The Englewood they see: Residents discuss the tension, resentment and good in their neighborhood after police shooting

Cecile DeMello, executive director of Teamwork Englewood, and Maurice “Pha’tal” Perkins, who runs the Think Outside Da Block nonprofit, work hard to serve their community. “We see a very different Englewood than what people see,” DeMello said. | Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

A visit to Englewood in the wake of a weekend shooting that turned a spotlight on the South Side community finds resentment that revitalization efforts get lost in negative narratives.

On Monday morning, at the corner of 55th & Racine, Teamwork Englewood was going about the daily business of community building.

Two blocks from where a police shooting Sunday triggered a confrontation between the community and police, Cecile DeMello and volunteers were doing voter registration, completing Census forms, dispensing food to families.

One of many grassroots organizers working for change in a community branded one of the most challenged by gang crime, DeMello wasn’t about to let negative spotlight turned on Englewood — after the looting that followed Sunday’s shooting — deter her work.

“We’re still finding out all the details of what happened Sunday,” said DeMello, 36, a wife and mother of three, chatting Tuesday at Teamwork’s offices at 815 W. 63rd St., in the heart of Englewood’s 63rd & Halsted Street business district.

“We work long hours. We’re pouring our heart and soul into this work. We see a very different Englewood than what people see. It almost has a small town, village vibe to it,” said DeMello, whose group won a U.S. Department of Justice grant to implement community-driven, anti-violence initiatives in the Chicago Police Department’s Englewood District.

“What we know is there’s continued tension around how officers interact with residents, especially during moments of crisis,” she said.

“This incident was an example of how much work we still have to do around helping police in this community learn how to show up in a way that is respectful and dignified when there is crisis and trauma unfolding.”

This week’s mayhem began when police were called about a man with a gun near the Chicago Park District’s Moran Park. Finding 20-year-old Latrell Allen, they gave chase, and when Allen shot at them, they shot back, police said.

A crowd gathered, angered after word went out that Allen was unarmed when shot.

By that night, looting began on the South Side. A caravan of criminals converged Downtown to destroy and loot stores. Looting also occurred on the West Side Monday.

“We’re just trying to get to the root causes of how did we even get here? How do we as community members and leaders come up with solutions to prevent these kind of incidents from even happening in the future?” said Maurice “Pha’tal” Perkins, a 35-year-old father of three who runs the Think Outside Da Block nonprofit.

He is coordinator for Teamwork’s “This Is My Englewood 2136” project, working to eradicate violence in the Englewood District’s heavily challenged police beats 725 and 712.

For all their hard work, you’ll hear neither DeMello nor Perkins condemn the looters.

“I just feel like there was a time growing up in Englewood where I made a lot of decisions that, looking back, I would probably do things different, had I had the right guidance. So I’m in no position to judge. Period,” said Perkins.

The activists said Moran Park is long a hangout for criminal elements.

And residents in surrounding blocks, including Elizabeth Wilson, 62, sitting with family members on her porch near 56th & Aberdeen, blame such activity on historical inequities. Englewood has a nearly 50 percent poverty rate and unemployment of 26.8 percent.

“Englewood has been neglected a long time. If people don’t have anything to do, you want to do wrong in order to provide for yourself,” said Wilson, a physical therapist assistant.

“I was sitting here when it happened. I heard the shooting. Then I see the ambulance come, and, like, 500 police. People were angry because they weren’t told what was happening.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

“I think it’s sad,” Wilson said of the looting that followed. “It goes back to giving people something to do, giving them jobs. Where can you go around here and get a job? Where can you go around here and get a handout? Nowhere. In their minds, they’re saying, ‘Well, they ain’t giving us nothing. We’ve got nothing. They’re not trying to help me.’ ”

A block away, Wilson’s 50-year-old neighbor, Phillip Curry, out on his own porch at 56^th & May, agreed. “I feel that the police were dirty, and they’ve been dirty for a whole lot of years, and nothing’s going to change anytime soon,” the construction worker maintained.

“The looting was unnecessary. But I can understand the frustration. People are tired,” he said. “They are sick and tired of police doing what they want to do and getting away with it. We’ve got our fair share of the gang-banging, drug dealing and shooting around here. But overall, it’s better than what it used to be.”

The alderman, Stephanie Coleman (16th), who last year picked up the baton carried by her mother, who was alderman 16 years, rejects any notion tying the caravan to Englewood.

“We get the blame for everything. It is unfair to blame Englewood for the looting,” she said.

“We have so many wonderful things happening in our community. Englewood is resilient,” Coleman said, noting that a day before the shooting, Mayor Lori Lightfoot was hanging out in Englewood, grilling burgers at 7th District headquarters, as part of Go Green on Racine.

“What occurred on Sunday afternoon was a tragedy,” Coleman said. “A 20-year-old did in fact shoot at police. There were guns. Bullets were exchanged. Not only were police able to get the weapon, but they also got another weapon in the household that could have prevented another tragedy.”

Back at 63rd & Halsted, Department of Streets & Sanitation trucks were protecting Englewood Square Mall, the one that made national headlines in 2016 when former Mayor Rahm Emanuel secured Whole Foods as anchor.

There was no looting at Englewood Square this week, no looting there that last weekend of May when Chicago and the rest of the nation went up in protests and riots after George Floyd’s killing under the knee of a white officer in Minneapolis.

“On May 31^st, community residents were all here at 63rd & Halsted defending the mall, before law enforcement got here,” said DeMello, who with Perkins was there that night.

Mall owner Leon Walker of DL3 Realty, was there that night as well.

“I was humbled and brought to tears. Because of the work we do, the community takes ownership,” Walker said.

“It just reaffirms that when you do it right, people see themselves in the project. Unfortunately, when you have this level of coverage of a random event that led to some organized crime, it makes it far more difficult to get the next corporate investment,” he lamented. “In addition to highlighting the pain, we need to celebrate the joy and successes.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Out on her porch at 56th & May, Elendra Shirley expresses anger with Black Lives Matter, which she believes wrongfully stoked confusion and anti-police sentiments Sunday. Others this week have echoed the sentiment that BLM had no right to speak for Englewood.

“If you get in trouble right now — somebody’s coming down the street, who are you going to call? Police. Because Black Lives Matter isn’t going to show up. They can’t help you,” said the 66-year-old locomotive engineer.

“But yet, this neighborhood was full of cars we had never seen before, [BLM] people jumping out, starting all this hate and confusion. They got people all riled up. [BLM] misled them,” she maintained.

“How are you going to come out of your door with a gun?” Shirley said of the 911 call about the suspect with a gun. “You’re going to shoot another Black person. Did Black Lives Matter then? The person you were going to shoot called the people that were going to help him. And if the guy with the gun shoots at [police], what are they supposed to do?”