Victor (17) interviews Kevin (17).

00:00 We are natural storytellers. It's what makes us human. David Issey of StoryCorps describes oral history interviews seek to record and preserve in depth accounts of personal experiences and reflections. Welcome to walking the beat. You're tuning into our oral history project. This is our part in documenting knowledge, capturing the hard earned learning, making space for legacy so we can build forward. If we want to know about better policing, lets build off of the efforts of a chief who does that. If we want to understand the impact of lockdown drills on children, ask one. There is great intimacy in listening, allowing a beloved to unfurl their wisdom. There is also risk for us. We might be changed a little. We offer these testimonies as historical documents. The stories are as diverse as the people. What can we learn from each other about the conditions for safety? What is our role in interrupting violence in our communities? How might we collectively challenge violence as a culture and replace it with healthy habits, not just bodies? How can we protect each other's psyche? What might a story about a time we felt safe tell us about necessary public policy? Youth in the walking the beat program learned how to conduct oral history interviews on matters of community violence and public safety. We'll hear from a judge, a detective, a police chief, an elder, a third grader, a reverend, a social worker, a bunch of teenagers, a drama teacher. We have so many folks show up from our community, and we have you. Let's listen.

01:53 Hello, my name is Victor Nuretc We're in the Elizabeth Public Library, and it is December 17, 2020. Hello. My name is Kevin Andrade We are at Elizabeth Public Library, and the date is December 17. What do you mean? To be saved? To be around people I trust. What do we need to go see? I don't have to. To be yet. To be all, like, connected, kind to one another. That's how you work? We collaborate, like. To be close, to be respectful to one another. Huh? Okay. Here. To be close, to be respectful to one another, and to be kind. How might we keep each other safe? By protecting one another. How can we protect one another? By making sure people are feeling well and healthy. Propagate to the pomegranate. And do you think that violets is a part of american culture? Not really. Depending on where you live nearby, everyone. Like, for example, if you live in a worse neighborhood, violence may be, you know, more likely to happen. But if you live in a nice neighborhood where everyone knows each other, violence may not be as big of an issue. Be judged. Bro, what does public safety mean to you? Public safety means to protect the people. Thank God. What is liberation? Or by two, liberation. To be free. Right. Okay, what do you like? I mean, you took your safe. Like, dude, do you know any way of defending yourself? Like, friends who took out the story for me to feel safe. Yeah. Just to be around people most. If I'm in a group of people who I trust, then, yeah. Doroth, where do you feel most safe? At home. Why? Because that's where my family is, people who I trust. Same thing with the priests. What's it? Paramount copy paste. I work in construction with my uncle. Part time? Yes. So are you a full time student? Yes. What grade are you in? That. Do you feel safe at school? Yes, it is. That's your school? How does the school make you feel safe? What do they do? They try to connect with us, and they give us respect. Same thing. How? We give them respect. Would you say students at your school for respect? Yes. Okay. Does your school do any kind of drill? Yes, they do. Exactly. Fault. What's one time in your life where you felt unsafe? Tell me about that. When I was in the car crash. Tell me about the army. Uh, me and my dad were driving down the highway. This car pulls in. He doesn't see us, and he hits us. And it almost hit me. Cause it was on my side at the car stopped. Powerful. But you said he felt safe afterwards, like, yes, it was helping. Yes, I did. Fraud. What do you hear about, like, on the news or, like, on social media? Violence? I don't really look at the news much, but what I see is violence in other countries and, you know, like, Ukraine and Russia. What about in the United States? Not very much in the United States, I would say. When it, like, a couple years ago, yes. But currently, no. So here it comes. How do you personally keep others safe? By showing that I'm there for them. Showing that I'm there for them or protecting them. Or showing respect to. Yes. Fraud agent. So tell me about how you grew up. I grew up in Philadelphia. It wasn't. In my school. There were a lot of fights. It wasn't as bad, but there have been times where, like, people would get into fights for pretty dumb things. There was this one time where, at the end of my block, two people started fighting. We didn't understand why. I think we never figured out why, but they both, like, started fighting for no reason. My dad, like, went over, tried to talk it out, and nothing really happened after that. But I remember the cops coming, and apparently one of the guys threatened the other guy overnight, where I grew up, there was a decent amount of violence, but not too much like it wasn't. It never led to anything serious or anything complicated. So would you say that you grew up around the pilots? Yes. And what did you do afterwards? Where'd you go? I came here to Elizabeth. Not much happened. We mostly came here for work, for my dad's job. Would you say there's less violence there? Yes. All right. Why do you think violence have to do this? What do you think cause as well? What do you think causes violence? When people don't get along, when people's ideals don't match others with cold go like if I don't agree with you on something, that leads to an argument, and usually that leads to fights and violence. Why do you think people resort to violence? It's because it's the simplest way to win an argument, I guess, to show that you're dominant. What do you think we can do to avoid violence, to avoid getting an argument, to avoid fighting over something that doesn't necessarily mean anything or isn't important to you or to the others around you? How do you think we can better express ourselves to one another? To feel safer, to talk more to one another, to understand one another, to try to understand each other? Because everyone's different and I understand. It's hard to understand, but the best thing to do is to try to understand the person across from you, the person talking to you. What do others do to make you feel safe? Talking to me, making sure I'm okay, respecting me and respecting others around me. Tell me more about how that men saved you up. Makes me feel safe, makes me feel welcomed and appreciated. Can you give me an example of one time somebody has about you, made you feel safe? When my mom came up to check up on me during COVID when I wasn't really feeling well. Tell me about. Are you feeling. What do you mean by your feeling about? Like, I wasn't happy. I wasn't in a good state of mind. All right. Should be the pull up. Would you say that talk helped change your mindset? Yes, it did. Did you start opening up wire with people? Yes, I did. Armando? Yes. I'm taking. So what do you think that talking does to help revitalize it? Helps you try to understand how other people feel, how other people see the world. Because not everyone sees the world as black and white, black and white as most people. It's always different with everyone, but that's what's going through it. What laws do you think should be put into place to prevent rails there's violence in schools, I guess more security in schools because a lot of fights happen, and I don't think a lot of teachers realize that fights happen because there's not enough people there to really prevent it from happening. How bad do school fights get? Like, what's the worst? The worst. Do you think it could result in death? Yes. If a fight escalates too much, then it could lead to death, depending on how much the other person knows. What are your thoughts on gun violence or gun control? I feel like we need to enforce it a bit more than what we're doing now, but otherwise, I don't think it's as serious as what the media likes you to believe. Tell me any more about that, because it's like. I feel like the media tries to scare you with stories about how gun violence is serious or should be taken seriously. But I feel like the more we worry about gun violence, the more it basically gets out of control than what it should. What do you wish? Radio. The more it gets uncle trolled. Do you not think that gun violence is a serious issue or, like, as I think it's really not? Yeah, I don't think it's as serious as it's made out to be. Is there anything that you want to tell me about the thoughts on, like, safety or violence as a whole? So, uh, Paris? I don't really like thinking about violence, mostly. I don't really care for what happens around me, nor do I care about what happens to the people who I don't associate makeup with. So I don't really look at the news, mostly, and I don't really look at social media mostly. I mostly heat to myself. So I don't really know if what I say or what I do should be taken seriously. Nor do I feel like the violence to me because I don't associate with that, nor do I try to, you know, start fights or stuff like that would really revolve around me. Nor do I feel like my opinion on that matter would really be the right opinion, if that makes sense. So, you're saying that, you know, you like to try and stay away from social media and, like, getting involved in these kinds of problems. Yeah. Who are your friends at school? How do they, like, make you feel safe or, like, bright and Dane? Okay. You. Of course. And then I have a friend, William, and I have others, but, you know, and they made me feel safe. They made me feel welcomed. They helped me get through school, because school can sometimes be very stressful, very tiring, and I really do appreciate them for that. Do you have any tips for people managing their anger right. So that it doesn't escalate to the bright lights to realize that sometimes it's best to just say, like nothing, to not do anything. Sometimes, even if you know the other person is wrong, or sometimes even if you know the person that you're talking to will never try to understand you. It's best to just walk away than to continue with that conversation. If you don't agree with them, then that's fine. But you don't have to argue with them about it or get angry about it because that's their opinion. And if they don't decide that your opinion is correct, then you should just move on. You shouldn't let it hold you back or hold that against the person who doesn't agree with you. Rahul. Well, thank you for coming and running the interview. I'd just like to tell you how I feel about you as a person and how you make me feel safe. And, you know, your presence is just something that helps me get through my day as well. I feel like here a person is very, like, relaxed. You know, you don't let a lot of things get to you and you can just go onto your day. So thank you.