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Army Of Moms Bring Anti-Violence Patrols To Back Of The Yards Neighborhood

CHICAGO (CBS) --The group of mothers who use foot patrols and cookouts to bring peace to Englewood marched Saturday into the Back of the Yards neighborhood to the spot where a woman and her daughter were killed, and her infant grandson and two men were wounded.

The founder of the group Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killings, Tamar Manasseh, and several of the other Englewood women wore pink hoodies bearing the message "Free Hugs." Manasseh set up her charcoal grille on the weed-choked lot at 53rd and Aberdeen Streets, where Lolita Wells and Patricia Chew died, burning hot dogs as she talked.

At first only a handful of people stood with her, but 90 minutes later, the lot was overrun with people cooking, eating, laughing and talking.

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The laughing and talking were important to Manasseh, who said she was proud that neighborhood residents reached out to her group. The message she preached was one of love, and said it is not difficult to emulate.

"We're going to teach them how to do it," she said. "We're going to empower them. That's what we're going to do. We're going to offer them support. It's not hard. It's a barbecue grill, some food, a bunch of people who go walk up and down a block and knock on some doors and give free hugs, and that's what we're going to do."

Manasseh said she wants the shooting to stop, and not just in Back of the Yards and Englewood. But she said that requires communication -- not just between adults or with police, but with their children as well. And she said it is a goal that doesn't need experts imported by City Hall from the east coast to accomplish.

"You can't have a neighborhood full of adults and a separate neighborhood of young people," she said. "We all live in the same communities, so it has to be one community, not two separate ones."

She said the need to communicate is universal, not just in Chicago or in certain neighborhoods.

"There were people who lived in Sandy Hook and thought that was a pretty safe community, and there were people who lived in Oregon and thought that was a safe community and Columbine and thought that was a safe community until something unthinkable happened," she said.

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