Word: ganging
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...phone calls usually come at night. The voice is always low, distressed, the tone conspiratorial. A Gangster Disciple or Vice Lord assigned to murder informs Brother Bill that warfare is on the horizon, that just moments ago he was instructed to kill a rival gang member. "I don't wanna shoot nobody, and I don't wanna die, Brother Bill," the voice whispers. "Please come over here. Nothing's gonna happen if you're here. Help...
...From his Evanston home, it's a 35-min. drive to Cabrini. En route, he pulls on his robe and begins prayer. Upon arriving, he walks briskly to the scene, where the shooting has usually already begun. His pale blue robe aflutter, he stands in the center of gang gunfire. He says he can hear the crack of guns from snipers in the buildings as well as see shooters running on the ground or ducking in and out of entryways. But thoughts of his safety never cross his mind. He understands that he can be killed, but he knows this...
...shooters. Three more shots were fired that night, and peace was declared. "It's like if Brother Bill is willing to take a bullet because he loves you that much, it makes it harder for you to hate the other side," says Antonio, a 26-year-old gang member. "I think that's why the shooting stops...
Several times a year, Brother Bill takes a group of gangsters to Notre Dame, to football and basketball team practices and games. The gang members guest-lecture to students and faculty at the Center for Social Concerns and university workshops. "They treat us like movie stars," says Paris. "I like going down there and telling them what our life is like and learning about theirs...
...wherever he finds them, his message is the same as it was a decade ago, when he discovered a 21-year-old gang leader bleeding to death in a dark stairwell from four gunshots to the chest. As the faint siren of the paramedics' vehicle sounded, too far away, Brother Bill spoke softly into the ear of the young man the last words he would hear on this earth...