Hailed at the time for his efforts preventing crime, Rodney Phillips, a former high-ranking Black Disciples gang member in Chicago, was featured in the 2011 Emmy-winning documentary “The Interrupters,” which spotlighted the work of the violence-prevention group CeaseFire.
CeaseFire was launched in Chicago more than two decades ago on the West Side to address the city’s rampant gun killings. The concept — to treat violence like a curable disease — has since spread to New York, New Orleans, Baltimore and cities abroad. Many agencies have adopted the strategy.
“Hot Rod” was among hundreds of felons hired by CeaseFire, based on their street credibility, to intervene in conflicts and prevent shootings. But, after a few years of that, Phillips fell back. He was charged in 2012 with making heroin deals. According to federal prosecutors, he even brokered a deal on a CeaseFire phone.
Phillips ended up back in prison. He got out in 2016.
Today, he’s a supervisor for the Chicago anti-violence program Metropolitan Peace Initiatives. His team works to stem conflicts among teenagers who regularly have been congregating downtown since the coronavirus pandemic began, gatherings that sometimes have erupted in gunfire.
Phillips, 52, is about to graduate in the inaugural class of the University of Chicago’s Community Violence Intervention Academy, which was established to train front-line leaders of anti-violence groups. Phillips — who grew up near 35th and State streets in the now-demolished Stateway Gardens public housing complex — was among 31 participants from 21 cities. They’re having their graduation ceremony Feb. 9 at the White House.
In an interview, he describes the roller coaster life he’s lived, his regrets about his arrest in 2012 — and his gratitude for getting another chance for redemption. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Question. Talk about growing up in Stateway.
Q. Are you a former Black Disciples leader?
A. Yes. I come from an old organization at Stateway called Del Vikings. That’s what I used to be a part of before they joined the Black Disciples. I never considered the organization a gang, more like brothers. If we was born in Bridgeport, maybe we would’ve been Boy Scouts or in the Outfit. [Laughs].
Q. Tell me about your drug arrest when you were with CeaseFire.
A. We’d work six months at CeaseFire, be off six months because of no funding. I would be out of money. I had kids to take care of. You go back to what you know.
The feds really wanted me to get a lot of time.
[U.S. District] Judge [Joan] Lefkow looked at my rap sheet. She says, “I don’t see a violent person. I don’t see a person who can’t change. I see an individual who may need to find him a legitimate means of employment.”
She gave me a chance. I could have got more time.
Q. Were you surprised Tio [Hardiman, former CeaseFire director] spoke on your behalf at your sentencing?
A. Tio was mad at me because I blew up his program. I was the nail in the coffin to get their funding [taken] away.
I asked him to see me on house arrest. I told him, “I appreciate the chance you gave me. I didn’t understand the gravity of my actions.”
Tio employed over 300 felons. My behavior played into the narrative that [ex-offenders] couldn’t change. It made it that much harder for him to push his agenda. It was selfish on my part.
Tio told the judge, “In the midst of what Hot Rod did, he still was trying to save lives. He’s a guy that’s seen murder all his life. And he’s still trying to save lives. Is he a perfect individual? No. But he ain’t unredeemable.”
Q. What was your last time in prison like?
A. It changed my life.
Before prison, I’d been in the film “The Interrupters.” I was a rising star in the interrupter work. Then, I got arrested. And I felt the lowest of the low.
A cellmate gave me a Time magazine that featured Cobe Williams [a violence intervention leader and former interrupter]. I went to my cell, and I shed a tear. I felt my life was up.
I called Cobe. I say, “Could you give me a copy of ‘The Interrupters?’ ” He sent the copy. And [inmates] start watching it. I was showing them the work we do. Gave me a purpose.
One of the counselors said, “Would you like to go outside of the penitentiary to speak to the kids in high school?” They arranged for the police to take me to a school.
When I came home, I rededicated myself back to the work. The flame was lit.
Rodney “Hot Rod” Phillips (left) and Ricardo “Cobe” Williams (right) in “The Interrupters.” A 32-year-old man, nicknamed Flamo, is seen here telling Williams, whom he met in jail, that he plans to shoot an informant he blames for a police raid on his home. Phillips and Williams persuaded Flamo to cool down and took him to lunch.
The Interrupters
Q. What did you do after you were released from prison?
A. I got out in May 2016 and went back in the field [of violence prevention] in December. I started working at Target Area [a violence-intervention agency in Auburn Gresham].
Metropolitan Peace Initiatives was talking about professionalizing the work like first responders, ambulance workers, the fire department. They came up with the Metropolitan Peace Academy, and I was in [the first class].
I met the lady that ran the academy, Dr. Vanessa DeReef, and she gave me a nickname. Everybody else was calling me Hot Rod. She said, “I’m calling you The Professor.” She gave me that nickname because I used to come in before class with three or four newspapers. I love reading. I was, like, I could be a professor, a felon out of Stateway Gardens?
I graduated, and she hired me to be her assistant training manager.
I became a field manager, which provides technical support to [anti-violence] organizations. I would go to the orgs and train their outreach workers. I did that for like five years.
And then, in July, they promoted me to this position [director of the crisis prevention response unit].
Q. So you essentially got a third chance — if you view CeaseFire as your second chance?
A. Right. I think we keep getting chances until we die.
Q. You said your job at Metropolitan Peace Initiatives is to supervise workers to keep the peace among kids who go downtown. How do you find out about them?
A. Social media, word of mouth, just having relationships with these teens. Sometimes, we find out through our partnership with Glen Brooks [director of community policing for the Chicago Police Department].
Q. It seems like after COVID, kids have gone downtown a lot more often.
A. The neighborhoods are not safe spaces for the kids. So kids said, “Let’s go downtown. We are part of this great city.”
Q. But some have guns.
A. Like in any neighborhood, yes. We know that 90% of the kids are there to have fun. But we can identify a lot of things that might happen. We talk to the kids and just deescalate them. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it don’t.
Q. What are your thoughts about social media and violence?
A. When I came up, it was about silence and secrecy. You wouldn’t want nobody to know your business. With social media, they want everyone to know. It leads to a lot of beefs and senseless killings.
Q. Do kids know you were a former Black Disciples leader?
A. Yes, it gives me credibility. We have this term called “license to operate.” And if you got a license, you got to keep renewing it. For me to be a subject matter expert, I have to keep building relationships and adjusting to the times.
Q. Example?
A. I know the guys from O Block [the nickname gang members gave the notoriously dangerous block around the Parkway Gardens apartments near 64th Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive where a Black Disciples faction is based]. I actually was in O Block when they took down Stateway [the demolition of which was completed in 2007].
I got a great relationship with Pastor Corey Brooks [whose church is near O Block]. He does the work, 100%, with the kids. My job is to keep knowing these kids and building relationships with them.
Q. So you were in the first class of anti-violence leaders who graduated from the U. of C. Community Violence Intervention Academy. How’d you learn about it?
A. From Dr. [Chico] Tillmon [director of the academy and a former CeaseFire interrupter]. When they talked about this academy, I said I would like to be in the inaugural cohort. I knew conflict mediation work, but I was trying to learn how to do it from an executive point of view.
Q. What did you learn?
A. We traveled to New York, Oakland. In New York, what stood out is the way the city embraces violence prevention. And their ground approach: They have “peace mobiles.” I’d love to implement those things here.
In Oakland, they have deep organizational skills because of the Black Panthers. They lobby for the things they need. The spirit of Oakland really moved me. I got a chance to meet the great Elaine Brown, [former] chairman of the Black Panthers, and learn about organizing.
Q. If you’re doing your best job, nobody’s shooting each other. But can you say it was because of you?
A. I’ll tell you a story. Teens were downtown on New Year’s Eve. Nothing happened. And at the end of the night, the police commander out there came to me and my team and said, “We couldn’t do this without you.” He even took pictures with us.
Q. You’re planning to go to the White House for a graduation ceremony for the new U. of C. academy. What does that mean to you?
A. I can’t believe it, coming from pissy hallways in Stateway Gardens, putting my mother through a lot of trouble as a youth.
To walk across the stage and graduate, I don’t even know how I will feel. I might be emotional.
That’s why I tell kids never give up on yourself. Because you don’t know. You literally don’t know what God will do for you.
