Now, the center has too many people on staff for that to be practical, but they still conduct peace circles with clients and victims of crime to resolve street conflicts. They are part of the culture at the center: Until 2018, all-staff meetings would start with a peace circle. The legal center has led hundreds - if not thousands - of peace circles since it opened in 2010. It can be a “very personal, difficult thing for a person to sit and listen to how they harmed somebody,” Nellis said. It’s an opportunity to learn about one another and talk about the harm done. The peace circle, which can often last two to three hours, is meant to build relationships, since oftentimes its participants are meeting for the first time, Nellis said. Like, you could curse at them, and he still would say, ‘I love you’ and ‘Give me a hug.’ ” “Like, he literally looks like he loves everybody. “Guillermo looks literally like the happy grandpa that everybody loves in the neighborhood,” Daniels said. He was very forgiving.”Īnd, according to Daniels, Diaz looked as sweet as he was. “And Guillermo - I always say this about him - because I just think he was an above-average human being,” said Cliff Nellis, executive director of the legal center, who organized the meeting. His family only found out about it right before he died of cancer in 2019 at the age of 62.ĭiaz’s second oldest daughter, Carolina Calderon, spoke of learning of the robbery almost a decade after it took place. The pizza shop ownerĪfter the attack, Diaz signed an affidavit saying he didn’t want to press charges. look at me and basically say, ‘Yeah, he’s our lead’ or ‘He’s the one that told us to do this’ - that moment right there kind of changed my life,” Daniels said. “Being in those handcuffs in the snow, being pulled over and watching all my boys. And then came the fateful night when he encountered Diaz, near the border between Little Village and North Lawndale. His sadness and depression turned to anger, rage and bullying. He stopped listening to his parents, who were his support system. “Even now, (I’m) still picking up the pieces.”ĭaniels said he felt everybody had turned against him. ![]() The accident “killed parts” of him, he said. He began sneaking off to the gym and distancing himself from family. It was literally like a slap in my face.”Ī few months after surgery, Daniels said, he started to lose himself. No more emails from (Division 1), nobody called me or (was) in my inbox begging me to come do a workout here, get me to do this or speak to kids. It does not store any personal data.“There was no more whistles, there was no more cheering, there was no more scouts,” Daniels said. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". ![]() The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. ![]() Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.
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