Curbing Chicago crime, one jigsaw cut at a time

Shawn was at home, scrounging for change, when he heard the sudden crack of gunshots. Outside, he found a young man lying on the sidewalk, surrounded by neighbors. It was his best friend, Brandon. They lived just a block apart and often spent the night at each other’s houses. They sometimes went out together to buy loose cigarettes, hitting up passersby for quarters.

Now Brandon, not yet out of high school, lay on the ground, bleeding and unresponsive. A man knelt and held his head. It was a gusty December afternoon, mild for the season. The others glanced up at Shawn. But he hung back and said little. He remembers that his friend’s eyes were closed. He would not see them open again.

“I ain’t never really seen anything like that,” he says, his voice sinking almost to a whisper. He adds, “I couldn’t even cry. It took me until the next day.”  

The Chicago police later said that Brandon McKnight had been walking down 66th Street when two men ran up from behind and shot him. He died that night in a local public hospital. It was one of many shootings in Chicago that week, and it received only passing mention in the newspapers. The death of another young Black man intruded only briefly upon the consciousness of a city where such crime was becoming more common. It was soon forgotten. 

But not by Shawn. The hurt of that day still gnaws at him, the details of the killing still fresh in his mind. The killing was both a wrenching loss and a moment of piercing clarity. It took his best friend, but it also reminded him of the precariousness of his own life. “If it could happen to him,” he thought, “it could happen to me.”

Gun violence is surging in the United States. After decades of decline, the murder rate is nearing record levels in many American cities. In