Moms patrol Chicago streets to thwart gang violence
CHICAGO -- Moms are patrolling the streets of a neighborhood on Chicago's south side in an attempt to quell gang violence, reports CBS Chicago.
Tamar Manessah started the group she calls Mothers Against Senseless Killings this summer, enlisting other mothers to walk the streets of Englewood, engaging with neighborhood youth and offering them snacks. She tells the station she stopped the patrols on Labor Day, but picked them back up again recently when she learned of a threat of gang violence on social media.
"We have to be more proactive and less reactive," she said. "When someone's gone and another mother has lost her child it is too late, so we have to really start getting in front of these things."
CBS Chicago reports the "mom patrols" appear to be having an impact -- in five weeks in a stretch of 75th Street where Manessah "walks the beat," there were reportedly no shootings.
She promises to be on patrol until the latest gang threat is over.
"I never stop," Manessah told the station. "They love me because I love them. They all listen to me. These are my kids."