CHICAGO – One of the difficulties of losing a loved one tragically to violence is the sense of regret that follows. As the living buries the dead and carries on with life, the question of what more could have been done to prevent the tragedy often haunts them. Sometimes there was nothing that could have been done. Still, that doesn’t stop them from wondering.
Marlene Snipes still wonders. She believes that if there had been a community center like the one that Pastor Corey Brooks wishes to build on the South Side of Chicago, her baby brother, Marcus, might not have crossed paths with his teenage killers. She was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood with a community center and witnessed how it kept her brothers and sisters off the streets as they grew up. And she wonders if her brother’s killers would have killed if they had a community center to show them the opportunities to a better life.
On the 117th day of his rooftop vigil to raise funds to build his community center, the pastor invited Snipes to a campfire discussion over the themes of loss and hope.
"Tell us about your situation that happened with your family," the pastor began.
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"In 1996, my little brother Marcus Snipes got shot and killed in Chicago by a drive-by. It was the most devastating thing in our whole entire family. Right now, I'm going to start crying because of that," Snipes responded emotionally.
"My brother was a great, wonderful person," Snipes continued. "Wasn't in gangs. He didn't drink, do drugs. He was just at a street corner on 55th St. in Chicago driving and he got shot and killed. The crazy part about it was, although they were two teenagers, they said they shot him. The bullet exploded in his head and he actually died right there at the scene."
"I know it's very painful," the pastor comforted her. "I think a lot of times when we talk about violence they don't realize how traumatic it is for the families that have to endure it. So I hate to have you relive it, but can you just explain to people, so they can understand just how traumatic it was, how difficult it was on your family?"
"For me, I couldn't even think, breathe," Snipes said. "He was like my baby. He was like my son … My mother's a single parent, raised six children, four boys and two girls. How traumatic that was for her to lose a son. You know how sons and moms are together."
"My mom, we had to encourage her so she would get out of her funk that she was in," Snipes said. "And she was very hateful towards the young men that actually did it. They only caught one of the gentlemen that shot him, but he was just 17 years old. Two 17-year-olds with guns."
"What happened with the boys, at least the one individual that was caught?" the pastor asked.
"Later on, we found out he passed," Snipes said. "He got shot."
"Wow. A lot of times these kids are participating in these violent actions and they end up getting shot and killed themselves. It's almost like you reap what you sow. You sow those type of seeds into other families, and you bring about the same results in your family. So it's very unfortunate that's the type of behavior and lifestyle that we see on a consistent basis," the pastor said.
Snipes nodded to the pastor’s words and then turned reflective.
Marcus "graduated from college, University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, in May" 1996, she said. "He came back in Chicago in July. He got a job at Ada S. McKinley [Community Services] to help students to get into college … By September, 12 days before his birthday, he got shot and killed."
The pastor said it was important for him to build Project H.O.O.D.'s community center "because when my mom, a single parent, brought us up, she made sure we was in a positive atmosphere with positive people raising us up, seeing where we can be better than where we were … Statistically, they said that we should have been gang bangers, drug dealers. We should have been out on the street. My mother said, no, not on her watch. And she made sure that we was around positive people."
Snipes then added: "That's why I know this [community center] is going to be a great opportunity … here on 63rd St. so we can build up these young teens and adults as well."
"I think a lot of people, when they think about these shootings in Chicago, they just think that, oh, it's just a bunch of kids running around shooting each other. And they don't realize that sometimes the individuals who are being shot are good individuals who are not in gangs," the pastor said.
"We had a 15-year-old boy walking to the gas station who gets shot 24 times," the pastor continued. "He wasn't in a gang. He was a good student. We had another kid – was a basketball player, good kid, wasn't in a gang – who got shot … One of the reasons we need the [Project H.O.O.D.] community center is that there are not a lot of places where people who go through violent situations, like your family, other than the church, that they can go to get help through the grieving process."
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Snipes nodded in response.
"I always tell people that, yeah, grieve, cry, grieve it out, but don't allow the grieving to take over your life so much where you can't function," she said. "So we have a network and we support each other — a network of families that actually had a lot of loved ones that got shot and killed."
"I know it's hard to relive painful things, but I thank you for sharing it because it's so important that people hear these stories because they need to know that they're not just numbers, they're names, they're family members, they're brothers, they're sisters, and that's real important. So thank you," the pastor said.
"And I thank you as well, Pastor Brooks," Snipes said. "Man, you know I'm always in your corner. It's important for what you doing, leading, guiding us and showing us that we do need the Project H.O.O.D. Center … You're a positive, wonderful person. I love you to life, and keep doing it. I'm right here with you."
Follow along as Fox News checks in Pastor Corey Brooks each day with a new Rooftop Revelation.
For more information, please visit Project H.O.O.D.
Eli Steele is a documentary filmmaker and writer. His latest film is "What Killed Michael Brown?" Twitter: @Hebro_Steele.
Camera by Terrell Allen.
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