Truth or Consequences? Gang Summit and Reaction
Top city and county leaders admit Wednesday, there is a gang problem and hundreds of people are answering the call to action to fight back at a day-long seminar targeting gangs.
The goal is to bring everyone, from the highest positions to the poorest communities, together.
But across town, at least one man who knows the *consequences* of gang life all too well, says it's time to tell the truth.
"This city is so far behind on their problems that they're not even looking at 'em yet. That's how far behind they [are]. They way over here and the gang problem is over that way," Shonathan Parker says.
Parker spent years running with the wrong crowd. He's seen the inside of a jail cell more than once.Tattoos are inked in his skin from years as a Vice Lord gang member.
"I'm a good person now, but I've lived the wrong life," Parker says. "I've done wrong and i feel like karma has caught up with me." But as he tried to walk away from his gang lifestyle, he wound up in a fight and never able to walk again.
"He ran out of bullets shooting me," Parker recalls. If he had one more bullet I'd've been dead because he put the gun right up in my face right here and pulled the trigger too, twice."
Parker was shot 7 times. Now he's stuck in this wheelchair, paralyzed.
"It ain't a day go by that I don't cry about it," Parker says. "You know there's a lot of stuff that I didn't even get to do in my life that I still want to do."
Parker is telling his story, to stop others who might be tempted by street life. And across town, hundreds are trying to do the same. About 300 students, community groups, church and city leaders, and law enforcement came together for a day-long summit. Their goal is to build safe communities with workshops developing ideas and action plans to take back home.
"We need the community institutions, we need the individuals, we need the students, we need the teachers, everybody to step up and recognize first of all, there is a gang problem and secondly, we want to live in a safe community, what can I do?" says James Russ Dedrick, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
At the heart of the summit was the unveiling of a video. The sponsors of the forum partnered with the University of Tennessee to create a video that features youth standing up against gangs, and people like Timothy Evans, who know the consequences all too well. Evans was sentenced to life in prison here in Hamilton County two year ago for a gang murder.
The plan is to put the video in every classroom in the state of Tennessee.
Parker says it's a late start, but a good one.
"This lifestyle out here, these gangs, this is not what's happening," Parker says. "We still have a chance to save our city. Our city is not that far gone yet. They make it seem like it is, but it's not. There's ways to save it."
