By Joe Amarante, Register TV & Radio Editor
jamarante@ctcentral.com

Think New Haven and Bridgeport have a violence problem? Consider Chicago which, with one-third the population of New York, lost more children in 2009 to violence than the Big Apple — 57 kids between the ages of 9 and 19.

Lester Holt reports a heartbreaking hour at 7 p.m. Sunday on NBC called “America Now: Faces Against Violence.”

Two Chicago parents, who lost a teen to a random shooting by a gang member on a city bus, are crusading now against the gangs and violence that make life so perilous to urban youth.

“I think a lot of them have been psychologically damaged and brainwashed, if you ask me,” says the father, “with the glamorization of guns in America.”

A video shows another 16-year-old being beaten to death in a 2009 melee in broad daylight on a Chicago street, not far from their school. The video prompted President Obama to dispatch Eric Holder with a promise of help to fight violence on the south and west sides of the Windy City (the president’s hometown).

A city program that shuttered a low-performing neighborhood school gets some of the blame, as gang rivalries took over when kids were bused to other city schools. The city has to spend $30 million a year on violence prevention, and still the carnage continues, although recent homicide rates are down.

“It’s like the adults aren’t getting shot now,” says the grandmother of a boy paralyzed by a bullet. “... It’s children shootin’ children. It’s like a genocide in their own race because most of them are black.”

Connecticut cities still have a gang problem, of course, but homicide rates are down since the 1990s. One wonders if some East Coast lessons could have been included here, along with a look at how parts of hip-hop culture glorify gangs and guns, or how the gun industry supplies the weapons of personal destruction. Perhaps that would fit better on the right and left flanks of cable news.

- If you miss the canceled ABC series “FlashForward,” which ended in the spring, you can at least catch one of its stars, Gabrielle Union, on “Army Wives” at 10 p.m. Sunday in a new episode.

Pamela (Brigid Brannagh) and her partner Clayton (Lee Tergesen) stumble upon a murder in Charleston, and Atlanta Detective Gina Maddox (Union) comes to town to clear the prime suspect and take her back to testify in another case. Continued...

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- New on TNT’s “Leverage” at 9 p.m. Sunday: The team, led by Timothy Hutton, of course, infiltrates a coal mine in West Virginia to stop a dangerous practice by the mine’s owner. That should be interesting, in terms of culture clash.

- I’ve seen the “All Things Connecticut” special “The Craft Beer Show,” and I find myself quoting parts of it to guys interested in beer. You can catch the show, which visits Bloomfield’s Hooker Brewing Co. (site of a fundraiser recently for the families of Manchester slaying victims), East Hartford’s Old Burnside Brewing Co. and others, at 1:30 p.m. Saturday or 6 p.m. Sunday on CPTV.

- More sports news? ESPNews channel will increase its live “SportsCenter” content by seven hours each weekday starting Aug. 30, filling in the 3-6 and 7-11 p.m. blocks.

- SNY, the home of the New York Mets, Jets and Big East Conference, recently announced it will become “the official television home of the UConn Huskies football and men’s basketball programs.” One Charter Cable system and Cox Cable systems, including mine, don’t offer SNY, so this is added pressure on those systems to add it. The flip side is that folks who don’t want another sports channel may see their bills go up eventually as a result.

- Comic Brian Regan jokes about producers rhyming “Dora” with “Explorer” in the hit cartoon of the same name for preschoolers, but the character sure is popular.

Evidence of that is the show’s 10-year anniversary, marked Sunday at 8 p.m. with the hour-long primetime TV movie, “Dora’s Big Birthday Adventure,” followed by a 12-minute tribute to the colorful icon featuring the likes of Anderson Cooper, Salma Hayek Pinault and Soledad O’Brien.

Little Dora Marquez made her debut on Nickelodeon as the first animated Latina character in a leading role, and it’s been very popular for a decade.

In the movie, Dora and Boots embark on a journey through Magic Storybook Land with guest stars Rosie Perez as La Bruja (the witch), John Leguizamo as the Flying Monkeys and Hector Elizondo as the Wishing Wizzle.

- NBC Sports and Deportes Telemundo will offer Hispanic audiences a special broadcast of the “Sunday Night Football” game between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins on Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. Telemundo will air the game in Spanish in five markets, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles and New York.

- Comedy Central has the David Hasselhoff roast at 10 p.m. Sunday. This could be very crude, friends (remember the drunken burger). Continued...

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- Saw the “30 Rock” episode satirizing the Comcast takeover of NBC for the third or fourth time last week, and I have to say: It’s brilliant, especially the part about cable making most of its profits through porn. This show and “Modern Family” should both get top comedy at the Emmys Aug. 29. For best drama, it’s three words only: “The Good Wife.”

Joe Amarante is the Register TV and radio editor. Follow him on Twitter @joeammo. Read his blog, Javajoesjournaljive. Send e-mail to jamarante@ctcentral.com.

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