A South Side business owner and philanthropist are trying to stay one step ahead of teen takeovers in Chicago, asking parents to show up in force Tuesday night in Hyde Park ahead of a planned teen trend.
Philanthropist Early Walker and Sip & Savor coffee shop owner Trez Pugh III said their effort draws on the popular phrase “it takes a village to raise a child.”
“We’ve got to get back to do you know where your kids are? The question is simple, do you know where your kids are?” Walker said.
He has urged more than 100 parents to join a “parent takeover” in Hyde Park on Tuesday night as they try to stay ahead of a planned teen takeover.
Chicago police also have sent out a community alert, letting people know a teen trend is anticipated to happen at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at an unknown location in Hyde Park. Police plan to have extra officers in Hyde Park as a result of the planned teen takeover.
Two weeks ago, a teen takeover in Hyde Park turned destructive. Cell phone video shows a seemingly endless rush of teenagers jumping on parked cars.
Pugh said Walker reached out to him on Monday, asking if his business would be the base headquarters for parents to meet up ahead of Tuesday’s planned teen takeover.
“A lot of people say law enforcement, the mayor, and all that. Well, what about the parents? What about the uncles? What about the aunts, cousins? I think we need to take a stand, too. Nobody is exempt from trying to make this right,” Pugh said.
The “parent takeover” in Hyde Park kicked off at 5 p.m. Several Hyde Park residents met at Sip & Savor, and then joined staff, faculty, and alumni from Kenwood Academy High School in walking through the neighborhood, keeping an eye out for teen takeovers.
“Many of them are Hyde Park community members, like myself. So we live in the area, and we just wanted to make sure that if the teenagers do decide to come to Hyde Park today, that we receive them and everything that goes on is a safe process,” said Kenwood Academy principal Karen Calloway.
They plan to end up at Harper Court, a popular apartment building and shopping center at 53rd and Harper.
Parents said they’ve had enough of the chaos, so they’re taking a stand. Bennie Currie said he launched an initiative several years ago called Collabooration, where people in Hyde Park walked the neighborhood on Halloween to prevent teen takeovers.
He said about 45 members of his team will walk the neighborhood on Tuesday to keep their eyes peeled.
“I reached out to everybody on my block and said, ‘Hey, I know you’re probably going to be busy, but around 5, 6, or 7, just stay tuned. I may send you a ping saying, hey, come out and walk your dogs.’ That sort of thing, and so they’re on standby to do that,” said Hyde Park resident Bennie Currie. “We have people like me doing that throughout the neighborhood.”
Pugh and Walker said they hope this turns into a trend of its own to stop teen takeovers from turning violent.
“If they go to the West Side, we’re going to go to the West Side. If they on to the East Side, we’re going to the East Side. As a kid, I didn’t like when my parents were where I was at, right? That’s the goal of this is hopefully it becomes a deterrent where it’s like, ‘Oh, they’re going to be showing up,’ right? And that’s what we want. We want them to get to a point, hopefully, where they get discouraged and they’re like, ‘Alright, forget it,'” Walker said.
Mayor Brandon Johnson also posted about the planned teen takeover on X, writing, “Parents, be aware of where your children are going this evening. DO NOT allow your children to attend one of these gatherings; they are dangerous and can often turn violent. Together we can keep our youth and our communities safe.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, Pugh said kids got word of the planned “parent takeover” and decided to move the location for the teen takeover somewhere else. Pugh said they’re trying to figure out where those teens now plan to gather.
Walker said he spotted a group of teens who started running as soon as they saw him Tuesday evening. He said he caught up with them, and they told him they took off because they thought he and his comrades were the police. Walker said he wanted to have a conversation with them on how to handle situations like that.
