Chicago Men Patrolling Streets To Create Safer Communities

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Every night, a group of men on Chicago's South and West Sides take to the streets.

And tonight, they're calling for fathers and sons to join them in making their neighborhoods safer, CBS 2's Audrina Bigos finds in this Original Report.

The men are patrolling the streets in what they call the diamond; the four neighborhoods they say are plagued  by violence: Roseland, South Shore, Austin and Englewood.

At 61st and Wolcott in Englewood, Taji Gaines says his group is looking for volunteers. "Men are supposed to be protectors and providers. So along with protecting for your own, you have to provide for your village as well."

He's with New Era Chicago, a group patrolling the streets of Chicago. The city's ongoing epidemic inspired them to patrol.

"What prompted me is the senseless violence that's going on," said volunteer Ronnie Hatcher.

Tonight, they're carrying a long list of children and teens shot and killed this year in Chicago.

Each night, New Era walks near schools and in hot pockets of the city.

"Make sure our children have safe ways to school, that our women can get to the busses and cars and things like that without the fear of being raped," Hatcher says.

Tonight's patrol is just blocks away from where five people were shot, one killed on Monday.

"It's on all men in the community to be a part of securing the village because we all have a vested interest in it," Hatcher says. "Somebody has to do it. And we're going to lead b by example."

The men say they plan to walk the streets throughout the school year. Usually, they go to the neighborhood where the last shooting happened.