don't nobody want to talk no more it's
so easy to get a gun out here everybody
ready to shoot it out this week onite
gangs and gun viers have turned Chicago
into a war zone we using handguns in
Chicago we get up on you baby that's why
we call it
shat then we hunt oil pirates in Nigeria
so right behind me are three illegal oil
refineries
[Music]
the world is
changed now no one knows where it's
going but we'll be there uncovering the
news culture and politics that expose
the absurdity of the modern
condition this scene isn't really kosher
by American Standard I've never seen
anything like this before it looks like
hell on AR I was interviewing suicide
bombers and they were kids this is the
world who
our this is the world of
[Applause]
Vice hi I'm Shane Smith and we're here
in the vice offices in Brooklyn New York
for our first story tonight we go to
Chicago in the last two decades most
major cities in America have seen a
dramatic drop in violent crimes the
exception to the rule being Chicago
where gang violence is out of control in
2012 alone over 440 schoolage children
were shot making it one of the deadliest
places in the country for young people
in fact things have gotten so bad that
many locals have renamed their Hometown
[Music]
shyra Chicago's in bad shape bullets
flew on the city's Southside last night
dozens of people have been shot there
have been calls to deploy the National
Guard please attribute most of these
murders to Chicago's 100,000 gang
members belonging to an insanely large
and confusing assortment of gangs sub
gangs factions and clicks all of whose
territory can vary from one city block
to the
[Music]
next now our most dangerous spot guys is
these vehicles we got to be careful
right here where you see the memorial on
the right that is a spot where a murder
happened now just so happened the other
night my officers got shot at right
there right across the street right out
of the station we started getting calls
most involving guns the 16-year-old
brother was just threatening the family
with a gun the person with a gun
[Music]
is looks like a 380 Lis guy under ARR
he's in the car he like 14 14 years old
yeah something like that
despite the deputy Chief's insistence
that we were out on a good night the
calls kept coming in we've been having a
lot of shootings over here we had a
murder here that we were working on too
it's just what we do on a daily
basis this is a map here of the Seventh
District Englewood what this map
portrays is anything colored as a gang
in the city we have 59 gangs with over
625 factions we've got new breeds we've
got black PE Stones Conservative Vice
Lords Mickey cobras is there anywhere on
this map that isn't under gang control
there sections of the district where
they're not fighting but what gang would
be there is covered by the color I look
at this map and this scares the living
out of me to be
honest as the night got busy for the
cops we hopped out to see how it was
going in one of the southside's most
notorious neighborhoods The Village so
is this the
village man how far does the village
extend like like how far can you go each
side to my ass right what what
happens across ashin you guys across
that gun line boss cross the
gun there any of you guys
armed is that a rude question yeah
that's terrible question okay okay I'm
sorry how hard is it to get a gun a that
hard get a gun anyway the hood granny
probably got one of them up they come
out they come out it doesn't even matter
we'd be like we have our cameras like
this they come out they
come we went for our second ride along
with the night to see the village kids
Turf for ourselves which amounts to all
of about two city
blocks shooting this on house
arrest real alone and all
them was doing worse than us they was
blowing up buildings and blowing up
clubs and doing massacres
yeah they machine guns exactly we using
handguns in Chicago just to point that
out why they trying to ban assault
rifles we don't use assault rifles in
Chicago we get up on you Betty extended
clips though are are popular yeah
because we like to we like to eat the
body
up that's why we called it shra cuz we
live like them they died for their so we
die for us we in a hood having real wars
like the Army you feel me where having
shootouts my mother running out the
project screaming my name while 100
bullets come in my way so I can get shot
trying to look back to tell her to get
out the way but she was coming for a
baby you know what I'm saying it's a
rest of piece you know if the rest of
America got safer over the '90s how did
the gang problem here get even worse
what turned Chicago's gang map into this
pizza pie of tiny War
zones throughout the 2000s Chicago
demolished its inner city projects in
hopes of breaking up the gangs which
more or less ruled them and relocated
the residents throughout town from 22nd
Street all the way down to 53rd was all
the project buildings so you had all the
gangs and and all the buildings and when
they tore those building down those
people went to the different
neighborhood well this was an overdue
necessity due to theor living conditions
and nearly Sovereign gang control within
it had unintended consequences we talked
to some former gang members from the
neighborhood who asked that we hide
their identities so we did a lot of
those guys never been outside of those
buildings but when you te them down and
then you give them Section 8 and tell
them hey we got to send you out to the
suburbs that you're not even used to
people telling you oh they from the
projects and not welcoming them and I me
that's kind of where the violence is
coming from everybody is fighting over
the actual neighborhood now you come to
a neighborhood it wasn't your
neighborhood but now you living there so
you got to fight the people that been
there and that's where a lot of the
violence coming from like M about how
many guns there are nowadays was that
always the case in Chicago or is that
sted well guns ain't really been
plentiful like that it probably was two
guns out of 45 of them we
was brought up to beat your
ass we weren brought up to
shoot and we was
decent with our hands the kids now they
scared to lose exactly they rather bring
a gun to the table and just murder
everything the youth is just up
man their mentality is they don't care
period Point
Blank ain't nobody fighting no more
ain't nobody feel talking it out no more
the way we defend ourselves noway is
like everybody ready yeah shoot it shoot
it out
we met these kids walking through rival
gang territory where they could be shot
for simply showing their face this
despite the fact that they were three
blocks away from their own homes walking
with their mom you just got to watch The
Way You Walk Like safe as now if it was
like 30 boys down there and it was just
me and him by ourself and we walk down
there they'll probably run across the
street ask us where we is if we get shot
at then we going to want to retaliate
cuz if they shoot one of our friends now
it's what somebody approach me I
probably got to pop them before
they pop me and that's how it is is out
here cuz don't nobody want to talk no
more it's so easy to get a gun out here
Chicago's gun laws are actually fairly
strict but they don't extend into the
suburbs where most of the city's guns
come from Police Superintendent Gary
McCarthy held a press conference in
January to show off some of the 300
Suburban guns his officers had
confiscated since the beginning of the
[Music]
year this is representative of the
firearms that we're taking off the
street every single day and in the last
week 12 Firearms what is it about
Chicago
that puts it so far ahead of the other
cities the ease by which guns are
obtained you can walk into any gun shop
in Illinois by 109 mm and walk out the
door and there's only one recorded
transaction on those firearms and we
don't know where those guns go they hit
the streets in enormous numbers to me
that's just crazy the priest who is at
the police press conference this morning
is Reverend Michael flager he uh runs
this church St Sabina is the biggest
Catholic Church in Englewood he's also a
major social activist he's been here
since the 70s working with gang members
and the police to try to solve the
violence the proliferation of guns and
the love affair with guns in the society
is is
bizarre guns have become the first line
offense on the street in society today
most the brothers out in the street
don't want to shoot don't want to use a
gun to be able to survive to go back and
forth to their home we have to deal with
guns we have to we've ignored violence
in America we've turned our back on it
because it's been primarily black and BR
children Sandy Hook wakes up America why
because now the the Saker mom see Sandy
Hook the horrific tragedy it was and
identifies with those
children well I'm trying to figure out
how do we make the Saka mom
identify with the black child or the
brown child in laale Anglewood Little
Village
pilson how do we make America identify
with our children again wherever they're
at one local child the national media
did identify with was hadia Pendleton
she was 15 years old she was a
majorette just 3 weeks ago she was here
in Washington with her
classmates performing for her country in
my
inauguration on January 29th of this
year hadia and her friends were in a
park after school when two gunmen ran up
and began firing into their
crowd hadia and two of the others were
hit as everybody tried to scramble for
safety hadia
died I wish we could see your beautiful
smile again she will always be with
us hadia's death became the centerpiece
of Obama's push this year for increased
gun control which Congress
overwhelmingly voted down a minority in
the United States Senate decided it
wasn't worth it so all in all this was a
pretty shameful day for
Washington we lose in Chicago more black
kids than the soldiers in Iraq that's
how dangerous it is for our kids now
living in an environment where their
safety is put at Peril state senator
Jacqueline Collins has been in office
since 2002 her District includes some of
the southside's most violent
neighborhoods there are
consequences uh I believe uh to uh
failed economic and political policies
that most communities of color in
Chicago are facing high unemployment 23%
or more failing schools we have the
closing of mental facilities the
Foreclosure crisis so certain
communities seem to be targeted not only
has the Southside lost the majority of
its schools clinics and public housing
they don't even have a hospital to treat
all the gunshot wounds that happen here
which is doubly because there are
three hospitals in the neighborhood all
of which used to treat gunshot wounds
but stopped because it was costing them
too much money these closures are a
major contributing factor to the
southside's death rate as in the case of
Damen Turner who was hit by a stray
bullet and died during a 30-minute
ambulance ride up town Damian's sister
Candace has been trying to draw
attention to the situation ever since
her brother's
death the nearest hospital with the
trauma center is Northwestern Hospital
and that's like that's way up in it's
almost in the north side that's where
they took my brother Daman Turner
they're on bypass what is bypass bypass
is if you get injured the ambulance
won't bring you to to their hospital if
they're on
bypass he died on his way to the
hospital because he had to be taken so
far to raise awareness of his death and
The crucial lack of Health Resources on
the South Side his friends and local
activists staged a DI in at the
University of Chicago's new 700 million
Medical
[Applause]
Center most of the people that come near
live G shat wounds are uninsured so it
became more of a bottom line issue but
how do you put a price tag on a
life left to fin for themselves in an
urban desert many younger kids in
Chicago see gangs as the only form of
structure left in their communities and
if so internalize their situation they
proudly declare their city shyrack and
themselves soldiers or Savages and who
could blame them they do live in a war
zone the southside of Chicago is
basically a failed state within the
borders of the
us we've turned our backs and abandoned
these young Brothers out in the
street this my wall of fame all the guys
and women that I lost who's at the
bottom of the wall that's my
son that's my son my
tri these are disenfranchised
communities and it's not just a month
occurrence or a year occurrence this is
Decades of a lack of resources flowing
into these communities there has been a
conscious decision to let some
communities fall apart as long as it's
contained that it doesn't seep over but
guess what America it's seeping over
drugs did violence is and now poverty is
cuz what used to be the middle class is
now
poor wake
[Music]
up
Nigeria is one of the largest oil
producing countries in the world in fact
it's America's fourth largest supplier
of oil in total they export over 780
million barrels a year but they also
have a massive problem with oil spills
last year alone there were 194 spills in
the Niger Delta and over the last 50
years more than 10 million barrels of
oil have polluted the region that's
approximately one Exon Valdes spill
every year now it seems like everyone is
blaming everybody else the locals are
blaming the oil companies and the oil
companies are blaming Pirates so we sent
Su Alvi to find out a why there are so
many spills and B exactly who is
responsible oil companies have been
Drilling in the Niger Delta for half a
century some times resulting in
devastating economic and environmental
effects of local
communities for years Elder Friday akpan
a successful fish farmer and local
community leader has been fighting shell
in court at the hay this is one of the
47 fish bonds I esav and properly
managed but the oil spel caused by
shells facility polluted it which causes
all the fishes to die and I have been
reporting the Spiel to them they did not
answer me anything it is there and then
I said I am now push to the world why do
you come to kill me I have nothing to
live with again and you have pushed me
into
indebtedness so he did something that
had never been done before and sued
Royal Dutch Shell in their own country
and this past January after a 5-year
Long Court battle the verdict came in
the court in Elder Friday's favor and
determined that shell was liable for the
count of not better protecting the
pipeline from oil theft and vandalism
which ultimately led to the spills were
you surprised that the verdict came in
your favor H I was not surprised but
others were surprised hearing a a black
or a Delta man took shell to court
at he and warn the case
Hallelujah
it's easy to get caught up in Elder
Friday's Victory but in reality it's a
small win and a large
War since oil was first discovered in
Nigeria in 1956 over 500 spill related
lawsuits have been filed in Nigerian
courts and only a handful have received
compensation we wanted to find out what
shell had to say about these
environmental disasters that they call
operational spills
frankly if you look at what I we
consider to be operational spill it's a
very very tiny proportion the worst
pollution is coming from sabotage spill
from ilal refineries and uh crude oil
theft so what he's claiming is that most
spills are caused by Pirates guys who
illegally hack into the shell pipeline
steal the crude oil refine it into gas
lead somewhere in the jungles of the
Niger Delta then sell it across West
Africa shell estimates that it loses
between 55 and 60 million barrels of oil
every year due to oil piracy costing
them $7 billion a
year we wanted to learn more about these
Pirates so we went out on patrol with
the guys that hunt them we are getting
on board okay yeah not too far away okay
where we have a lot of
Arrested these guys are the jtf a joint
military task force that patrols the
delta here in
Nigeria they're very intelligent guys
and they plan their operations very very
well so we have to be extra
smart the jtf have their work cut out
for them patrolling an area roughly the
size of Ohio consisting mostly of
mangrove swamps dense jungles and very
little infrastructure every day they're
arresting people like you keep grabbing
people and then the next day there's
like new refineries and new oil things
along the river we saw half sunken ships
that had been attacked and destroyed in
previous raids and we were also taken on
board a recently captured ship so when
were these barges captured and seized
recent operations yeah
yeah some they still have contct product
there oh really legally refined Ed right
because of these spills the World Health
Organization estimates that the drinking
water in the Niger Delta has 900 times
as much Benzene as is deemed safe to
consume we've been cruising through an
oil spill for about 20 minutes now we
were cruising along and I look to my
right and saw the dead trees but the
problem here in the Niger Delta is that
they're not really cleaning up these oil
spills we never found the Pirates or the
refineries that we were looking for with
the jtf so we went out on our own we're
going to go spend a couple nights with
the community here deep in the Niger
Delta we wanted to find out how these
people are stealing oil how they're
refining it and why they're doing it
after a long ride up the river we
arrived in town not surprisingly a town
known to have oil thieves wasn't exactly
thrilled to see a group of foreigners
with
cameras right away we were ushered into
a town hall meeting where the debate at
hand was whether or not we should be
allowed to stay we had to plead our case
to the
people thank you chairman for inviting
us to your community we are very excited
to come see this part of Nigeria the
Niger Delta and we feel that the story
of your people is very important and
it's our job to tell it to the
world we finally got their blessing to
film and decided to check out the town
the first thing I noticed was the
impoverished conditions that people were
living in in rural areas like this one
in five children dies before the age of
five as we're walking you see like just
power lines everywhere that don't work
there's the river they do everything in
it they bathe in it they wash their
clothes in it but they're getting sick
from it as well we spend every year
close to $250
million directly or indirectly on
Community Development projects but if
you look at the
scale of the developmental needs in the
Delta only government can really plug
that hole it's hard to know how the $250
million is spent or if Government
neglect is to blame but it's clear that
very little money reaches the villages
the Nigerian government did not respond
to our request for an interview but we
spoke with the chief of the oil
producing Town who gave us his view of
the issues our people are suffering most
of the fishes we are in the river has
been damaged as a result of the rampant
pollution shell supposed to develop our
area nothing has been done but we are
the host Community producing 235,000
barels daily to the federal government
and Sh it's a very oil Rich Community
very rich Community how many oil wells
do you have we have 21 operating o Wells
but nothing else has been done to this H
Community if what he's saying is true
you can understand the people's
frustration and resentment towards the
oil companies in fact something was
supposed to be done for the communities
but after Decades of seeing minimal
profit from the oil wells a band of
militant Nigerians fought back
sabotaging the pipelines and kidnapping
the Oil
Workers the uprising was settled when
shell and the government paid off the
rebels to lay down their
weapons but the local residents of the
oil producing communities saw none of
this
money at this point started to make a
lot more sense why oil piracy had been
exploding in the region it's called
Nigerian swag got a machet you've been
working all
morning the locals told us that if if we
wanted to find the Pirates we'd have to
go even further down the river I got you
I got
[Music]
you
so right behind me are three
illegal oil refineries it was an
unbelievable site it's hard to imagine
that very deep in the jungle is a camp
where people refine crude oil into
gasoline with their bare
[Music]
hands we were finally approaching the
refinery where after the oil thieves
hack into the pipeline somewhere out on
the Delta they fill boats with the
stolen crude oil and bring it to places
like this along the
river so really smells like oil right
[Music]
now one guy on the side in the rivered
refining oil by himself and it's just
like coming down into the river there's
oil everywhere it's
surreal Mr Roland was our local guide
through this makeshift
refiner okay easy
easy don't just go any I'm going to
stick with you buddy
yeah wow it looked like hell on Earth
streams of gas and oil floating into the
river and massive fires burning
everywhere okay so Mr Roland can you
explain what this gentleman is doing in
those drums is crude oil and the vapor
comes through the pipes into this
structure condenses The Vapor that drops
kerosine
this is where the fuel that is petrol
kerosene diesel comes out everything and
they this guy can do everything yeah
they all will come out from here these
guys make between $60 to $70 a day doing
this it isn't a fortune but it's a far
cry from the $1 a day the majority of
Nigerians survive on it's it's crude
it's
rudimentary but they're succeeding yeah
doing what they need to do yeah just
doesn't meet certain safety
standards what is this what am I
standing in this is the waste the left
over which is T no it's a mushy
environment it's the best way to
describe it it's a mushy environment of
waste in order to get the chambers to
heat up enough to vaporize they dump C
oil directly onto the
Fire Control your
fire ho
shitu it's so hot is that it's pushing
me back and I almost fell back into the
[Music]
tar oh why you smoke too much now be at
the safe distance this Vapor might catch
fire okay so stay
away this could catch fire yeah let's
stay at the distance yes sir so Mr
Roland
is making me a bit nervous I me frankly
I'm a little nervous right now when this
this thing catches fire the whole area
is in
gold all of us will be running Al skela
here I have the Oil Well an oil well
right on my land but I don't know how
many barrels of oil per day is drilled
from myON soil if an oil well is found
on your land in America you become a
millionaire or billionaire isn't it but
the reverse is the case you become a
very poor man you don't have anywhere to
farm you look at this young man that is
passing what he does here feeds his
family that is the basic f
and all the oil companies they had to
make promises of investment and
development so did they not do anything
nothing that is why you see these things
happening yeah how much animosity is
there towards the oil companies very
much very much that was why our boys
took up arms against the oil companies
and how stable is the piece right now
it's just like a we are on a keg of
gunpowder
anything can
happen it's just a taking time
[Applause]
[Music]
bomb
[Music]
full mountains of ice are just falling
into the
sea we're in for trouble
indeed this is where the Soviets tested
all their weapons this is the epicenter
of a nuclear bomb the last 6 months you
had 9,000
IEDs that's an
[Music]
IED
[Music]
once you get someone in they can never
leave even police helicopters don't dare
fly over here cuz two years ago one was
shot down by an anti-aircraft gun fun
place to
live okay let's get out of
here