Wayne Brewer asked teens what they needed to be successful. A volunteer at a recreation center in South Dallas, he wanted to help keep them out of trouble in the summer.
Their answers, going back to 2022, helped inspire the Teen Motivational Conference, he said, bringing about 350 boys to Fair Park in April. Now, Brewer is grieving one of those teens.
Zayvyon Jones, 17, the first teen Brewer mentored, was found fatally shot in June. It was “just shocking,” Brewer said. Now, he wonders what could’ve happened if they had the opportunity to spend more time together.
Brewer hopes the event Zayvyon helped inspire has made a difference. But curbing violence among young people is complex. Any of several factors could change outcomes, nonprofit leaders told The Dallas Morning News.
The mentorship, resources and personalized solutions needed to combat the problem aren’t always available to youth, they said. With a variety of approaches, organizations are spotting needs in their communities and forming connections to meet those needs. Adults across North Texas should be getting more involved with helping to meet the needs of youth, said nonprofit leaders. Several of the organizations were started after a loss.
Homicide is one of the leading causes of death for people ages 10 to 24 in the United States. Violence often isn’t caused by a single factor, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it touches young people in different ways: as victims, offenders and witnesses.
In Dallas, at least 247 people were killed last year, according to data from the city of Dallas. Roughly 43% of known victims were in their teens or 20s, according to an analysis of that data by The News. So far this year, at least 132 people have been killed and nearly half have been under the age of 30. The youngest was 14.
The count does not reflect what authorities label as justifiable homicide, which includes people shot and killed by police or by people who kill in self-defense or in defense of others or property.
Factors ranging from the personal to the environmental can put people at risk of being involved in violence. It can’t be curbed with a one-size-fits-all approach, making community organizations key in preventing tragedies, said Tony Love, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas.
”Very few violent attacks or murders happen out of the blue,” he said. “They’re usually the escalation of some sort of problem that could have been solved any number of ways that aren’t violent.”
Risk factors, solutions vary
Love said risk factors for becoming involved in violence are present across the community, among peer groups and with individuals. Education, employment, poverty and crime all play a part, along with lifestyle factors such as drug use and mental health.
Brewer worried about some of those issues with Zayvyon. He still finds himself trying to understand. Unknown to Brewer, Zayvyon’s father, 34-year-old Johnathan Jones, had been killed during summer 2022. The circumstances around Zayvyon’s death are unclear. Police have released few details and haven’t announced any arrests.
”I can’t believe I’m doing this, and this happened,” Brewer said.
Community organizations working to keep children and teens occupied and meet some of their needs can make a difference, Love said. The availability of adults — not just parents but others in the community — plays a role.
“Fights might not escalate to physical violence if there are parents there to break it up or adults that are hanging around in the communities that have a real neighborhood feel,” Love said.
People look to punishment to deter crime, but that assumes people understand the punishment and that the punishment is sufficient, which he said isn’t always the case. Love said people also live in neighborhoods where it’s a “foregone conclusion” that they or someone they know will be jailed, making it a “rite of passage” rather than a deterrent.
”We can’t make the punishments much harsher than they already are,” Love said. “So if they’re not working, then the only thing to do is try to prevent crime instead of react to it, and that’s why those community programs are so important. They’re doing proactive things to try to stop crime before it starts.”
For Brewer, that meant going to the source for solutions. When he asked the kids, including Zayvyon, what they wanted, they said to see people they could look up to. They wanted to learn skills and they wanted it to be fun.
“Without thinking and talking to those kids, [the Teen Motivational Conference] would have never happened,” Brewer said. About a year ago, he became one of the three cofounders of Dallas United for Good, a nonprofit that helped put on the event.
The conference — in collaboration with BridgeBuilders, Dallas Police and involving numerous other organizations — included professional athletes, a rapper, online personalities and others giving talks and classes about life skills that ranged from how they should wear a tie, to mental health awareness and how to interact with police.
Antong Lucky, a former gang leader, was among the speakers. He is now president of the nonprofit Urban Specialists, which advocates against violence.
”When you peel back the onion, it’s a lack of love,” Lucky said. “Young people are not getting the love that they need, the support they need, the resources.”
Lucky said acknowledging the needs in the community, along with the grief, is essential.
To support young people and the loved ones of those lost to gun violence, Urban Specialists organized an event in June. It brought together organizations such as Brewer’s, others offering physical and mental health services, police and representatives from the city, along with food and entertainment.
Brewer stood in the hot sun at an Oak Cliff park where people gathered, meeting with families who wore white and orange shirts with the phrase, “Kill’n Ain’t Cool.”
Two yoga instructors walked children through poses in a shady area of the park. The goal was to teach them yoga and mindfulness to help them learn how to process their emotions, said Ayla Hawley, one of the instructors.
Hawley, also a high school teacher, said she sees the toll everyday life and global issues like the COVID-19 pandemic can take on young people. People from across the community should get involved in working to reduce violence and address the issues kids are facing, she said.
“What are you going to do?” Hawley said. “You’re going to sit there and just complain and just be behind the scenes or are you going to kind of be frontline doing something about it?”
Adults work to help youth, stop killings
Lucky said young people are dealing with deeply rooted, systemic issues and are not being taught how to mediate conflict. Often, he sees young people who are “crying out for help.” He said he stays involved with community outreach because he’s trying to offer the support he remembers needing.
”I was one of those young persons who was told that I wouldn’t make it to 18 years old,” he said. “I was literally told it by every adult that was in my environment … all I wanted was somebody to say ‘it’s OK. Let me take your hand. Let me show you.’”
While the issue of youth violence may seem “intractable,” Lucky said, he believes it can be addressed, adding that “as a city, we have to respond” and “everybody has a part to play.”
He participated in a roundtable in May at Dallas City Hall, with other nonprofit leaders, city employees and stakeholders, brainstorming ways to keep violent crime from rising over the summer as it usually does nationwide.
Ideas shared included addressing financial needs and trauma, increasing development, reducing loitering, fostering a relationship with law enforcement and funding organizations on the ground that are connecting with young people. Some shared feedback from youth, who have said they don’t have anything to keep them busy, struggle to finish school, lack of transportation and face limited job opportunities.
The meeting, part of the #Dallas365Safe initiative and hosted by Dallas City Council member — then mayor pro tem — Carolyn King Arnold, focused on District 4, which encompasses South Oak Cliff. Police presented a list of 14 violent incidents in the district between late January and late April, most of which were homicides.
At one point, frustration rose in the voice of Sonja Campbell Currie, of Dallas’ Youth Guidance, which provides programming and mental health support for students at several schools.
Young people are scared to go to school and get bullied, she said. Kids need to develop relationships to open up to adults about their challenges, she told the group. When young people with poor behavior aren’t being dealt with, she said, that behavior “metastasizes” like a cancer.
“We’re not listening, then we want to be active on the back end after somebody’s killed,” Campbell Currie said. “As a mom, I don’t want to hear that. … We are sick of that. We want something to be done.”
Across Dallas-Fort Worth, several organizations have emerged after a mother suddenly lost her child. Patricia Allen started No More Violence in 2011 after fellow church member April Richardson lost her son, Deonte Johnson, to violence. Richardson is now the CEO of the nonprofit.
Witnessing the pain “never left me,” Allen said. She is walking families through the process of suddenly losing a loved one, offering a support system to grieve, plan and provide resources for funerals.
Allen said she has seen young people at balloon releases who have witnessed a killing and they are traumatized but they often don’t want to speak up about crimes. She said it was important to “create opportunities for our young people to have a voice” and give support to families of homicide victims.
Also started in the wake of a killing is BridgeBuilders, which provides services at the recreation center where Brewer would play basketball with Zayvyon. A few years after founder Velma Mitchell’s son, Romon, was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in 1992, Mitchell and her son’s mentor, Mike Fechner, started the ministry side of the organization.
Mitchell said it’s a cycle, where there are gaps in generations, bystanders end up killed in disputes and young people are not understanding that “kids don’t get back up once you take them down.”
Joey Darwin, executive director at BridgeBuilders, said “thriving is the focus,” with the organization working toward “bringing access to opportunities and resources historically denied.” The nonprofit has an afterschool program, social services, a food pantry and more. As the name suggests, it is working to build a network of community organizations, he said.
“It’s really important because one day, we’ll stop existing but the neighborhood and the city won’t,” Darwin said.
Community participation needed for change
Tyran Eddington, a community coordinator at BridgeBuilders, also cofounded Dallas United for Good, which he said focuses on finding creative ways to meet specific needs, rather than providing widespread services, for people in southern Dallas.
”They’re bored,” Eddington said of the kids he’s spoken with. “They want some money. They have a whole lot of energy and they have a brain that’s still in the developmental stage. So it’s perfect timing, when you speak to these teens, to actually have something that you can give for them.”
By recognizing how issues in communities are connected, Eddington said they’re working to partner with other organizations and address issues that put people at risk.
Efforts have included the “mentoring and mowing” program, in partnership with BridgeBuilders and Bonton Bible Church, to keep kids occupied over the summer. The kids take care of lawns for free, and the program pays them, giving them an opportunity to earn some money.
The nonprofit also works to fix roofs and make other home repairs that have residents facing code violations. They’ve decorated classrooms for new teachers, hoping to give the teachers, and in turn the kids, a positive start to the school year, Brewer said.
In August, numerous organizations came together inside the BridgeBuilders gym for a back-to-school event.
Eddington said Dallas United for Good, which helped put on the event, helps the community find ways to solve issues creatively through funding, resources or participation. He said government funding, while needed, can also be restrictive and offer solutions that aren’t as diverse or tailored as the problems communities face.
Community support is “what’s going to allow us to be able to really solve this problem,” Eddington said.
At the back-to-school event, Eddington and Brewer were each already thinking ahead. They looked at the teens, who had moved their basketball games outside, and said they were planning to enter them in a tournament.
Brewer said addressing youth violence includes taking time to meet with the teens and planning activities. He hopes he’s making an impact, helping kids stay away from danger and on a “good path,” something he said is easier to see as an adult. It’s what he wanted for Zayvyon.
”I care for those kids in the neighborhood,” Brewer said. “I’m there for them and I just want to be able to tell them again the next time I see them at open gym.”
While it’s impossible to see what exactly the future holds for the teens Brewer works with, he said it’s important that adults are asking young people what they need, what they want and then doing something about it.
”We tap into the community and listen to them,” he said. “And then we act.”