This article was co-published with Palabra, an initiative of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. This project was supported by the journalism nonprofit Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the Commonwealth Fund.
See report in Spanish.
Diego Lopez was first shot in the 1990s. His body was protected from bullets by his leather jacket. He went to the hospital, but stopped receiving treatment for fear of being investigated by the police. Because he was thin at the time, he managed to escape by jumping through the emergency room window.
Lopez, then a teenager, was a member of the Latin Kings and actively involved in a bloody gang war in Hartford, Connecticut.
Even though he tried to avoid the police, they showed up at his house a few weeks later. This time, no arrests or charges were filed. But he ultimately received a 16-year prison sentence for drug sales and auto theft.
Now 50, he has nine bullet scars on his body and one scar on his finger after being shot in four separate incidents (two as a teenager and two as an adult). Books are missing.
“I had surgery all over his body for gunshot wounds,” Lopez said. He tries to understand how a life full of hardships, including growing up in a broken home with no father present and repeated domestic violence and generational trauma, led him down this path. There is.
Latinos, especially young people, are disproportionately affected by gun violence. According to Giffords, a group that works to end gun violence in the United States, the number of Hispanic gun deaths increased by 66% between 2014 and 2020, and the number of gun deaths nationwide increased by 34%.
Other organizations have also confirmed Giffords' claims. According to the Violence Policy Center, the homicide rate for Hispanics in the United States was higher than whites in 2021. Between 2001 and 2021, approximately 75,000 Hispanics were killed by guns, a trend primarily driven by interpersonal violence rather than mass shootings. Of the 75,000 people, 47,119 died by gun homicide, 23,686 by gun suicide, and 1,184 by accidental shooting. From 2020 to 2021, gun suicides increased by 14% among Latinos, compared to a 7% increase among whites.
However, little is known about the specific health impacts and economic harms of gun violence on Latinos at both the individual and community levels. While more official data is needed, local nonprofit organizations provide important on-the-ground knowledge and a deep understanding of the scale of the problem.
Lopez is now working through his legal issues and working in the community through the Hartford-based nonprofit COMPASS Youth Collaborative. A rare opportunity to repair some of the damage he once caused to the community by supporting young people from similarly harsh upbringings with the same organization that provided him with a lifeline 13 years ago. It became.
The organization serves about 230 of the city's estimated 800 children and youth affected by incarceration and the justice system, most of whom are from Black and brown communities. These are young people who are falling through the cracks of society due to gun violence. Among youth participants in the program, 69% reported losing a family member or friend to this type of violence.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation's largest gun violence prevention organization, gun homicides in urban areas affect Black and Latino youth who live in historically underserved areas. There is a tendency.
Day and night, Lopez travels to Hartford's most dangerous neighborhoods in search of youth most affected by violence. Some are armed and some are experiencing domestic violence. For many, bad decisions and dangerous lifestyles can land them in prison or cost them their lives.
As COMPASS' peacebuilder, Lopez's goal is to build life-changing relationships with high-risk youth and recruit them to the organization's four-year program. The program provides medical and mental health support, education and a pathway to future employment.
“[Young people]are really in survival mode, and we want to work with them to de-escalate that situation and teach them another way,” said the nonprofit's chief executive officer ( CEO) Jacqueline Santiago Nazario said. “I believe that violence, like poverty, is a public health problem.”
To ensure smooth communication with young people, half of the program's staff are Latino, some of whom are Latino immigrants. Peacebuilders show up in hospitals to provide bedside assistance to young gun violence survivors, meeting their needs and preventing acts of reprisal and retaliation that can further escalate violence. It's the kind of help and guidance Lopez never received as a teenager.
Initially, survivors and young people tend to remain wary and are reluctant to talk to Lopez and other COMPASS staff and volunteers. It usually takes three months to gain the trust of your team members. But sometimes peacebuilders cannot wait that long because there are urgent matters at stake, such as treating wounds or preventing infections. It has to be convincing and relentless.
“It's easy to think you don't need treatment,” Lopez warns young people. Of the survivors who do seek medical care, many skip follow-up appointments “out of ignorance,” he says.
“There have been cases where bullets have fallen from people's feet in the shower… and they have no idea what to do,” Santiago Nazario added.
This is where Lopez's lived experience becomes important to his mentees.
Lopez knows firsthand the importance of having insurance and access to proper medical care, which became especially important during the fourth shooting. He underwent intestinal repair surgery and one of his fingers was amputated. After he was discharged from the hospital, a nurse came to his home to clean his wounds and show him how to apply gauze. Shortly thereafter, he and his family were left with sole responsibility for home health care, a situation that did not sit well with him.
“There's no real consideration there,” Lopez says.
“If you're going to take care of a wound,[the nurse]will come, right?'' They might come once a week, but they have to do it for themselves, with their families, and the rest three times a week. yeah. So if you're going to divulge more, you need to change, you need to change, you need to change,” Lopez says.
Currently, the COMPASS Youth Collaborative, through a partnership with UConn Health, a University of Connecticut health care provider, is helping secure in-home services for individuals who cannot afford continued hospital treatment. This means that a young boy whose family has experienced financial hardship without insurance or medical supplies can receive proper and safe wound cleaning care.
“This is like the most basic human need for someone who has been shot: to protect the wound from infection,” Lopez said.
COMPASS, along with a team of social workers, also supports the mental health needs of survivors. Their cognitive-behavioral therapy model allows youth to explore the relationships between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, helping them recognize triggers, self-regulate, and cope with complex trauma. Santiago Nazario explains that during the four-year program, his 80% of young people showed improvement in their lives.
