The fight was over a pair of Gymshoes. At night, on the south side of Chicago, and this

is what came of it. One teenager faces years in prison. Another, a boy of just 15, is dead.

The incident might not have even made the news, except the victim was the grandson of a

long-serving congressman. At a press conference, that congressman Danny Davis did something unusual.

He grieved not just for his own grandson, but for his grandson's killer.

I grieve for my family. I grieve for the young man who pulled the trigger. I grieve for

his family, his parents, his friends, some of whom would never see him again.

It is so unfortunate when these tragedies continue to occur and re-occur. And somehow or

another, our society has not been able to find and exact the answers and solutions.

The solutions we do have often produce more disputes than results. Conservatives call

for harsher sentencing and better policing. Liberals want gun control and more social

service programs. One thing's clear, even as we argue, people are dying.

In 2016, Chicago had the highest number of killings in two decades. 762 people were murdered.

What can be done? Well, one community group has an unusual idea. It believes perhaps

violence can be stopped with a breath, a few moments, and a tiny tweak to the way we

think. This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

On today's show, we discuss crime. Why people choose to kill and how we can prevent

them from picking up the gun in the first place.

Our story begins with another death on the south side of Chicago. One night in the fall

of 2007, Amadou Sis, a young PhD student from Senegal, was walking home after a gathering

on the University of Chicago campus. He was confronted by a stranger, 17-year-old Dmitrius

Warren. Warren stuck a stolen 22-calibre handgun in Siss's chest and tried to take his

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