The Justice System as a Teen | Kenneth “K.J.” Strong | We Are Witnesses

The first time the reality of death really hit Kenneth “K.J.” Strong, he told The Marshall Project, was when he was in fifth or sixth grade and a friend was killed at a Chicago basketball court. “Over the years, I just lost more and more friends,” he said. Watch the rest of We Are Witnesses: Chicago here: /watch/UUf6Ku0x9lex6 . Strong says he used to play sports in school, but after a fight broke out between students, they were prohibited from the programs. He started hanging out on the street more, where he encountered gun violence. “I got tired of runnin’ from bullets,” he said. “I just started picking up guns.” One day, a police officer caught Strong with a gun in his possession. He was later sentenced to house arrest, during which he discovered programs for justice-involved youth which led to an apprenticeship with a film production company in the city. “I never really thought about the future as much as I do today,” he explained in this installment of We Are Witnesses. “I never thought I would know about cameras. I never thought that I would be coming downtown to an office.” Watch the rest of We Are Witnesses: Chicago here: https://www.themarshallproject.org/chicago Subscribe to The Marshall Project on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SubscribeMarshallProject For more criminal justice and immigration coverage, visit The Marshall Project's website: https://www.themarshallproject.org And follow The Marshall Project on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMarshallProject.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marshallproj Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marshallproj/ The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system. Join us on our channel as we strive to educate and enlarge the audience of people who care about the state of criminal justice. The Marshall Project achieves this through award-winning journalism, partnerships with other news outlets and public forums. In all of our work we strive to educate and enlarge the audience of people who care about the state of criminal justice.

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