The Trace — Feds Say One of Chicago’s Last ‘Violence Interrupters’ Was Really a Gang Leader

Francisco Sanchez said his days as a gang leader on Chicago’s West Side were over. At 50, he said he had seen numerous lives ruined by violence — young people losing the best years of their lives to prison; children left without parents in the name of petty disputes and turf wars. That’s why he became something else: a leader in an organization committed to ending gun violence.