when i was a sweet young thing and a social worker in nickerson gardens, i had that one kid. every gang interventionist, every person in this room knows about that one kid. all of us have that kid. they touch us for reasons we cannot articulate. i don't know why bobby touched me, his name was little devil but i never wanted to call him by that name. i think about his personality and that maybe the reason. he was 14 years old and had been abused, and was in foster placement with his hat -- aunt. i fell in love with him in the most proper, loving, in the most big sister way. i would say to him, with all the ignorance of the young social worker, i will always be here for you, always. always. it was a friday night, and i had gone on a string of disasters states, this was in the 1980's. we hooked up, but said we didn't. it was 2:00am and i was getting home. i lived in venice, california. the rent was affordable. but this was to in the morning. the house had a wraparound porch. i was walking up to my house, and there was a shadowy figure on the porch. i did what any concert -- god-

with gang infested housing projects that are now almost mythic, jordan downs and nickerson gardens, and worked in these projects during what is referred to as the decade of death, when crack and unregulated gun availability laid waste to communities of color. in los angeles during the late 1980's and early 1990's, there were 1000 homicides per year in the city of los angeles, not the county, the city. now, we have between 203 hundred homicides per year. people talk about the gang problem having been addressed. i want to share with you, what i experienced, what i have learned, i am not a typical academic. i will not quote statistics to you or talk about theories. i will talk with you about practicality. pragmatic approaches, and i will talk about reality. san francisco, like los angeles learned, will never saw or deal with its gang problems effectively unless there is true collaboration. i will talk to you about what this looks like and feels like. i will speak to you about the lessons that we have learned as law enforcement had to come off of the high perch, in los angeles, law enforcem

pat nickerson began digging through the wreckage looking for survivors. >> out of the corner of my eyebody on the ground. a guy named ryan rodriguez, and he was just kind of staring at me. he couldn't move because his face was so, you know, deformed and everything from the blast. and some, you know, bones and stuff that were, you know, protruding from his chin. >> what happened to him eventually? >> he died in the ambulance. >> 21-year-old eva rowe was driving to texas city to visit her parents, who worked in one of those trailers. >> i was at a gas station about 45 minutes away. some man inside said that the bp refinery had exploded. i called my mom. and my mom didn't answer, and that's not like my mom. she always answered. >> it was hours before eva rowe learned what had happened. >> a worker who actually worked at the plant collapsed to the floor crying, telling me that he was so sorry that he couldn't find my parents, but he'd been looking for them since the explosion happened. >> and so then i knew. >> eva rowe's parents were among the 15 who died that day in texas city. >> my par