HOUSTON – An organization that works with children and teens by helping them to transform their lives through education and workforce development is speaking to KPRC 2 about five children who stole car and lead police on a chase.
Following the chase, investigators found one child dead in the backseat of the car. Two of the children were hospitalized with minor injuries, and two others are on the run.
The child who died was 12 years old.
- OUR ORIGINAL COVERAGE: 2 children arrested, 2 on the run, 1 dead after leading Houston PD on chase with stolen car
KPRC 2′s Re’Chelle Turner and Michael Lemons interviewed Marvin Pierre, Co-Founder & Executive Director of 8 Million Stories.
“So, we are a local non-profit that works with at-promise youth between the ages of 9 and 24, helping them to transform their lives through education, workforce development, and also case management,” he said.
Tell us, what does that look like? Does that mean, like, getting these children into different clubs, the Boys and Girls Club, or maybe getting them into an afternoon program? What does that look like?
“I think always the best preventative measures are always to really keep our kids busy, right? So, idle time is not a really good thing for our young people. And so, after-school programs are always a great option. Unfortunately, a lot of those programs are being, you know, transitioned out because they’re not being funded at the level that they need to sustain after-school programming. And so, we need to revisit how do we put more investments in after-school programming, but also start to be a little bit more relative to some of the interests that young people have today, and how do we create youth programs that align to some of those interests,” Pierre said.
Pierre says the sad situation needs to be a wakeup call for leaders to help find a way to prevent the youth from going down the wrong path.
“I want to have less stories like we’re talking about now coming across my television screen because of the work that we’re doing,” he said.
How have you guys been able to help some of the children? Kind of give us an example of a kid that you helped get back on track.
Yeah, I think for us, you know, we had a young man that his mom reached out to us and said, you know, ‘hey, my son’s really having a hard time, he’s violent, and just really showing some negative types of behavior.’ We created a Saturday program. We partnered with the local YMCA and Hyrum Clark, and we created a space where young boys could be boys. They were able to engage in community building, do sports,” he said.
And so, it’s just that easy as a parent picking up the phone and saying, hey, my child needs help, and you guys will take it from there.
“Yeah, and one of the things that we do, we try to raise enough funds to make sure that these programs are at no cost to our young people. So as long as we can provide that at no cost to parents, I think it’s a great way for parents to really make an easy decision and say, hey, I have enough resources to get my son to the center, but sometimes the deciding factor is financial. And so, a lot of our parents don’t have the financial means to invest in high-quality after-school programs, and so we really try to remove all those barriers for our families, especially the ones working with our most marginalized youth and our under-resourced communities,” Pierre said.
To learn more about 8 Million Stories or sign your child up for a program, click here.
MORE STORIES INVOLVING POLICE CHASES
Meanwhile, Asst. Chief Anderson noted, of the several vehicles that the children crashed into, none of the other individuals involved suffered injuries.
We’re told all the children are between 12 and 13 years old. Two remain on the run, and none of them have been identified as of this writing, but an investigation remains underway.