In 14 hours on Sunday in Chicago, 44 people were shot, including 5 who died, police say

[Locrian]

6. summary

But there is a deeper, knottier issue that’s driving the bloodshed, said Lance Williams, and that’s the almost total lack of opportunity and resources for people growing up in impoverished neighborhoods.

“We look at these conflicts as gang-related because these kids have ‘gang ties,’ ” Williams said. “But it really has nothing to do with a gang. When the only thing you have, the last thing you have, is your humanity, what you think of as your manhood, you get this skewed vision of what a man is. Because it’s the last front for you. You might as well be dead if you can’t hold onto that.”

Regardless of what law enforcement officials try to do, Williams told me, the violence will continue until Chicago can give its young people something else.