Monday, August 21, 2017 || By Local News Curator || @maywoodnews

Feature photo: A screenshot of the Washington Post profile of new Bellwood resident Latee Smith, from the paper’s website. | Washington Post 

Last year, on March 21, 2016, 15-year-old Latee Smith was shot on the West Side of Chicago. He’d barely survived. But as soon as he got out of surgery, his mind kept racing around one theme: killing the person who nearly killed him.

The Washington Post documented Smith’s journey — from his hospital bed to a home in Bellwood, where his family moved after a fire destroyed a Chicago home where they were living — in a comprehensive profile published Aug. 11.

The piece details the teenager’s struggle to remove himself from the streets where he nearly died. Along the way, Smith encounters a whole village of people who open up a world of alternatives beyond the ones (“either dead or in jail”) that he was dealt.

Read the full profile here. Below is an excerpt where Bellwood, Smith’s new hometown, is mentioned. VFP