>> we are out of time. >> oh no. this young person, you can speak to me afterwards. thank you all so much but i'm so grateful you're here. thank you for the great questions. >> happy to do it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> there will be an autograph signing on the way out. [inaudible conversations] >> a look at racism in schools. live from the printers row lit fest in chicago. - - is next with a look at gun

violence in chicago point while we wait, david kennedy is the author of don't shoot and offers a solution to end the violence. >> here's a fact for you. and that fact is that the annual death toll of young black men, every single year is almost exactly the same as the body count for the world trade center attacks. nearly 3000people a year . and, the wtc attacks were something the country prepped for for a year ahead of time. and was headlined in every american newspaper. this other stuff gets nothing. except, in some quarters, it does. and, there are people like lori and myself and a bunch of others who live and breathe

this both inside and outside the affected communities. and it came time to write don't shoot because in the last 15 years or so, there has been developed a way of thinking about and acting on this problem that works. so the reviews on the book are starting to come out and not surprisingly, it is not a gentle book. it is very blunt and harsh things. one of the things it says is we know what we need to know now to do something about this but i have been getting a ration of stick about this from people been saying basically, over really? yes. oh really. in my inbox is a message from the commanding officer in the mission district of the los angeles police department. which is in the san fernando valley and one of the geographic in la of los angeles

which is most ingrained intergenerational hispanic gangs. they began this workfare not long ago. they had a signal moment just over a month ago. and the message in my boxers, for the first time in the history of the mission distric . in september, nobody got shot. has never happened before. we are doing this in the worst neighborhood in sacramento. intergenerational gangs and drug area. they began the work over a year ago. since they began the work, there has been in this area, one nonfatal shooting. it seems far too good to be true but the fact is, it isn't. and some people in law enforcement know it and some people in communities know it. some people who follow the literature on this know it.

most people - - this is a very non-academic manifesto saying we know this and it's time to start acting like it. the first big moment and this came here in boston in 1996. i want to read from the book about that. so let me set the stage for you. one of the moments in this work has turned out to be sitting down with extremely hard-core offenders and talking to them. i will talk about why that makes sense and how you find them and that sort of thing in a moment. but the fact is, we sit down and we talked to them. the first time that was done anywhere in the country was in may 1996 in the dorchester

courthouse. here's the scene. we are in the courthouse. there's no judge there and we have just taken the place over on our side of the bar where the judge and the witnesses and such would normally be, our boston police officers, federal agents, suffolk county prosecutors, federal prosecutors. probation and parole officers been some city of boston gang outreach workers. the city had hired folks to work the corners and calm the stuff down and get people off the streets. on the other side of the bar, facing us, or about 30 of the most dangerous gang members we could find in the city of boston. and we spent the next hour or so talking to them. couple of framing facts.

you'll hear a couple names. when is freddy cardoza. freddy was basically the worst kind of vendor in boston. the boston cops stopped him inbox. at 2:00 a.m. one morning. here just sold an automatic pistol to a juvenile the kid had the gun and most of the ammunition. freddy had one nine millimeter cartridge in his hand. and what freddy didn't know is that the boston cops have been working with the feds. freddy didn't know that he had with the feds called a predicated criminal record that opened him to prosecution under what's called the - - career criminal statute. as an eligible defendant, he could be charged with crimes, possession of a firearm that carried with it a 15 year mandatory federal sentence.

and he especially didn't know under federal law, cartridges count as a firearm. and what would probably have been a misdemeanor state of offense turned into a 15 year federal sentence and otis still prison in upstate new york. where he sits to this day. this happened in 1996. he's still locked up on this. [inaudible conversations] >> if you'd like to watch more of david kennedy's discussion on don't shoot, search his name at booktv.org. starting now, is author alex - - talking about his book. an american summer which deals with gun violence in chicago. [inaudible conversations] ...

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> we are getting ready to start the next program. so i ask the room to be as quiet as possible. to begin with, welcome to 35th t fest sponsored by the south planning board and also a special thank you no our sponsors for their generous support this year, especially win trust as our programming sponsor, robert