Meet the mystery man whose idea turned into Chicago peace plan Trump praised

Torrence Cooks was stunned last week when he saw a Cleveland-area pastor tell President Donald Trump on live TV that "top gang thugs" in Chicago wanted to work with the new administration to quell the city's relentless gun violence.A self-styled...

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10 February 2017 Friday 12:51

Meet the mystery man whose idea turned into Chicago peace plan Trump praised

Torrence Cooks was stunned last week when he saw a Cleveland-area pastor tell President Donald Trump on live TV that "top gang thugs" in Chicago wanted to work with the new administration to quell the city's relentless gun violence.

A self-styled anti-violence activist, Cooks could hardly believe that he was the supposed "thug" the pastor was referring to or that his simple idea of organizing a field trip to Washington, D.C., had now mushroomed into something much, much bigger.

As he listened to pastor Darrell Scott unravel a lofty plan to reduce the "body count" and heard Trump enthusiastically embrace the idea, it all started to sink in for Cooks, who never thought his efforts would go much beyond the South Side streets where he grew up, let alone be heard by the country's commander in chief.

"It was shocking, yeah," Cooks, 43, told the Tribune in an exclusive interview. "That it made it that far? Like jaw-dropping surprised ... At the end of the day he's the president right now, and if that's who we got to reach out to to get something done for my community, then that's who we reaching out to."

Cleveland-area pastor seeks gang meeting on Chicago violence, hopes Trump will attend Annie Sweeney, Jeremy Gorner and Jason Meisner

President Donald Trump responded enthusiastically Wednesday to a Cleveland-area minister's surprise comment that "top gang thugs" wanted to meet in Chicago to help reduce the city's gun violence.

"That's a great idea because Chicago is totally out of control," the president told the Rev. Darrell...

President Donald Trump responded enthusiastically Wednesday to a Cleveland-area minister's surprise comment that "top gang thugs" wanted to meet in Chicago to help reduce the city's gun violence.

"That's a great idea because Chicago is totally out of control," the president told the Rev. Darrell...

(Annie Sweeney, Jeremy Gorner and Jason Meisner)

The Tribune met with Cooks — who is identified in court records as a former high-ranking gang member — this week as he is poised to go from a mystery man to the national spotlight.

The fledgling anti-violence effort appears to be the first idea in Chicago to gain even the slightest traction for a law-and-order president who campaigned on a law-and-order platform and has spoken out about the city's troubling violence half a dozen times since taking office three weeks ago. Trump has promised to fix the problem if Chicago officials can't, but his proposed solutions to the complex, deeply rooted issue have so far been vague and sparse in detail.

According to Cooks, Scott has been in talks with former reality TV star and now-White House staffer Omarosa Manigault and Ben Carson, Trump's pick to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, about holding an anti-violence meeting later this month in Chicago.

Whether that ever happens is still anyone's guess. A White House official told the Tribune this week that any meetings Scott is organizing in Chicago are not officially sanctioned by the administration.

Scott, who told the Tribune last week that he understood Cooks was respected on the street and had the "pulse" of the community, did not return calls this week seeking comment. But on Tuesday, he tweeted that he was "in touch with 'Chicago STREET LEADERS'(LoL) daily, as we strategize for the success of the historic summit."

Meanwhile, Cooks' background is sure to be scrutinized. In his lengthy interview with the Tribune — his first public comments on the matter — Cooks repeatedly denied ever being in a gang, even though he was identified by court records and law enforcement sources as a onetime high-ranking member of the Gangster Disciples. His name also surfaced repeatedly at the recent federal Hobos gang trial of several of his former associates, records show.

Torrence Cooks Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune

Torrence Cooks on Feb. 6, 2017.

(Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Cooks said police labeled him a gang member when he was just a kid because of where he lived and "how I move," not because they had any proof.

"I never adapted the ways of gangs," he said. "Law enforcement been saying the wrong thing for a long time about me."

Sudden emergence

Cooks' sudden emergence happened almost by accident. Over the recent holidays, he met with pastor Luther McKinstry, a close friend of Cooks' family, while visiting the Toledo, Ohio, area. The two discussed Cooks' plan to organize a field trip, he said.

"I wanted to take 90 kids to D.C. for the weekend," said Cooks, sitting inside a second-floor recreation room at a community center on 47th Street where he volunteers in the afternoons. "Take them to the black history museum, take them to the (Congressional) Black Caucus, take them to tour the White House. … I don't have an organization. I was just sitting around, just thought about it and reached out to people I know."

Cooks said McKinstry told him he knew people in Washington who could "probably get us free tickets and all that." The contact turned out to be Scott, a conservative Cleveland-area minister who drew national attention for his unabashed support of Trump during the campaign and had served on the president's transition team.

In a telephone interview, McKinstry said that after Trump tweeted in January he would "send in the Feds!" if Chicago officials couldn't get a handle on the bloodshed, he decided to put Scott in contact with Cooks, who he knew "had influence in Chicago."

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"I immediately call Torrence. I told him what I saw on the news," McKinstry said.

He said he asked Cooks if he could "get all the right people on the four corners of Chicago, and he said, 'Yes I can.'"

According to Cooks, he and Scott talked often over the next week, expanding their conversation beyond just the proposed field trip to how to curb violence in general. Still, Cooks had no idea that their brainstorming would reach the president.

"He never told me about trying to set up a meeting with Trump," Cooks said. "He said he would try to reach out to the administration. I wasn't expecting it to be Trump."

Then, on Feb. 1, Cooks was at home watching the White House breakfast honoring Black History Month on television when he heard Scott address the president from across the table. Scott said the gang leaders in Chicago had reached out to him for "a sit-down" and were committed to "lower that body count" in return for added social programs from the federal government. He described the people he was talking to as "straight street guys" and said they "believe in this administration" and want to work with the president.

"They told me this out of their mouth ... they see hope with you," Scott told the president.

"I love it," Trump replied.

Cooks said he immediately reached for the phone and called Scott.

"He was probably still in the White House when I called him," Cooks said. "I was like, 'Man, you dealing with some black men who care. You not dealing with no bunch of gang thugs.'"

The Rev. Darrell Scott TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP/Getty Images

Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak to the press with the Rev. Darrell Scott, center, senior pastor of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights after meeting with African-American pastors at Trump Tower in New York on Nov. 30, 2015.

(TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP/Getty Images)

Within minutes, Scott's comments were being ridiculed on social media as naive and misinformed. The idea of a gang summit was also greeted with skepticism by Chicago anti-violence groups, which saw it as likely to fail and out of touch with longtime gang dynamics.

But despite the rocky start, Cooks said he has talked to Scott almost every day since. It's still unclear at what level or if the White House will be involved, but Cooks said he's been busy over the past few weeks meeting with like-minded people across the city — in Englewood, Roseland and on the West Side — who all want to do something to assist.

While Cooks said Scott has spoken about inviting Carson to their first meeting, the White House official told the Tribune there are no plans for that. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration would wait to hear what Scott comes up with before committing to anything. But she said that Trump considers Scott a "friend."

"It opens the line of communication," she said.

A connector of sorts

When Scott made his remarks to the president, he was blasted by some who felt an outsider like him couldn't possibly have the ear of Chicago's gang community. But in Cooks, he found someone who's been in and around the city's most deeply entrenched African-American gangs for much of his life.

Cooks moved to the old high rises nicknamed the "low end" of the old Robert Taylor Homes when he was in first grade.

Tall, husky and with his hair in long dreadlocks, Cooks speaks with the raw authenticity of the streets but also has a quiet thoughtfulness. Nicknamed "T," he casts himself as a connector of sorts, someone people respect and look to for help.

"I take pride in that," he said on a recent afternoon at Metcalfe Park on South State Street. He talked about his efforts to bring people together and keep kids out of trouble, about hosting neighborhood picnics, organizing softball leagues, planting trees for slain children and family members.

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Cooks has no felony convictions on his record, but court records show he was accused in 1994 of shooting a man in the arm and leg, robbing him of cash and jewelry, kidnapping him and demanding a ransom. He was charged with aggravated kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted murder and spent nearly two years in jail before Cook County prosecutors dropped the case on the day it was to go to trial, according to the records. There was no explanation in the records as to why the case was dismissed.

More recently, federal prosecutors alleged in a 2016 court filing that Cooks was closely affiliated with leaders of the Hobos, an offshoot of the Gangster Disciples described as "an all-star team" of violent criminals who rose to the top of the city's drug trade through ruthlessness and savvy. Six members of the Hobos were convicted last month of racketeering conspiracy involving eight murders, including the slayings of two government informants who were cooperating against the gang.

Cooks was not charged in that case, but prosecutors alleged in court he was at one time a co-conspirator in the Hobos' drug empire.

The alleged leader of the Hobos, Gregory "Bowlegs" Chester, identified Cooks as a longtime ranking member of the GDs when he testified in his own defense in December, court records show. A Chicago police sergeant also told jurors that Cooks "was on our radar as a narcotics salesman and distributor in the Robert Taylor Homes," according to a transcript of the testimony.

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Earlier in the 15-week trial, Kevin Montgomery, a key government informant who was in witness protection due to concerns for his safety, testified Cooks was a mentor who called the shots for younger gang members at Robert Taylor in the 1990s.

"In different areas we had different guys who controlled the area," Montgomery testified as Cooks' photo was displayed for jurors on a large projection screen. "We called them regents. (Cooks) was the regent for 43rd Street."

Trial transcripts show that Cooks and his cousin, Jerry Cooks, caused a commotion when they showed up in U.S. District Judge John Tharp's 14th floor courtroom during the trial to watch Montgomery testify. They were told to leave after attorney Steven Shobat, who represented reputed Hobos member Gabriel Bush, said they could potentially be called as defense witnesses.

"Maybe they don't want to testify, but I certainly may want to call them," Shobat said at the time, according to a transcript.

But neither was called to testify in the trial.

Cooks told the Tribune he grew up with Chester and other accused members of the Hobos gang, but he was never involved in any illegal activities with them. In fact, one of the informants the gang allegedly killed, Wilbert "Big Shorty" Moore, was a good friend of his, Cooks said.

"We had the same playground, the same parking lot, the same elevator," Cooks said of his interaction with gang members. "If I came to my porch, that's who I saw playing outside."

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A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration report made public in an unrelated case showed that shortly before his 2006 slaying, Moore had been interviewed by Chicago police and federal agents about drug dealing activities at Robert Taylor Homes and another nearby public housing complex, Ida B. Wells. Moore told police that he'd attempted to meet with Cooks several times to try to mediate a dispute with Arnold Council, one of the founding members of the Hobos, according to the report.

Seven months after that interview, Council and another member of the gang, Paris Poe, ambushed and killed Moore outside a South Side barbershop, prosecutors alleged at trial. Both Council and Poe were convicted by the jury and are facing mandatory life in prison.

Cook said it's true that Moore had reached out to him for help, but he claimed he never got involved. He also acknowledged attending the recent trial, but said he was just "being nosy."

"There was a lot of names mentioned in the trial that I was friends with," he said.

'Barely had gas money'

During his interview in Metcalfe Park, Cooks pointed to a low-rise brick building near where his family once lived.

"If I had that place right there, (I'd put) a boxing facility and a gym inside it," he said. "What I'd like to have is locker rooms and dorm rooms so they could spend the night, for kids who don't got nowhere to go. If I had something like that I could curb violence."

Cooks, who has two teenage sons as well as two grown daughters, said he earns a living promoting parties and concerts for local clubs. He spends many of his afternoons volunteering at the local Boys and Girls Club on 47th Street, where children come after school to work out in the gym or attend music and dance classes. It's the only such facility left in an area that used to have one "every seven or eight blocks," he said.

Cooks is something of a lone wolf who's never been formally trained in community organizing, has no background in social work or criminology. But what he lacks in traditional skills he says he makes up for with his nose for the streets and by focusing on the youth that need help the most.

In 2012, he said, he organized a softball league of 16 teams and told his friends that each team had to include at least five kids who normally "don't want to get involved that's hanging on the corner." It was a success despite having no funding, Cooks said.

"I barely had gas money to get to the games some days," he said.

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That's a far cry from some of the more traditional anti-violence models like the YMCA of Metro Chicago, which spends about $1.4 million on youth anti-violence programs. Eddie Bocanegra, the executive director of the programs, said he probably spends 30 percent of his time trying to raise funds — and it's still not enough.

CeaseFire Illinois, which has mediated gang conflicts for more than 15 years in Chicago, was forced to scale back drastically over the past two years due to funding cuts after at one time being slated to receive more than $4 million in state funding—testimony to the struggle to keep existing programming running.

Cooks said he's worked with anti-violence groups before, but he's often been frustrated by how much time is spent competing for funding and not actually helping kids. He also was critical of church groups and other programs that fail to reach out to those most at risk.

"It's easy to get 15 kids in your center...but what about the ones that don't come in? How we gonna get to them?" he said. "If everybody that claim they doing something out here was doing something, we wouldn't have had this many murders last year."

Chicago Tribune's Jeremy Gorner contributed.

asweeney@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @annie1221

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jmetr22b

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