6: Aftermath

March 2, 2023·40 min·3 clips

Ceci's children survive a 21-bullet shooting in Little Village, leaving her shaken and contemplating revenge.

Glass is still in Nikki's car. Outside Ceci's house, Michael is vacuuming the backseat after a shooting at a red light in Little Village, with Nikki, Michael, Michelle, and a family friend inside the car. Nobody can say who the target was. The closest guess points to the family friend in the backseat, but the episode does not pretend that guess settles anything. It stays with the not knowing. The damage spreads fast. Nikki is Ceci's close friend. Michael and Michelle were in the car. The violence reaches people already dealing with grief and illness, so the aftermath is never just one event. Fats talks about the calls that come after shootings: help with car payments, rent, and the plain costs of trying to keep life upright. A father is dead. A worker cannot work. A woman falls behind because a bullet knocked her life off course. Fats expects pushback from above. He says the organization tries hard, then says the thing that hurts more: violence prevention still is not enough anywhere. Vernell is caught in that same truth. The work means trying to make a neighborhood whole before desperate kids decide gangs are the only road left. The needs are not abstract. People need to get away from danger, pay bills, and receive care before trauma spills outward again. Joey's story brings that home. Shot 11 times outside his house, he is still living with it as Christmas gets close. Mateo is growing up beside it: high school, a thin mustache, basketball, and the fact of his father's shooting all sitting in the same room. The episode leaves repair out of reach. A little hope is still there, but it comes after a clear look at systems that keep telling hurt people to wait.

As heard by us

A tamale run turns into a close look at aftermath, repair, and a neighborhood trying to keep moving.

Outside Ceci's house, Michael is vacuuming glass out of Nikki's bullet-riddled white sedan after a shooting that cut short a tamale pickup in Little Village. The episode stays with the people who were there: Nikki, Michael, Michelle, and a family friend in his 20s.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want a hard look at what violence leaves behind.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Motive (WBEZ)