure she understood our continued access was dependent upon steering clear of sensitive subject matter. By that he meant everything I instinctively wanted to ask the officers about.
The Blessing of the Bikes event was a memorial gathering and ride out for cops killed in the line of duty as, in the last decade, nine officers had been fatally shot. A priest walked the street and car park splashing holy water on the motorbikes from a bucket using a large broom. Yes, it was as strange as it sounds, but I seemed to be the only one who found the whole thing a little odd.
One attendee who was happy to speak didn’t come on a bike; she was with her son and wanted to pay her respects. Sandy Wright lost her father in the line of duty to a bullet from a young African-American man. Sandy’s father had been a neighbourhood officer on the South Side who would always stop and chat to local shop owners, kids and passers-by. One day, as he talked to a young gang member, he was hit by bullets fired by two kids from a rival gang who had just been to a friend’s funeral and were seeking revenge.
Having lost her dad, Sandy’s feelings on policing would never be the same. Sandy believed no one was supporting the police, and she saw their efforts as misrepresented: ‘They don’t go to work saying, today I’m gonna shoot somebody.’ Growing more emotional with every statement, she went on, ‘The police are outgunned right now’ – referring to the amount of weapons officers encountered on the streets.
Then the lot fell silent as a mic was handed to a young woman. From a piece of paper she read a list of officers who’d lost their lives on duty. A bundle of blue balloons were released and Sandy started to cry.
As the loud and endless queue of motorcycles lined up and rolled out, the buildings either side of the street felt like they were about to collapse with the noise. I watched them leave while digesting Sandy’s frustrations. But with Catherine Brown and that table of elders from the South Side still fresh in my mind, I couldn’t help but see the similarities. People were dying on both sides of the debate yet everybody believed they were the victims. The biggest problem I could see was that no one was asking what role they played in the problem.
Police brutality was rightfully a huge story and in the national spotlight, but the overall numbers of shootings showed a much bigger problem. In 2015, twenty-three people were shot by the police, nine fatally. At the same time there were almost 2,500 black-on-black shootings, of which over 350 were fatal.
The body count in the city since 2001 has surpassed that of soldiers killed fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet attitudes towards death in the two dramatically different scenarios had become similar. Chicago residents were chalking up loss of life on a weekly basis but outrage was minimal. The people dying weren’t soldiers who knew what they were signing up for; these victims were predominantly kids sold a dream by gangs that ended in caskets.
In 2016, someone was shot in Chicago on average every two hours. This frightening statistic delivered a continual stream of content filling column inches and TV reports, but how could somebody report this relentless stream of misery and not be damaged by it?
Responsibility? Where do you begin?
I threw Becky and Toby around the back seats of our cheap rental SUV. Empty water bottles and half-eaten cereal bars rattled around the foot wells while Becky told me off for my shit driving. We were in a typically enormous car park for a local supermarket waiting to meet a young journalist who was taking me out on his night shift.
Peter arrived shortly after I parked the tank and everything about the man was non-descript. He drove one of the most popular cars in America, a black sedan, and dressed and spoke in a way that didn’t encourage attention. This was a man who didn’t want to stand out and considering the environments and people he reported on, I totally understood why. Peter was a journalist who spent his evenings searching for the story, looking specifically for gun crime. Essentially, Peter made a living diving head first into the kind of situations any sane person would run from.
That night he had no plan outside of reacting to what he heard and following the story. He used police scanners and Twitter to stay on top of stories as they happened. His set-up was simple: a hand-held radio that looked like a walkie-talkie allowed him to listen in to police and fire services. As they used public airwaves, it wasn’t illegal to hear their interactions. Talking in plain English, not the ten codes you’d hear on TV, Peter would listen for shootings. Should one occur, he’d know about it as it happened.
The sun began to set and I was rolling with Peter so I jumped in his car as he spun us out of the parking lot. Toby was in the back desperately trying to get balanced and comfy with his camera, but the increasingly crappy roads the further south we went didn’t help. Peter pointed out previous crime scenes on almost every corner, as we drove deeper into Englewood.
The amazing irony is that Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in America. There are no gun shops in the city at all, they’re not allowed. Yet in 2015 the police seized over 6,000 illegal guns smuggled in from neighbouring states.
We were driving for a few minutes when the scanner sprung to life. ‘Shots fired!’ A panicked officer called for an ambulance and Peter put his foot down. We were off and headed to the crime scene at speed. I was worried about getting arrested before we’d even arrived as he drove as if we had blue flashing lights on the roof. We broke several laws on the journey over I’m sure, but this was his business and getting there while there was still a story to report was a skill he’d perfected.
The code ‘Fire Rollin’ was repeated over the radio, explained by Peter as shorthand for sending paramedics to the scene. A young man had been shot in an alley between some residential buildings and the train tracks. We arrived at a busy police scene as ambulances and police lights painted the dark street a glowing blue and red. A group of officers separated from us by yellow tape stood together quietly talking. The victim had been rushed to hospital in critical condition while several men in blue combed a nearby grassy area looking for something.
The yellow police tape protected the scene and Peter and I could only get so close, but the little access we had was reduced even further as an officer moved us further back extending the area covered by tape even more. Peter pulled a cop to one side fishing for information while the detectives tried to wrap up the crime scene and get away as quickly as possible.
Back in the car, the police radio carried reports of shootings all over Chicago. Peter wrote off those cases too far to get to, knowing something would eventually pop up that night on his patch.
We pulled into a twenty-four-hour diner after some sort of sustenance post-adrenaline burnout from the crime scene. As Peter brought the car to a stop, the radio announced that the victim of the shooting we’d got to had just died. He was eighteen.
The yellowing walls and ceiling of the diner could have been put together for some sort of American crime drama. The crabby, hairnet-wearing older waitress and cigarette-smoking chef went about their jobs as we flopped into an empty booth.
It was the first time in hours I’d seen Peter in full light and I noticed just how tired he looked. He carried dark circles around his eyes and stubble that didn’t look deliberate. It looked like his night job – consisting almost entirely of poverty and death – twinned with his day job where he’d write about it, had started to take its toll. To absorb so much pain, then be expected to articulate and share it as a written record on a daily basis would quickly break me.
Just like me, he loved the city he called home, but I wasn’t sure how he could happily function in it as his mental mind map was littered with crime scenes. I’d struggle to walk certain streets or even eat at certain establishments knowing just how many people had died in or around them. ‘You can’t let violence define a location,’ he said, which was an admirable outlook, as he’d made an effort to revisit places where incidents had occurred, in an effort to rebrand them in his mind.
Peter knew certain blocks by crime scenes or victims and as much as he said he hadn’t been majorly affected, his face told a very different story. He wanted to slow down, but the fact it was only May and there had already been over 1,400 gunshot victims that year, he knew the niche he’d carved for himself meant he wouldn’t stop working.
Becky found a website tracking the deaths and shootings in Chicago which regularly updated its figures as the numbers were growing daily. It was 25 May and there had already been 54 homicides that month alone. With six days left, how many more people would lose their life before the counter reset for June?
Let’s take our frustrations out on him
In 1933, Reverend A R Leak opened his own funeral home with $500 earned as a bathroom attendant. His aim was to help local black families who couldn’t afford to bury their loved ones. Still going and bigger than ever, the Leak family business continues to provide free and heavily discounted funeral services. With so many victims of gun crime becoming their responsibility, the Leaks were seeing the effects of the city’s problem with violence first-hand, so I visited the funeral home to learn how they managed the numbers.
Toby told me to walk down a long corridor and through a huge metal door at the end. He didn’t tell me what was on the other side. As soon as I went through it, a sharp smell I didn’t recognise hit me. It was chemical and totally foreign to me. I turned into the room and the sight of eight dead bodies covered in white sheets stopped me in my tracks.
Dressed in scrubs and a hairnet, Naidra introduced herself. I was in her place of work and her job was to get the dead ready for their families to view and then for their funerals. Explaining my confusion at the smell, she referred to it as the smell of death that she’d disturbingly become used to. I can’t really explain the strange feeling of those embalming fluids mixed with bodies temporarily prevented from decomposing. Seeing so many bodies outlined by the white sheets was haunting. I’d never been around so much death.
She was working on bodies that had already been embalmed and was seeing victims shipped in from the medical exam room daily who were riddled with bullets. What she found most difficult wasn’t the amount of gunshot victims; it was how they’d been shot. Naidra explained the shock she’d feel in opening the body bags to see faces broken up by huge bullet holes.
The levels of violence happening in Chicago made her fear for her son. Her three-year-old would be on her mind all day while working, as her biggest fear was to open a body bag and see his face staring back at her. Through first-hand experience, Naidra knew avoiding gang life or culture didn’t always exempt you from its reach. So many of the victims she’d deal with were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She spoke about her son getting caught up in the violence regardless of how good he grew up to be. ‘It may not have been for him being in a gang, he just could be on the wrong side of town and they decide, let’s take our frustrations out on him.’
I had to step out of the room as it started to become all a bit too much. I sat in the hall gathering my thoughts as the professional part of my brain began to turn off. I’d said yes to making the film months before the shoot was scheduled and as fate would usually have it, life didn’t slow down around me. About a week before I boarded the flight, a good friend of mine had died and his funeral was promptly scheduled for a day in the middle of the shoot.
As a teenager, music was a huge part of my life, not just as a DJ, but as an MC as well. By the time I was in my early twenties I’d recorded close to a hundred demos with one of my best friends, producer Kevin Mcpherson, and was offered a publishing deal by living legend Guy Moot at EMI records. My music lawyer and friend was Richard Antwi whose honesty and incredible professionalism helped me walk away from the money and pursue my growing career in TV. He refused to let me damage what I’d built at that point by starting an entirely new career, even though I’d be walking away from a six-figure sum.
Richard’s funeral was happening while I was in Chicago and suppressing my sadness in that moment sat in the Leaks hallway was impossible. Death was on my mind and after literally being surrounded by it while talking to Naidra, I finally cracked. Losing a friend only a few years older than me filled me with feelings of mortality. Missing the chance to say goodbye to Richard and being around so much death in the funeral parlour took the role I filled at the centre of the film and twisted it.
I stepped outside and couldn’t help but let the tears out, as making sense of the loss I felt on a personal level and the unrelenting death I was talking about every day in making the documentary had reached boiling point. It had to come out and boy did it. It was a snotty ugly cry and I’m glad Toby was completely unaware, as I needed that moment on my own. I eventually got my shit together and headed back inside to carry on shooting.
If I can survive Chicago, I wanna give my family a better life
Most of the victims of gun violence in Chicago are under the age of thirty, and parents on the South Side were living with the very real threat that their children may not make it to adulthood. Ja’mal Green, the young father and activist I’d met at the police review board, was performing at a community peace event. He sang on stage receiving huge applause and, after his performance, I was invited to join him and his fiancée at their basement apartment.
The young couple were raising a constantly giggling baby boy and seemed far more mature than their years would suggest. Ja’mal couldn’t hide his frustrations at what he called a lack of male leaders in the community. By having a son, Ja’mal believed he’d raise a man who’d give back just as he’d done. His fiancée Ayana Clark was also just as frustrated with their living conditions but didn’t see their current home as one they’d be in forever. Her southern accent was broad, making the weight of her words lighter on the ear.
Ayana was scared to take their son Ja’mal Jr to the park: ‘You’re limited in this city about what you can do with your kids.’ Ja’mal believed he didn’t live in the city, he was barely surviving it: ‘If I can survive Chicago, I wanna give my family a better life.’ Explaining that everyone was in survival mode – from the gang bangers right the way through to normal guys like him – even if they went about their survival in different ways, he understood the motivations.
Ayana explained the gang member mentality by simply stating, ‘Every dollar you make, is a dollar I don’t make, so in order for me to make that dollar back, I have to kill you to ensure that I make that profit.’ It was a cold reality she painted, but for her, it came down to conditioning. She blamed the mayor who’d shut down fifty schools on the South Side.
Ayana believed there were two very different Chicagos, and their home was right in the middle of the neglected side. Ja’mal believed the north was seeing all the support, forcing some parents to turn a blind eye to their kids to dealing drugs, as that had suddenly become the only way to keep the lights on.
That don’t supposed to be
An average week at The Leaks funeral home would see two or three young victims of gun violence. Lee McCullum Jr was the twenty-ninth person to lose their life that month alone. He was found in his mother’s car with multiple gunshot wounds to the head and I’d been invited to his funeral.
Sat at the back of the full church, I got talking to one of his mentors and close family friend Michael. We sat at the back of the packed hall and spoke quietly as friends and family members around us quietly cried. I was struck by just how many young faces were there to mourn the death of Lee, making the premature nature of his death inescapable. Michael insisted he was a good kid who just wanted to play basketball, but how does a good kid on the right path lose his life to gun violence?
Michael strongly believed Lee’s loss of life was extra painful for so many, not because his life had more value, but because he was on the right path. As far as Michael was concerned, the environment was to blame: ‘It’s a lack of respect for human lives. It’s a lack of fathers, it’s a lack of standing up and being men to their child.’ Michael couldn’t hold in his anger and it seemed he wasn’t alone in feeling that Lee’s death was not only incredibly sad, but unjust.
I’d arrived in the darkest outfit I had scraped together from the blacks and blues I’d packed in my suitcase. When I arrived, I was surprised to see his entire family and closest friends head to toe in white. Michael described the choice of clothing as ‘respect that he was an angel’.
Lee’s father, Lee Senior, stepped up to the podium and held the room’s attention with his short, clipped words. Reading from a small piece of paper, he’d planned a speech for his son but his presence alone demanded the attention of the room. Not the tallest in height but huge in stature, Lee Snr was clearly grieving quietly behind his dark shades. He looked so young himself, further emphasising the young life that had been taken.
Throughout his speech his eyes jumped from those in front of him, to the young friends of Lee trying their best to show no emotion at the back of the room, and the open casket holding his dead son. Speaking to the responsible shooters, he said, ‘Ima pray for you in a different type of way,’ which received a loud round of applause from the parents in the room.
The threat of a retaliation on Lee Jr’s behalf felt increasingly likely as the young pack holding the wall seemed more and more enraged as the service went on. Lee Snr made no attempts to hide who he was speaking to as he raised his voice: ‘Fall back, ’cos I can’t do no more funerals.’
Michael left my side and stepped up to the podium. His delivery was worlds apart as every ounce of frustration and rage poured out of him. He repeatedly shouted ‘That don’t supposed to be’, while pointing at Lee’s lifeless body. Michael had been in prison for over twenty-one years and Lee Jr’s death infuriated him. ‘That’s supposed to be me.’ Like a man possessed, Michael pleaded for there to be no retaliation but with emotions running so high, I was moved but unsure if the message hit home enough for Lee’s visibly emotional young friends.
As Michael stepped down, I looked to Toby and Becky who were now hiding at the back of the church. They were both bright red and tearful as the powerful speeches had affected them too.
It was a funeral service the likes of which I’d never experienced. Understandably grief swept the room, but the pleas for no further violence made the loss of life so much more painful and the message so much more vital.
The service ended and the room full of men, women and children in white filled the tall concrete steps. Outside, Michael quietly shared news he’d had of an imminent potential show of disrespect to the family. He’d heard those responsible might come by shooting from a car to further establish their strength. The family quickly said their goodbyes and left while I tried to work through everything that had just gone on. The biggest battle for me was the need so many felt to do something about Lee’s death, but with the same level of force causing the same level of grief to another family in another church.
Lee McCullum Jr was the 221st victim of a fatal shooting in 2016. It was only May. Thankfully, two weeks passed and there had been no retaliation.
That night, Toby insisted we’d get out for a team dinner and Jesus did we need it. It was one of the hardest days I’d ever had on a shoot and it wasn’t because of the filming conditions or the team, it was because of the weight of the subject matter.
All three of us left the church totally drained and with nothing left to give, we ended up stuffing our faces with every kind of taco on the menu while Toby and Becky smashed back a few tequilas. We needed a night off and decompressing as a team pulled us together. We ate and giggled hysterically and needed it. I’ve been happily teetotal for years, but that night I envied the release Toby and Becky could find in a bottle.
This the law of the land of the other man … we just pawns
Michael and Lee Snr invited us over to the McCullum family home. Occupied by Lee’s grandmother, the house was the family hub crammed with food, photos and memories. We met on the street as I parked and as we walked to the house, every step Lee took let out a small noise. It was only then that I realised Lee was walking on a prosthetic leg.
Lee Snr lost his leg through no fault of his own; he was being a good Samaritan. In an attempt to break up a fight he got shot and due to circulation issues his leg was amputated. I stood in silence as Lee told the story, but it didn’t stop there. He then went on to show me the large scar he had on his head where he was shot. In the head. And survived.
Picking up his son from a Halloween party, Lee turned a corner and walked into a fire fight, catching a bullet to the skull in the cross fire. Telling both stories with a quiet calm, it seemed as though the man had made peace with both incidents. Lee explained he was angry, but not any more. ‘I’m angry about my son, that’s what I’m angry about.’
Proud of his naturally athletic son Lee Jr, he showed me his son’s massive pile of trophies and medals. In an effort to get to know who Lee was, I asked if they’d planned for sports to be a part of his future? Lee Snr walked away slowly saying ‘Yes’ over and over, as that possibility would be something he’d never know.
Every wood-clad wall was filled with photos and signs of the huge family. There were too many children to count, but with there being so many pictures of him, it was clear Lee Jr was a favourite. Sat on big fluffy, comfy couch, Lee Snr fell back into his seat on the kind of sofa only grandmothers have. It was impossible the amount of pattern on that one piece of furniture, yet it was unbelievably comfy.
‘It hurts that he’s gone … I feel like I failed because he lost his life.’
Michael stood in the hall watching quietly as we spoke. ‘It’s gon’ always hurt,’ Michael barked in his now familiar tone. He believed the trust between the community and the police had totally eroded. It was an atmosphere where people were taking justice into their own hands and the system was only making matters worse. ‘It’s broke, you can’t fix something that’s broke – you got to replace it.’
Lee showed me pictures of his son’s graduation. In every photo the kid was beaming with pride. There were photos of Junior hugging and kissing his girlfriend and their young romance was sweet and clearly real, but now unfulfilled.
Michael was hurt not just at losing young Lee Jr but listening to his friend speak with every word charged by so much pain. ‘This the law of the land of the other man … We just pawns.’ Standing in the dark doorway, Michael was visibly upset and felt powerless in both his future and that of his community. Resigned, Michael let out an unusually quiet, ‘The system been broke.’
It was a revealing but deeply painful conversation. I said my goodbyes and left quietly.
I’d spent over a week on Chicago’s South Side and the place just kept smashing me with curveballs I never could have prepared for. As I left, Lee Snr called me back to the house’s porch and pulled from his pocket his cell phone. Without asking, Lee thrust in my face images of his son on the autopsy table. His face was riddled with cuts and deep bullet holes. I was speechless as Lee put his phone away holding eye contact. He wanted me to understand what he was trying to live through and I wondered just how many times he had stared at that hellish photo.
I walked away to the car as kids in the wide sunny street played loudly. A boy on a pink girl’s bike complete with flowery basket rode past smiling. All innocence and giggles, while the images I’d just seen of Lee Jr filled me with sadness.
Lee was a good kid but he lost his life to gang violence. If that was the case, how could you truly feel your child – just like the boy on the bike – would stay protected? What was becoming undeniable was that no matter what might be instilled in your child, their behaviour, manners and morals couldn’t protect them from cross fire or a stray bullet. Just because of the street you live on, your child might not make it to their eighteenth birthday.
I drove away bouncing down a main street filled with potholes. Every third shop was closed down or boarded up. I couldn’t help but feel I was in a place sending loud and very direct signals to its African-American residents. No one cares about the area and no one cares about you. But what might that lead to? Well if you’re a child being told nothing around you and (by proxy) you don’t matter, what respect will that child grow to have for their own life or worse still, someone else’s?
People think it’s not your problem, until that problem knocks on your door
So who was speaking up for the next generation? A group of fathers and college fraternity brothers were taking to the streets of Englewood in an effort to send a loud message. They marched the streets head to toe in purple, chanting, singing and clapping. Residents stopped to watch, cheered them on, or joined in and marched with them and it was incredible to witness.
They chanted, ‘Stop the violence, save our youth, put the guns down.’ Cars beeped their horns in support while some came to their doorways raising a single fist in support. I walked with a father who’d brought his six-year-old son along, believing the walk would be something the kid would remember for the rest of his life.
We arrived at a car park and stopped as the pack congregated. The crew of former classmates sang loudly and begun step dancing. Stamping and clapping, they used just their bodies as percussion. It was beautiful to watch the group of fathers and grandfathers so united in their mission. Then, one of the men stopped a song to make an announcement about news he’d just received. ‘While we was walking, a brother just got shot.’ This had happened literally minutes before as we passed. ‘We have to have a greater presence,’ another man shouted. ‘We gotta be louder next time.’
Mike, a taller, quieter man stepped up to make a speech. The group fell silent in support as some gripped his shoulder, others his back. They were marching to send a message, but also in honour of his daughter, Tiara Parks, who at just twenty-three had lost her life as the victim of a stray bullet. ‘We have to get ahead of the problem.’ Rumbles of agreement floated with every statement made.
He spoke of helping others and protecting the children, forgetting mid-flow he didn’t have a daughter any more when speaking about doing right by the children of others. Full of emotion, he corrected himself and was instantly embraced, just about avoiding tears.
I told Mike about attending Lee’s funeral. He stopped me talking with no more than a look. ‘Lee McCullum?’ he asked. ‘That was the boyfriend of my daughter that was killed.’ His words nearly knocked me off my feet. His daughter and her boyfriend had been shot dead just three weeks apart.
Mike was a cop and even his daughter wasn’t exempt from the violence: ‘People think it’s not your problem, until that problem knocks on your door,’ he said. Tiara just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and his position as Deputy Sheriff made no difference to the safety of his child. He risked his life every day and was visibly close to breakdown, as his efforts to better his community couldn’t keep his child alive. He’d done everything he believed he could to keep his daughter away from the violence. She went to college, she had her life together, but the violence plaguing the city still touched his door.
Tiara and Lee were two connected lives lost, both victims of guns and segregation-fuelled tensions that continue to rip the country apart. Could it be that for many black people, the ever-elusive American dream had been replaced by a fight for survival?
I came away from the Windy City with more questions than answers, but I felt a level of pride in my willing to share every doubt, annoyance and frustration with the camera.
This film almost entirely stripped away the voiceover track, which only showed up when it was really needed. I felt trusted in my role on screen as that steered the film, but what made it were the people I’d met and their willingness to share.
All the films I’ve made so far have taught me amazing lessons in objectivity, listening, patience and so much more, but perhaps none more so than Life and Death in Chicago. For me, this project set a benchmark for the level of work I was to be a part of. There is still so much to learn, but I knew I had made something I could be proud of, and felt excited about what I would do next …