On Sunday afternoon, after Chicago police shot 20-year-old Latrell Allen but before the city would mourn broken windows and looted Best Buys, a block in Englewood was about to erupt.
That man was Tyrone Muhammad. The 41-year-old was dressed in a white T-shirt, which he wore under a black bulletproof vest with a matching black mask. Muhammad speaks in a calm voice, like a friend who knows you well.
Williams knew the situation was fraught and that he likely couldn’t handle it alone, so he called on other community members for assistance. Muhammad answered that call. The two men navigated the neighborhood crowd and police like interpreters. Flipping back and forth between sides, delivering information and demands, concerns and feelings, working methodically to de-escalate an otherwise tense block. While Williams and Muhammad encouraged others to put down bricks and walk away from the police, they also knew the only way for things to truly de-escalate would be for the police to leave.
“You got a whole thing going on that you would never fix until you get at the root of the causes,” said Muhammad. “So it’s easy to talk about the communities, but you really need to be talking about why the communities are disinvested.” v
