Kanoya Ali:
Welcome to License to Operate, a podcast that takes you inside the work happening on Chicago streets to reduce gun violence and transform lives. I'm Kanoya Ali.

Peter Cunningham:
And I'm Peter Cunningham. This is Vivian Williams, former Police Sergeant Vivian Williams, former police Detective Vivian Williams, lifelong residence of Roseland who spent a 30 year career
Working on the far south side in the same community where those of us in Chicago cred work. You're actually doing a little work with Chicago Cred right now, but you're retired from the police department. And we're going to get into your philosophy of policing because I think it's the future of policing. But before we do, let's just start out with who you are and where you grew up and whatever you want to share about your personal story that took you on this journey to become a police officer. And of course, this whole podcast is about gun violence and the people who are working to stop it, and you are one of them. So start at the beginning if you can.

Vivian Williams:
Well, I grew up in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, and after going to school and starting to work for the Board of Education, I decided that I wanted to become a police officer. Why did I want to become a police officer? Because I wanted to try to help people in any way that I could. I wanted to try to get people some resources because I just felt that there was a need for police who definitely cared. I saw a lot of people caring and I saw a lot of good work that police officers were doing, and I wanted to be a part of that good work. I got married and then divorced and we were living in Roseland neighborhood and I continued to live there as a single mom and take care of my children. I saw a lot of the guys who started to go into the gang life.
They grew up right there in the neighborhood with my children. They used to play in my backyard and I saw some things that I thought could be done different, and I saw some of them who just needed some nurturing, needed somebody to care about 'em, somebody to talk to 'em, somebody to maybe grab 'em in the collar every now and then and try to redirect them. So as a police officer, I intentionally decided that I was going to be that person that my youngest son told me to be. He told me might always be that somebody who makes everybody know that they are somebody, and that really stuck with me. I always wanted to leave people better than I found them.

Peter Cunningham:
You often talked about even in cases where you have to arrest somebody, do it with dignity and not to insult even as you're detaining them, right?

Vivian Williams:
Correct. When you have to arrest people, and I see that being the majority of police officers, it's that small few who make the news, but unfortunately, good stories don't always sell papers, so that's kind of left out and there's so few bad stories that they're easier to tell and the good stories are so many that it would flood the newspapers and flood the television cameras if they told all the good stories about police officers. So I really thought about people and how things could change, and I looked at people in my career. I definitely want to reference a person, chief Antoinette Orti. She is chief of detectives

Peter Cunningham:
Because the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Police right now.

Vivian Williams:
Right now she's chief of Detectives. Yes.
And I just see the way that she cares in her CIT program that she was running the crisis intervention team training that she gave, and that put a whole new look on the way I thought about people and how to approach different calls. When I went in as an officer, I looked at some of the younger officers and thought about how could I direct them to being able to better understand how to help people and do that service part of policing. When you find a person and you confront what is going on after confronting it, how about you support it?

Peter Cunningham:
Do you think that police are trained to be tough guys and not trained to be supportive and service oriented, or are they trained to do both?

Vivian Williams:
Well, I feel like there's been a change since George Floyd. When I went through the academy, I don't remember a whole lot of being taught to support people and to help people through different circumstances. I was taught to go in deal with what was going on, take control

Peter Cunningham:
Of the situation, right? Police officer has to get control,

Vivian Williams:
Yes, and deal with what was going on and then either make an arrest or solve the problem somehow and then move on to the next job. Now I'm seeing a lot of deescalation classes being taught within the police department, which I give kudos to Superintendent Snelling for all of the deescalation as well as the community service that he is really pushing, and officers are, in my opinion right now, being taught to serve the public, to serve the community, to give the resources and support individuals within your job, try to make things better for that person. Because you got to say, if you don't do something different, you're going to continue to get the same outcome. You're going to continue to go to the same homes. There's a young officer, well, I don't know how much Sam's not that young anymore. Samantha Smith, I was told by another officer that she went to a call and the landlord was about to throw this lady out because she didn't have the rent money. So I was told by an officer, and I was a sergeant at the time that Samantha went and got her checkbook and wrote a check to the landlord. And when I asked Samantha about it, she said to me, oh, Sarge, don't worry about it. The lady was going to get put out. $600 is not going to make me or break me.

Peter Cunningham:
The police officer wrote the check and paid the rent.

Vivian Williams:
She wrote the check and paid the rent. So I asked Sam, I said, well, hey, let me give it back to you because I make a little bit more as a sergeant. And she says, no. I said, well, I'm going to give you half. She said, absolutely not. You didn't ask me to do this. She said, I did not want to see the lady and her children put out on the street. So I wrote the check. That was the way that she felt she could deal with it right then because the lady had been off work for a couple of weeks or something that had gone back to work. So she was a little behind so she would be able to keep it up from there. I saw Officer Delbert Howe, he's a new officer in the fifth district, and I see him at the schools and supporting these young people, especially Corless High School. I got a call from Corless about a kid who needed some support and I called officer how He said, oh, I'll go over. I'll take care of it, don't worry about it. And now he's mentoring that kid and that's not something he's doing on police time.

Kanoya Ali:
When I think about policing, I know that I know sometime police get a bad rap. I personally, I think I always push re-imagining policing. What does that based on the history of policing altogether. When I sit next to you, I feel like my sister, I feel like I'm sitting next to my sister or some family. I feel family, but I have to be honest and say, I remember even doing this work being pulled over and the police putting this gun to my head. It was a traffic situation. It wasn't like I was doing this work and he hadn't got my idea or anything. He just was like, Hey, hands up. I'm like, all right. And he had this gun drawn that was aiming to my head. This was right after the George Floyd situation. So in my mind I'm thinking like I'm trying to go home to my kids and something could happen and he looks nervous and I remember after he left, his partner came and was like, I remember it was a female.
She came and was kind of smooth the situation over and she was like, all right, you can leave. No big issue. But in my mind, I'm like, this guy stopped me because he said I switched lanes with doubt, a signal, and he had the gun to my head and broad daylight. And if something would've happened where I wouldn't have made it to my children, it could possibly be said that I was reaching or anything. And them stories take place and I know there are police that are good people, but I think that culture competency has to be taught more often, and that may be what you're speaking of now since George Floyd, there may be some more culture competency classes taking place. Like I said, when I'm sitting next to you, I feel like if that may have taken place, it might not have been a gun pool just because you could see, you can maybe able to relate to what's happening right here, and someone else may come from a suburb and somewhere else and they just see a black guy's car. He might have something on him and he reads the wrong situation, which can cause in someone dying. You get what I'm saying? I'm saying that we appreciate what's happening As someone coming from the community, I appreciate knowing that the police are trying to make a difference in that understanding, but even identifying that that still takes place. I have to be honest with you in saying that,

Peter Cunningham:
Did you find that a lot of the guys you worked with came from maybe white guys like me or whatever came from not from Chicago or outside and it took them a little while to get a feel for the city?

Vivian Williams:
Yes, yes,

Peter Cunningham:
Yes. That's what I was trying to get to. Yes,

Vivian Williams:
Yes. I definitely know that when you've experienced some traumas yourself, I'll say that it makes you, I don't want to say a better police officer, but you learn to deal with people on a different level. For instance, putting the gun to the head no matter who you are, no matter, that just was not right. It was not right. We are not trained ever to put a gun to anyone's head. And when body cameras came into play, a lot of officers, it met with some resistance, but I was okay with a body camera and most officers were okay with body cameras because we were not doing anything we were not supposed to do. Sometimes my mouth may have got me in trouble. I may have not used the word that's found in the Bible every now and then, but I was willing to accept whatever consequences became behind me saying something I shouldn't have said. But at no time was I going to put a gun to anyone's head. So I believe the body cameras have helped a lot with situations like that. And also when an officer does something wrong, I think they need to be called on it copa Internal Affairs, I believe it needs to be dealt with, but that's the same thing as if a teacher does something wrong. If a doctor does something wrong, there's good and bad in everything.

Kanoya Ali:
And I want to be clear, when I say he pointed, it was like two feet away for me. I'm thinking I got a background, I'm not even thinking of Copa or I don't even know what that is, but his partners and this back to the people say the biggest gang in Chicago is the police that

Vivian Williams:
I've heard that,

Kanoya Ali:
And often police may not say something about another police doing something wrong and that makes people from our coach. Our neighborhoods feel unsafe in the sense of this wasn't right. He just put the drugs in. He did that or he did that. Now, not to say it always happened, but it has happened to the point where it's like, who can we trust in the situation where you are in my neighborhood and I believe you here for the benefit and safety of my neighborhood?

Vivian Williams:
Well, one thing that I'm not sure how new it is, but there is a general order, and in that general order it says, duty to intervene. So if an officer points a gun at you and I'm standing there watching that when you report it and they found it on body camera and I did not stop him and also go in and talk to a supervisor about it, I'm in as much trouble as he is.

Peter Cunningham:
Yeah, you now have an obligation to do something about it,

Vivian Williams:
Right? Yeah. The name of it is Duty to Intervene, so you have a duty to stand up for that community member.

Peter Cunningham:
Can you see that all of these efforts could have a real beneficial, like rebuilding the trust and getting the community and the police more in sync? Can you feel that starting to happen?

Vivian Williams:
I do. I do. I definitely feel like the police department is going in the right direction. It wasn't broken overnight. It's not going to be fixed overnight. It's going to take a lot of effort and we all have to work together. Sometimes I talk about myself in the sense of being community, and sometimes I talk about myself in the sense of being police. I'm having a real difficult time letting go that police life. But to me, police and community are one. It's not like the police, the community. I was a police officer, but I was also a member of the community. I live where I work. I've lived in Roseland for 38 years and I've worked there for 29 years, four months and 16 days, but we're not going to count it. And I actually thought about going back because I actually love policing. I love the Chicago Police Department.
I love the way things are going right now. Have I seen some things that shouldn't have happened? Yeah, yeah, I have. But I would definitely say that I saw a younger officer one day and this older guy was going into the back lot to take his car because his car was being impounded. So the officer that impounded the car came outside and he was yelling and screaming. I was a police officer. He was a police officer. So he's yelling and screaming at the older man, and people were standing around watching. So I walked over to the officer and I said, excuse me, can I ask you a question? And he said, what? I said, are you going to arrest him or are you going to tell him to just get out of the back lot? What are you going to do here? I said, because this lecture has gone on long enough.
So he looked at me, he talked to me. He said, just go, you can't take your car. And the man left and the next day that officer, he's still there in the district right now. The next day that officer came to me, he said, thank you so much. He said, because I had kind of got full of myself. He said, and I had lost focus, and I told him, I said, I knew you had because you're not that person, and you had a whole audience that was watching you do something that could have cost you your job. There were no body cameras at that time. That

Peter Cunningham:
Gets to what you were talking about, but that article that you sent me about the stress on the police these days,

Vivian Williams:
Yeah, I've had several friends and who I call friends who have taken their life,

Peter Cunningham:
Law enforcement,

Vivian Williams:
Law enforcement, several police officers who have taken their life, and

Peter Cunningham:
We got a lot of them in Chicago we're higher than the national average for police suicides.

Kanoya Ali:
Yes. What would you say the average is?

Peter Cunningham:
I don't know what the average is, but I know we're higher. I've read several articles. It's like five a year, six a year, not a hundred a year.

Kanoya Ali:
It's more what would you say the reason that this has taken place?

Vivian Williams:
Unresolved trauma. You couldn't imagine what police officers see on a daily basis. You see the news and you see just a little bit of what an officer sees daily. I had an officer tell me she went to three shootings in one day. Matter of fact, that there were three homicides in one day where she had to write the paper on all three, and it was just my opinion that a sergeant should have caught that. They should have caught that this was her third.

Peter Cunningham:
This was too much stress for her.

Vivian Williams:
Yes. So a sergeant should have caught that. She just bringing it up now saying, well, I went to three homicides in one day. I had the paper on all three homicides, and I told her, I said, I'm really sorry that no one caught that. What do we do now? How do we walk you through this? How do we help you? She's actually in counselor, not for that, but for something totally unrelated. I did tell her, you should talk to your counselor about that is you definitely need counseling. I depend a lot on God and I have a very close family, so I do a lot of praying and I encourage other officers to pray, and I also encourage them to talk. I feel like there should be more deescalation, more times where officers come in and get to talk about their day, the roll call. You go in, you sit down and they tell you what's going on. Then you go to checkoff and I don't know if there's enough opportunities where officers are being asked, are you okay?

Peter Cunningham:
So the work that we do, he was a life coach, is giving these guys a safe space to talk about things. Right? And you're saying police officers don't have that.

Vivian Williams:
There's EAP and there are different places that you can go and have a conversation, but you have to go. I don't know if there's been enough times that maybe a supervisor or a coworker is identifying that someone seems to be a little different and is it okay to be a little different? Is it okay to,

Peter Cunningham:
Is there stigma associated with it?

Vivian Williams:
Right. Is it okay to say, Hey, today has just been a little bit too much for

Peter Cunningham:
Me. Yeah, I could use a little help.

Kanoya Ali:
What's a normal week for a Chicago police officer in a high risk neighborhood as far as how many shootings they may go to? What's an average if you can?

Vivian Williams:
Well, you're asked to go to every shooting if you're not busy. If you're busy, we need to support the other officers as well as support the community. You have to be there because there's going to be some family who's going to need somebody to talk to. So you're asked to go, how many shootings are in

Kanoya Ali:
District? If I'm in Roseland,

Vivian Williams:
It varies. It just varies. Sometimes it's hot and sometimes it's cold. Sometimes you can go a week or two without a shooting. Sometimes you get in a shooting every day when people are in conflict and cred doesn't get out there or the other organizations don't get out there and stop the retaliation, then you're going to have the shootings occurring more frequently. More often you're going to have shootings because everybody wants their lick back.

Kanoya Ali:
And the reason I'm asking you this is I'm thinking about the police officers that deal with I'm in Roseland or wherever and I'm going to these shootings and deaths. I'm saying this and I'm being traumatized by it to the point where I may even take my own life. And I'm thinking about the young men that go through that same type of trauma that's like you seeing a person that you just see the victim, but this my friend or this my brother or this my cousin, and this may happen in the same month, I might lose a friend. So if the police officer professional who's trained is looking at where they may even take their own life, I was even speaking to Peter about this a while ago. I don't know if you remember. I kind of think that some of these young guys put they self in what they would say like a kamikaze mission where they don't care about dying. They may not particularly kill themselves, but they'll put they self in a situation where they'll keep doing something until they die. Intentionally dangerous intentionally. Yeah. Yeah.

Vivian Williams:
Almost like a high,

Kanoya Ali:
Almost like that. I remorse, I'm going to keep doing something until y'all kill me. And then I'm going to feel better in a sense of I ain't got to keep feeling sad or sorry, or that pain, which I'm imagining that the police may feel sometime just by constantly going to see these victims.

Vivian Williams:
It does wear on you and you are just expected to be strong. It is expected of you to be able to handle this, and you have to have that friend who sees that something isn't right with you. Someone has to identify and notice it and help you get some help. And your family members, we asked officers all the time, talk to people. You don't have to go home and be in the shell or pick up a bottle. Let's talk about it. I had a young officer many, many years ago, there was a fire and three children died in this fire. And at the time I was a field training officer and he was a new officer. There was a young lady smoking in the bed. Three small children died. The next day, this officer has somewhat of a meltdown and right in front of me, he just started to cry and I'm looking and wondering what can I do to help him?
And after I had a conversation with him, I went in and spoke with the captain at the time and I said, Hey, we need to pull this kid off the street. Yesterday was a bit too much. We sat down together before we left work the day before when it originally happened. But he had a child who was about the same age and I didn't see how much trauma that was for him when it originally happened. And I was his field training officer and I should have been more observant because I'd seen these things several times. Not three kids dying in a fire, but I had gone to so many calls and seen so many things on the street and I've learned how to deal with it and how to pray about it. And I kind of missed that one. I had the conversations with all the supervisors and afterwards he went on home the next day when he got back to work, soon as he got in the car he was unable to move anymore. And I said, man, I missed that, but what did I expect from him? You the police. Come on, let's go. The ready was calling us.

Peter Cunningham:
Yeah. Do you find that when you talk to the guys in cred, and I assume you've met with a bunch of them now, right? Yes. You talked to some of the participants and everything. Do you feel like you can cross that bridge with them and sort of build a bridge with them and get them to see what police are dealing with and police get to see what they're dealing with? I mean, is there that possibility that people start to see the humanity in each other?

Vivian Williams:
Yes, definitely. There are a lot of police officers who visit the CRI locations and just go in and have conversations. One in particular is Dewan Turner. He's a district intelligence officer for the fifth district, and Dewan has become friends with a lot of participants. They see Dewan on the street and Hey Juan, and he sees them. And Dewan has never been that judgment type person. So when I left CPD, I actually started to introduce Dewan to everyone in cred because I knew that they would need to work together, not so that the participants or the staff at Cred would be able to help him in any way with any type of police work, but that he would be able to support them when it came down to talking to guys about not retaliating and just find a better way to solve your issues. This conflict resolution piece, the wine is really good with bringing different groups together and talking to them.

Peter Cunningham:
Do you feel like police appreciate what CVI is or is there a growing appreciation for what CCVI is in this city?

Vivian Williams:
Yes, definitely. Commander Johnson, Carla Johnson, she meets every other week, I believe it is with CVI, with all of the organizations. She has a meeting with all of the organizations and it's like, how do we support each other? Early on, there was some problems and I actually had gotten a call from LANs Family Services asking me if I could help them resolve a difference of opinion between some of their supervisors and some detectives. So we were able to have a conversation and I believe it is Commander Watson and Fred Waller.

Peter Cunningham:
Fred Waller, yeah.

Vivian Williams:
Yes. I believe they are coming up with a general order on a professional understanding so that we understand that the work that CVI is doing and you understand the work that the police are doing, and we won't step on each other's toes and we won't come and ask you or insist that you give any information that's given to you in meetings with your participants. Because it's almost like that attorney client privilege. We can't expect people to trust CVI if CVI is coming and feeding the police information.

Peter Cunningham:
We've been pretty clear about that all

Vivian Williams:
Along. Yes. But there was some officers who didn't understand that they didn't understand that CVI is not your informant. So once those conversations were had, there was some roll calls held on it. People are definitely starting to understand and officers now say, Hey, maybe we better call the CVI guys and get them to go out and talk to this group so that they don't retaliate. So definitely there's a respect for the work.

Kanoya Ali:
I think about some of the young guys I work with that have made some major changes, and I often think even in that change, people still look to try to kill 'em and sometime I'm hesitant in telling them not to protect themselves. I remember we had a participant named Steven Ward. He was the first one that I remember working with that I remember him asking another participant or hearing another participant saying that he had asked him like, man, I need a gun because people trying to kill me and he was killed. It wasn't like he was killed. The participant told us this the day after he was killed, and I remember him, he had really changed. But sometime everybody don't know about your change or care. They see you, they want their leg back like you said. So what advice would you say we give to those guys who want to change, but at the same time they want to stay alive and they know some people are looking to hurt them so they carrying a weapon. That's what I'm saying.

Vivian Williams:
Well, the carrying the weapon part is not going to go well.

Kanoya Ali:
I got

Vivian Williams:
You. Yeah. So that's definitely not the answer. But if they know who it is that is trying to kill them, if they know who they're in conflict with, my recommendation would be that some outreach workers go and reach out to those people and see how you can resolve that conflict, what you can do to help them work through the trauma. Because if I no longer want to kill you and we're both alive, let's not muddy the waters up over someone who is already passed on and I may have done something I should not have done and now I'm trying to change my life. So can we work through this through having outreach workers and different people within the organizations pull those people together and try to work through it?

Kanoya Ali:
So right now we pushing this what they call non-aggression agreements, this campaign that's saying, okay, you agree not to come to my gas station. We agree not to come to your gas station. We agree not to make posts negative about your dead friends. You agree not to make posts about our dead friends. We agree when we see each other, I ain't going to look your way. You not going to look my way type of thing. So we not antagonizing. I think that's with that kind of effort, I think we going to see a decrease in violence based on that. But just having somebody to mediate what you're saying is having the mediator even speak to others to say, look, he don't want no problems with y'all. Y'all don't want no problems with him. Because what I seen is if I don't want no problems with you and you don't want no problems with me, who told you that? And who told me that? So when I see you, I might just pull just because I'm thinking you still the same guy from last week or

Vivian Williams:
Last year.

Kanoya Ali:
Yeah, got to shoot before you get me. I got to get you before you get me. And that's the concept that these young brothers and sisters today have because we seeing the uprising females,
They drilling too. It is a thing with this backdoor thing. It's a thing with females I could kill too. So the violence is going down in Chicago, but there is a culture that's still like the aroma is there to be like at any moment it ain't safe. If you think this won't tick back up, we can make it happen. Like I said, with the culture, switching from with would get involved, which back in the day it really wasn't like that with the back door. And basically I'm going to trick you to believe one thing, but the overall goal is to end your life. That in itself is something. So

Vivian Williams:
There's a lot of work to do, A lot of work to do. That's what we have to agree that there's a lot of work to do, a lot of people to reach and don't want to use the old cliche together we can, but definitely together we can as a community, if we get boots on the ground and go into these communities and not be afraid to have conversations with these young people. I've never been afraid to talk to anyone. I've gone into the drug houses, but I'm not the only officer that does this. You go in and you form relationships with people. You talk to people and you have to get trust. They have to trust you. You got to have some credibility. You got to have consistency,

Kanoya Ali:
The license to operate.

Vivian Williams:
And I don't know if I have a license to operate, but no, you got

Kanoya Ali:
A license to operate.

Vivian Williams:
But what I do know is that I care about people and I've seen the work that Craig is doing, the young men in the community where I live when I retired, I've had a lot of people say, Hey, where are you moving to? Staying where I am. I love where I am. I could leave my front door open. If I'm carrying in groceries, the young people will. I don't see the guns, but I would assume they have, but they put 'em up and they carry my groceries in. For me. I'm not worried about the neighborhood because of people who have turned the corner, people who have made that change. I'm sure you know the Sherman Scurlock story.

Peter Cunningham:
Yeah. Tell it though. Tell the Sherman story.

Vivian Williams:
Sherman was a person who I knew from the neighborhood had to arrest Sherman a few times, had to yell at Sherman a few times, and I was in my home getting ready to walk out the door, and I had my purse on my shoulder and my boyfriend is walking behind me and we're getting ready to go have dinner, and my doorbell rings as I get to the door, open the door. And this Sherman Sherman had never been to my home.

Peter Cunningham:
Did he know how did he even know where you lived there?

Vivian Williams:
They all know why I live all. Yeah, I'm out in front house.

Peter Cunningham:
They call your mama, right?

Vivian Williams:
Yeah, now they do.

Peter Cunningham:
Okay.

Vivian Williams:
I don't know what words they used to call me.
Yeah, prior to them making this change, I don't know. I probably was called a lot of negative names. Yeah, because I was definitely a fusser. They would get scolded by me regularly and they would accept my scolding. So Sherman's at my door and I open the door and he says, I'm tired. I said, tired, what are you tired of? I'm tired of shooting at people. I'm tired of people shooting at me. So I'm looking at this young man. There was some other guys out in front of the house. So I said, come on in. And Sherman comes in and he says, can you go with me over to the maniac Forbes because I want to get a peace truce with them. So I'm looking at this kid thinking to myself, you want me and you to go over to the gang, the area that if you just walk past it, they're going to start shooting and you want us to go over there?
So I said, Sherman, I said, we call them Woo. I said, well, why don't we do this the right way? I said, why don't I go and talk to the commander, talk to the district intelligence officers. Let's make this right so that we go in and we have a good conversation. I said, and then we will be able to get this truth. I talked to VE Douglas, who was the command at the time, and I talked to Dewan Turner, district intelligence officer, and they're saying, oh yeah, that's cool. Let's do it now. The commander says, let's do it while it's fresh on his mind. So Sherman and I had exchanged phone numbers and we were starting to try to get in touch with the guys from the other gang to try to set up a meeting for us and Sherman. So when I got home from work, Sherman called me and he says, Hey, can I come by your house?
Yeah, come on. So he comes over. Second time Sherman's ever been in my home and he says, I went over there by myself. I said, what do you mean? He said, I went over, I got out the car in the middle of the street. I raised my arms in the middle of the street, he said, and I showed them that I wasn't carrying, and I said, Hey, I want this all to be over with. We don't even know what we shooting at each other for. What are we doing? We're carrying on something that has nothing to do with us. I said, and obviously they didn't kill you because you're here. He said, okay, so we got a truth and now I need you to talk to everybody and set everything up so that everybody knows that we're no longer shooting at each other. So I said to Sherman, not the smartest thing you've ever done, but it did work out well.
So he said, well, now we'll go to that thing that you were talking about, that Chicago cred thing, that cred thing you were talking about, because I'd been going around trying to get them to come into create. I said, fine, fine, great, great, great. So I said, let me call Mr. Duncan. So I called Arnie Duncan and told him what Sherman had done. He said, I've got to meet this kid. When can I meet him? I said, well, he's right here right now. So I set up for Arnie and Sherman to meet, and then we met at this little church around the corner. Pastor Jackson, Marlon Jackson allowed us to use his little church for free little bitty church right across from Wendell Smith Elementary School. So Sherman bought his gas to the church and then Arnie said, okay, this is good, but we can't have a truce if we only have your guys.
We're the other guys. So we said, okay, we're going to invite them in also. So we bought all of 'em into the church together and they happened to be the first cohort of guys for Chicago cred, and they all started to work together. And Arnie said, what do you want in exchange for the peace that you've had for so many months? They said, we want all of our kids to have a park to play in. So there's a little park on a hundred and fourth and Merrill Corless, hundred fourth and Corless. The guys got together, the two groups, I hate to call 'em gangs. The two groups got together and they built the park along with the White Sox players and kaboom. And we had hot dogs out there, and they was playing music in the middle of the street. And the groups came together and they kept the piece going for a very long time.
Some of the younger guys who were not a part of that truth grew up and started to have some conflicts again. So now we had to go in and apply a little pressure. This is unacceptable. We got a peace truce over here. We are not going to hear shooting all night. So Sherman, Robert Avery, a bunch of the guys who were the old heads over there, the original, yeah, they got with the guys who were older in the other group, and they started to tell these guys, Hey, we not having that over here. We don't fight each other, and their kids now play together. And it was just from Sherman deciding that he was tired of carrying a gun every time he took his child to school because he had to cross that area to get his son to school. I just got a picture a couple of weeks ago of Sherman's son graduating eighth grade.

Kanoya Ali:
I remember Sherman getting a job at crib, almost like the orientation part, and never heard this story

Vivian Williams:
Really.

Kanoya Ali:
And one of his OGs is a close friend of mine. I always seen Sherman as a leader amongst his guys. And I remember being in spaces where he was trying to tell his guys that like, man, look, I ain't with that. I'm not doing that. And he had to self differentiate at times because they'll be going, even though they was doing this, they was still going a little bit to left. And he had to really stand on his ground to make that decision and go to the right. So when I see him right now and staff at cred and then he like a life coach, a job coach, so many guys and girls, it's like, man, to hear that story, to know that's where the seed was planted. And to see him right now and his professional realm, taking some of these guys to go learn solar technology and making sure that they learned how to put in solar panels.
It then went from him going to the middle of the street saying, Hey man, I'm done to now he got groups of people trying to figure out how to deal with new energy and solar energy. So I just looked at that as amazing story. And a lot of young people need to know you can make that change and actually go to a whole nother realm without being consented. That wasn't no snitching or that wasn't No, he didn't do anything dishonorable. He tried to go save his life other people's lives without, and still at it right now, years later. So man, that's

Vivian Williams:
Beautiful. He saved him many of lives.
That definitely saved him many of lives because if you look at the conflict between a hundred and sixth Street and go north to a hundred third, a hundred and sixth go south to a hundred 11th Cottage Grove East, the number of people that were being shot over there was unreal. You could, I live over there. So my son actually went to play basketball at Poe Elementary School in the play lot, and he was told that he couldn't come down there because he lived north of hundred sixth Street. My son came home and told me, he said, Hey Ma, I was down there playing basketball and they said that I can't come down there. I have to play at Wendell Smith. I can't play at Poe. I said, no, you can play at poe. I said, come on, we going to play basketball at Poe.

Peter Cunningham:
Took him down there.

Vivian Williams:
Yeah, I told him, I said, we're going to play basketball at Poe. And I walked around and had conversations with people and let them know that my son is going to come down here and play basketball, and it is only my recommendation that my son not be touched. It is only my recommendation. This is not your basketball hoop. You will not do this. So my son grew up in the area, all of them knew him. This is my older son, the little one. I kept a little bit more away from the area. I learned a lot from the older one, but I overheard them talking about some things that were happening on the other end of a cottage. So that's when a lot of officers, we had some conversations about going in there and making some changes, stopping them from shooting each other and killing each other. The work that we were attempting to do, Sherman did it with just a conversation.

Peter Cunningham:
Yeah, that's really amazing.

Vivian Williams:
Yeah, we were working on that. But Sherman did it with a conversation.

Peter Cunningham:
So Vivian, you spent 30 years with the Chicago Police Department. You've earned the right to just retire and relax, but you're not retiring, relaxing, are you? You're still at it, aren't you?

Vivian Williams:
This is what I love. This is what I love. When Arnie Duncan first came to Chicago and said that he was going to do this Chicago cri, he met with, it was Deputy Chief Larry Watson and Commander VE Douglas, and he said, I need someone who knows the streets and they'll trust them. I need a police officer that can get us in to have some conversations with people who want to change their lives. I'd worked there, Les High School for about 10 years. I was the school officer in Les, so I knew and I lived there and I barbecued in the backyard and gave 'em hot dogs and they played basketball in the backyard. So they knew I knew these children, these young people. So they asked me to be the liaison between the police department and Chicago CRI to help them start to have conversations with the people that were responsible for a lot of the violence,

Kanoya Ali:
The navigation through Roseland.

Vivian Williams:
Yeah. So That'ss, what I did and my relationship with the young people in the community was strong because they trusted me. We had a young guy to get killed in the gas station. The police came and knocked on my door and said, can you come and identify this young person? We think it's one of two people, but we believe he goes to Corless. So I went over and looked at him and I told him who the kid was and I said, that's his mom standing down there on the corner. And the next day in school, a group of kids came to the office, which we called the police office. We were stationed inside the school at that time. And they came in and a lot of 'em, they were crying, they were really upset. The board of Ed sent people in to have conversations and try to talk to them and help them work through this.
About maybe 20 young people came in the room and they closed the door and they asked me, they said, officer Williams, can we pray? And I said, yeah, let's pray. So I went over and sat at my desk and they were all holding hands standing around and no one said anything. So I'm waiting for them to start praying. And then one of the kids said to me, would you pray? We don't know how. So I said, wow. But we had to close the door. I know it's not supposed to be praying the schools, but if the kids wanted to pray, what do I say? No, we can't pray. So we closed the door and we held hands and we prayed about it and they were able to come in and out the office and talk to myself. And my partner at the time was Quentin Benson, and he's since retired and we definitely had to help those students get through the loss of a friend. There was so many students within the time that we were there whose lives were taken and just a lot to try to talk to a kid who's 15, 16 years old whose friend just got shot. And they're thinking about, how do I revenge my friend?

Peter Cunningham:
Right? Yeah. Teaching them forgiveness, teaching them to pray, teaching them to move on,

Vivian Williams:
Teaching

Peter Cunningham:
A lot

Kanoya Ali:
Of the guys that do this work that's been impactful that I've noticed is guys that kind of came from the street that learned certain elements, many of them did a whole bunch of time and they come back with a vigor ambition to really try to change. And because they have a license to operate in the sense people know them and what they've done and listen to their voice and hear the echoes. What do you think about right now there's a push to try to get a Larry Hoover out of prison. I know Donald Trump pardoned his federal sentence, but now he's going to a state facility as a police officer and you knowing the Chicago history, what do you think about a person like that actually coming out and possibly helping in this field? You think it'd be beneficial or not?

Vivian Williams:
I don't know what his mind is. So I would have to know, is this some work that he wants to do? Has he made that change? Will he come out and try to encourage these guys not to go where he's gone? I've seen people say, I was born into the gangs. So that's a life that they just won't let go. So to answer that question is a little difficult because I would have to know, is he willing? Is he going to make a difference? Is he going to make a positive change when he comes out and starts to talk to these young people? Exactly what is he going to tell them? So finding out who he is first. There's a guy at crib, Ashley Miller, I'm so fond of Ashley. I think he is like the greatest guy. Matter of fact, I got to give 'em a call because they want 'em to come and talk at a Know Your Rights event that they're having. I think failings, family services is doing it, but if you come out and you've made a change and you want to see a change, you don't want to see someone follow the path that led you to the penitentiary, then yeah. But if you going to come out on the same nonsense, nah. Yeah.

Peter Cunningham:
Vivian, thank you so much and thank you for what you do. Thank you for your belief in service and thank you for what I know you're going to do the years ahead to continue to push peace in your community and your city. We need it. We need all the help we can get.

Vivian Williams:
Yes, we do. And we are going in the right direction. That's right.

Kanoya Ali:
That's all for this episode of License to Operate. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share this episode with your friends and family.

Peter Cunningham:
This podcast is a co-production of The Chi Podcast and Cunningham Creative. Until next time, I'm Peter Cunningham.

Kanoya Ali:
And I'm Kanoya Ali.