L’Jarius Sneed has spent enough time around hardship to know that kids need more than a lecture when the subject turns to gun violence and peer pressure.
The Chiefs cornerback has lived through a family history of imprisonment, survived random acts of gun violence and dealt with his own legal troubles, including criminal charges from an alleged December 2024 shooting. Those charges were dropped in May, though he still faces civil litigation. That background is a big part of why Sneed wants to be the voice telling young people there’s another path.
Through his nonprofit, the Sneed Reach 1 Foundation, he has hosted events for children and parents in Minden, Kansas City and Nashville. The format goes well beyond a simple “crime is bad” message. Local law enforcement, prosecutors and other city leaders step in as mentors, talking through real-life situations and giving kids a chance to ask questions and work through scenarios.
On Tuesday evening in Kansas City, more than 40 children gathered at the Police Athletic League Center for an IRL Experience event that mixed food, conversation and practical advice. Youth players from Northeast and KIPP Legacy high schools were among those listening as Jackson County prosecutor Melesa Johnson and city councilor Crispin Rea explained their own paths and what it took to get there.
They were joined on a panel by Kansas City police assault unit commander Capt. Dion Rentie and Sgt.
James Armstead. The setting was casual enough for kids to engage, but serious enough to make the message land.
The smell of fried chicken from Peach Tree Cafe drifted through the gym while the adults worked to reach the next generation.
“Many of us coming from similar situations, many of us having to overcome obstacles, looking back at you all as the next generation that will sit up here someday, and we want to see you get there,” Rea said.
He and Sneed also urged the kids to lean on any of the panelists if they ever needed a safe adult.
“I can tell you that each one of us, we care about you, we appreciate you, we value you, we love you, we want you to succeed,” Rea said.
Sneed said the adult who helped steady him as a child was his fifth-grade teacher.
“She always tells me I’m better than my environment,” Sneed said. “She always tells me you’re better than that.
You can be bigger. You can make it.
You can be something in life.”
A big part of Tuesday’s discussion centered on social media and the kinds of pressure kids face online. At tables, Rea, other police officials and PAL volunteers walked participants through prompts about harmful posts and fights sparked by messages. Parents went through separate exercises while the children put the lessons into practice.
Sneed moved from table to table asking what the kids had learned, and later shared stories from his own life during a fireside chat with Johnson.
For some of the students, the message hit exactly where it needed to. Northeast senior Israel Brown said, “I think a lot of people at our school needs to hear ‘think before you do stuff’,” he said. “A lot of people at our school, they think of what would happen in the moment and not what happened after that.”
Junior Ibrahim Byaumbe pointed to the importance of staying focused on yourself instead of trying to impress everyone else.
“You don’t gotta impress everybody. You don’t gotta be for everybody.
You just gotta be for yourself,” he said. “Just go to class, make it out ... be something, do something with your life.”
Senior Tresor Lamberi echoed that idea with a line he said he had heard on TikTok: “Being gangster is not all about you know being in the street. It’s really about getting your mom out the hood.
That’s real gangster right there. That’s what I think people need to know and need to hear about.”
Sneed’s role in Kansas City carries extra weight because this is his second stint with the Chiefs. The organization has watched him develop since selecting him in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He helped the Chiefs win back-to-back Super Bowls, and this season he is expected to help steady a young cornerbacks group.
But football is only part of the picture for Sneed. He said he believes God wants him to use his platform to give back, and more IRL Experience events are already scheduled over the next two months: one with Operation Breakthrough on Nov. 17 and another at Cornerstones of Care in December.
For Sneed, the point is bigger than football and bigger than one event.
“It’s bigger than just football, you know, just trying to reach a kid,” he said. “Another kid I can touch, even just one kid, just change their life.
I think that’s what God doing. I think that’s my assignment.”
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