Grief’s Children

Channel 5 news special about children affected by gun violence.

0:00Copy video clip URL Color bars.

0:50Copy video clip URL Open on a Channel Five news special about a mass murder that occurred on September 26, 1986. Carol Marin reports that drug dealers arrived looking for money, and when none was given to them, they killed almost everyone present, leaving only two children alive, one with 46 stab wounds. She introduces this special, Grief’s Children, as a segment about the kids affected by urban violence.

3:00Copy video clip URL Footage of children that live in the Henry Horner housing project playing. They talk about violence in their neighborhood. They speak again with the girls who survived the mass murder of 1986 and their family. They talk about the effects of chronic exposure to violence.

11:00Copy video clip URL Cut to black. Color bars and start of segment 2. They talk to children who live in Ireland’s Devos Flats housing project. The conflict between Catholics and Protestants there mirrors Chicago’s gang violence, exposing children to urban violence in the same way. They talk with people who are affected by this violence, including people who have lost family members. They visit a place where teenagers hang out to talk and avoid violence.

20:50Copy video clip URL Cut to black. Color bars and start of segment 3. Back in Chicago, they follow a young boy who was shot a year earlier. They interview his family, talk about changes in his personality, and his future. They talk about work people do in the community in an attempt to improve the situation.

31:20Copy video clip URL Cut to black. Color bars and start of segment 4. Still in Chicago, they follow a family who was killed in gun violence. A series of crime statistics. They compare urban violence in violence in a war, and look at kids in war zones on the West Bank. They talk with experts about the effects of these experiences.

45:55Copy video clip URL Cut to black. Color bars and start of segment 5. They follow up with some of the children from earlier in the special, and continue to talk with experts about the effects of trauma.

52:45Copy video clip URL Special ends. Credits.

53:35Copy video clip URL Video ends.