Podcast
Motive
Hosted by WBEZ Chicago · EN
Chicago gangs: Real people. Real stories. A way forward. The new season of Motive explores violence on the streets of Chicago and the former gang members working to stop it.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Introducing - You Didn't See Nothin
May 1, 202300:02:29Tap to summarizeHere's another podcast we think you'll find interesting. Twenty-five years ago in Chicago, a little boy named Lenard Clark was beaten into a coma just for being Black. Almost overnight, the news stories turned to racial reconciliation and forgiveness. From writer Yohance Lacour, You Didn't See Nothin is an investigation into how that happened, and a memoir of coming-of-age in Chicago. Full series available now.
Transcribe →6: Aftermath
Mar 2, 202300:40:12Tap to summarizeHost: Patrick SmithProducer: Marie Mendoza
Transcribe →5: Collateral Damage
Feb 23, 202300:37:57Tap to summarizeA 14-year-old boy whose father was wounded in a gang shooting faces down threats of violence and the temptations of joining a gang. Meanwhile, a person who killed one woman and wounded another will avoid criminal charges.
Transcribe →4: Getting In And Getting Out
Feb 16, 202300:32:41Tap to summarizeThe gang murder of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams shook Chicago and affected many of the anti-violence workers on the West Side. As former gang members they sympathized with Jaslyn’s dad, Jontae, his desire to spend time with his daughter and how that put her at risk of violence. Jontae still struggles with the guilt. And when he decided to help police catch his daughter’s killers his gang friends turned on him. **Content warning: This episode contains uses of the n-word.
Transcribe →3: Underpaid And Underappreciated
Feb 9, 202300:35:28Tap to summarizeHost: Patrick SmithProducer: Marie Mendoza
Transcribe →2: De/Escalation
Feb 2, 202300:35:16Tap to summarizeHost: Patrick SmithProducer: Marie Mendoza
Transcribe →1: After The Gunfire
Jan 26, 202300:36:50Tap to summarizeHost: Patrick SmithProducer: Marie Mendoza
Transcribe →'Motive' Season 5 Podcast Trailer
Jan 17, 202300:01:54Tap to summarizeProducer: Marie MendozaHost: Patrick Smith
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Bonus: Prisoncast
Dec 14, 202200:29:48Tap to summarizeIn this bonus episode of Motive, we bring you some excerpts from a special project we created. After a years-long investigation into prisons, we wanted to make something that wasn’t just about people in prison, but also for them. In August of this year we collaborated with radio stations across Illinois to create a broadcast that was heard in prisons statewide. We played sounds incarcerated people requested to hear from the other side of the prison wall, and dedications for sounds that family members thought would be important to their loved ones. People requested simple sounds from the outside world, like babies laughing, rain on a tin roof, the waves of Lake Michigan. We also played people’s music requests and even an original song, “Bring It Back”, created by some students of the Rebirth of Sound program, inside Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois.
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Motive Presents “Through the Cracks”
Jun 2, 202200:34:07Tap to summarizeFrom our friends at WAMU and PRX. When 8 year old Relisha Rudd disappeared from a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. in 2014, nobody noticed. By the time authorities formally declared Relisha “missing,” 18 days had passed since she’d been spotted at school or the shelter where her family lived. Seven years later, Relisha has never been found. Through The Cracks investigates gaps in our society and the people who fall through them, and in this first season, host Jonquilyn Hill asks if Relisha’s disappearance was, as the city later claimed, unpreventable
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