Cupich appoints former FBI agent as director of gun violence prevention

The Chicago Archdiocese and Cardinal Blase Cupich are continuing their pledge to fight gun violence across the area.

The cardinal has just appointed a director of gun violence prevention. He's a former FBI agent who is also a survivor of the infamous Laurie Dann shootings that took place almost 30 years ago.

The year was 1988. The images similar to what we've seen recently. anxious parents waiting outside their children's elementary school after a woman with a gun came in and opened fire. She was 30-year old Laurie Dann, who was a woman with a history of mental problems.

After it was over, an 8- year old child was killed and five other children were injured.

"I think when you first hand see, feel and experience the effects of violence, it really focuses your attention what you can do to prevent it,” said Phillip Andrew.

He is one of Dann's other victims. At the time, he was a 20-year old college student. Now, the former FBI agent is the new head of the violence prevention unit at Chicago’s archdiocese. He's a survivor who's made this his life’s work.

"It's the image of those children, children in a classroom doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing and us in the community failing to protect them living with the trauma the tragedy of what that feels like that's what propels me. I don't want to have that feeling, I don't want anyone else to have that feeling,” he said.

For Andrew and the Archdiocese, the goal is a grass roots effort: reach out to the community and the people who need help the most. They plan on doing that through several Catholic programs, some already in place and providing support and help for children growing up in Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods.

But Andrew says it's also about faith and community. It was his community that put him back together after Laurie Dann walked into his Winnetka home, took him and his parents hostage and shot Andrew in the chest before killing herself.

Dann was known to people in the area to be troubled. 

"The resources weren't there to intervene and I think we are at a different point now where we do have those resources,” Andrew said.

Andrew says it's also about making sure people can reach their potential and choose the right path. He knows it may seem like an overwhelming job, but it's one he believes can be done and one that he says everyone has a responsibility to be a part of.

"We've got to break through the idea that this is so hopeless and nothing works. We do have things that work we do need more capacity but we need everyone involved in providing safe communities for our children,” he said.

Last year, the Archdiocese pledged $250,000 to support anti-violence initiatives and in September, the cardinal banned guns in all church properties.