On the third floor of the Center for Teen Empowerment in Roxbury, more than a dozen people, including youth, local police officers and moms who’ve lost their children to gun violence, gather in a too warm room. In the bright, cobalt blue and brick-walled space, they embrace, devour pizza and chat easily before the official agenda. Once it begins, smaller groups form to recite poems, monologues and stories around grief, forgiveness and motivation.
"I became a police officer so there’d be one less of those [kinds of cops] on the street," says Jeremiah Benton, as he recalls getting harassed by police as a teenager in Dorchester.
Benton, a member of the force for nearly 30 years, and the others have been working together — with classical violinist and composer, Shaw Pong Liu — to find common ground through the "Code Listen" project.
Liu's civic arts initiative leverages the transformative power of music, storytelling and performance to support healing and spark dialogue around gun violence, race and law enforcement practices in Boston.