Mayor Johnson keeps focus on engaging youth to prevent violence, group tackles teen takeovers

CHICAGO (WLS) -- As the city prepares for the July 4 weekend, one of Mayor Brandon Johnson's focuses continues to be on how to better engage youth as a way to prevent violence.

One mentoring organization is now offering a plan for how to combat teen takeovers.

Between now and Friday morning, Vondale Singleton said the Comer Youth Center will be transformed to host the 7th Annual Born 2 Win youth mentoring conference.

"This is a big deal because it's the beginning of the summer jobs programming which begins Monday June 26," Singleton said.

After chaotic and destructive youth takeovers downtown, including a one at the Bean last summer that killed a young man in Singleton's program, he and others have come up with a plan called Operation Trend that they want to share with Johnson to address the problem.

"We can create engagement events in our own communities where they can gather, with structure and adults managing, and helping them have that fun that they want to have, because that's all they want to do for the most part. You got a few bad apples, but for the most part, kids want to engage and have fun," he said.

This afternoon Mayor Johnson addressed a city-lead My Chi/My Future conference, reiterating his commitment to investing in jobs for youth and engaging with them as part of his anti-violence plan.

"I'm committed to centering your voices and your ideas in policy making and decision making when it comes to the city of Chicago," he said.

In a speech where he got fired up at times, Johnson stressed the need for city and business led investments to help transform communities and make Chicago safer.

"Shame on a society that believes only some people should be invested in, shame on a society that will write off the child because of their past or because of the trauma that they are experiencing," Johnson said.

Billamin Rosenje, a Champs mentee-turned-mentor was encouraged by Johnson's youth strategy.

"These young boys and things, they'd be telling me like they knew they want a job, they need a job because it's sad. It's sad to say but in the community we're in, the environment we're in or in like, if you don't have a job, you're gonna be pushed to do something else that you don't want to do to make some money," Rosenje said.

There are 800 young people registered for Friday's conference even though there are technically only 500 slots. But no one will be turned away because the organizers want to impact as many people as possible.