LAs Father Gregory Boyle receives Presidential Medal of Freedom NBC Los Angeles [Video]

Father Gregory Boyle, founder and director of the successful Homeboy Industries gang-intervention and rehabilitation program in Los Angeles, was recognized with the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom Friday at the White House.

Boyle, a Jesuit Catholic priest, worked with church and community members East Los Angeles area in the late 1980s to start Homeboy Industries, which began as a bakery that taught former gang members to bake and expanded into one of the world’s most successful intervention programs.

The Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor. Boyle was one of 19 recipients during a ceremony scheduled Friday afternoon at the White House.

Boyle was pastor at Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, located in an area with a high concentration of gang activity, from 1986 to 1992. After witnessing devastating violence during what became known as the Decade of Death from 1988-1998, Boyle joined church and community members in 1988 to launch what …