By
Annette Stark It goes on all night long. You ride with the Southeast Gang Unit, you roll up on big doggs, maybe one every hour. I reach the police station at 108th and Main at about 4:20 p.m. By 4:45, the patrol car is already racing to 111th and Main with the Gang Unit's Sgt. Joe Guay (my guide) going, "Oh shit, oh shit," the entire way.
Seven patrol cars line the narrow block. Officers on one side of the street cover a distance of about five houses where it's believed the perpetrator has run.
"Got the gun?" Guay asks. Another officer shakes his head.
This is about nothing if it's not about getting guns off the streets. Guay says, "Often a suspect will stash the gun, and there's always the danger some little kid will find it."
A crowd of about 60 onlookers has gathered on the front lawn across the street. This is Eastside Crips territory, an officer explains. But you can look it up on any street gang website with a map; this particular Crip set is one of the most infamous of the 65 gangs that the LAPD estimates now control Watts. This block belongs to them. Now, one old man crosses to approach us. "We don't mean any trouble," he says, gesturing toward the gathering across the street. He has bloodshot eyes and smells faintly of alcohol. "It's just a funeral for my brother. He died today at 50," points to his head. "Brain hemorrhage."
A lot of unnecessary information, unless you need a cop to understand that your brother died of natural causes and not in a gang killing. Out here, a brain hemorrhage seems almost benign in comparison.
Guay eats his dinner - a turkey sandwich and coffee - on the hood of his car. Ten minutes later, we're rushing to 101st and Avalon, this time to catch an armed perpetrator who has broken in the back door and taken a kid hostage under the bed. Within a half hour, this suspect is in custody. He looks about 20 years old, seated on the hood of the patrol car, handcuffed and shaking. "He has tremors, but it's not unusual for a suspect to fake it," Guay explains as the ambulance pulls up. "He'll go to the hospital and eventually he'll go to jail."
This time, two officers are hurt, and they get two guns. In 2003, this unit took 193 guns off the street. "You think you're going to solve this anytime soon?" I ask.
Guay shrugs. It's complicated. The LAPD estimates there are more than 8,000 gang members in Watts. The Gang Unit has 24 officers. "This is its own world. People don't understand this. Unfortunately, those who live here feel it's safer not to talk to us. Once in a while, someone sticks their head outside the door and whispers, 'Nice work, officer.'"
Watts vs. the community pimpsAsk any longtime Los Angeles resident: Watts is drive-over country. You drive over it on the freeway. In fact, if it weren't for decades of national headlines about terminal poverty, fiery riots, and gang violence, many L.A. citizens wouldn't even know Watts exists. So when Guay complains that the public is desensitized to this violence (a position shared by many community activists), it might be more on the mark to ask if anyone ever cared at all.
But for energetic legislators, bad neighborhoods offer many possibilities, and mounting national concern about street gang violence is already shaping up to be a pretty good business. In December, Congress appropriated $11 million for the FBI to create a National Gang Intelligence Center, spearheaded by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) which will create a national database of street gang members. In January, CityBeat reported that U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) has revived her Gang Prevention Act, which would make it a federal crime to join or recruit members in a street gang. (Senator Ted Kennedy and other democrats killed Feinstein's original bill because she had provisions for the death penalty and prosecuting juveniles as adults.) It also authorizes $650 million for law enforcement, prevention, and gang intervention programs.
In fact, money - not more cops, not more effective outreach - has been lawmakers' pat response for decades, and is still the remedy suggested by respected commentators.
Last month, at his State of the Union Speech, President Bush announced the appointment of Laura Bush to oversee a new $150 million program aimed at addressing gang violence with faith-based initiatives and community programs.
Interestingly, the First Lady's appointment was preceded in December 2004 by a commentary in the L.A. Times by noted civil rights attorney Constance Rice (second cousin to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice). Terrifyingly titled "L.A.'s Budding Mogadishus," the piece was noteworthy for its description of anarchy in Watts, specifically around the Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens public housing projects. It's "the ugly L.A.," Rice writes, where the LAPD gave up on Jordan Downs and didn't return for a decade, "where mail carriers and meter readers balk when the bullets fly ... where paramedics and firefighters are hesitant to enter because of the crossfire."
In Watts, many read this and scratched their heads. The LAPD, for instance, is definitely stretched thin, but every cop I asked, including Southeast Commander Captain Sergio Diaz, insisted that no area here was ever left unpatrolled for a decade.
But Rice's commentary had an agenda, mostly involving more funding. She writes: "Bratton ... also agrees that cops must switch to problem-solving policing, and they champion restoration of the $1 billion a year in prevention funds lost since Proposition 13 passed in 1978 ... . Rob Reiner led voters to back universal preschool, and all-day kindergarten is now on the drawing board."
And yet more funds: "Councilman Martin Ludlow has proposed an urban affairs department to coordinate and elevate the city's scattershot programs into more sophisticated ... gang intervention strategies."
Besides the affront of having their efforts called "scattershot," community groups in Watts wonder why they never see any of this money.
"Who wants money now?" remarks Parents of Watts founder Sweet Alice Harris, when told about the article.
"Billions have been raised just by saying 'Watts,'" says another grassroots organizer who works with children on urban gardens. "Trouble is, nothing gets to the people. It always goes to administrative costs, or disappears to the community pimps."
L.A. Mayor James Hahn opposes Ludlow's bill on the grounds that it would only bring on more bureaucracy, but local Watts newspaper The Wave ran an editorial strongly supporting it.
So much for the proactive: The only comprehensive current strategy for slowing down the gang juggernaut in Watts appears to be City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's very reactive Nuisance Abatement Program. Delgadillo's office has used mandatory evictions of known gang members from housing projects, demolition of abandoned buildings, court injunctions on known gang members that prohibit them from flashing gang colors, and gang injunctions - whereby known street gang members cannot congregate together in certain areas. At present, there are 23 injunctions in place in various L.A. neighborhoods. Finally, Delgadillo's got Kids Watch L.A., whereby kid volunteers supposedly assist the police in providing a safe walk home from school. Though pleasant enough in theory, the obvious question is: With maybe one patrol car outside every school, where's the city getting the cops to assist the kid volunteers?
For the most part, the city is unaware of the federal gang actions. They are happening at such a 30,000-foot level that few in the community are even aware that they're being discussed.
"We were originally contacted by someone from Feinstein's office who talked about how [her] bill would provide support for gang intervention agencies," says Khalid Shah, founder of the Inglewood group, Stop the Violence, Increase the Peace, which has helped gang members turn their lives around since 1989 by providing job training, church breakfasts, and even anger management classes. "It didn't say anything about the death penalty, anything having to do with federal crime, because we'd never support those things. It would do some of the things we're trying to undo."
Like other community activists, Shah knew nothing about the FBI's new gang database. That one passed in appropriations quietly, without even a peep from the ACLU about civil rights infractions. "It's something we've talked about amongst ourselves for two years, that street gang members might end up being classified as terrorists," Shah says.
As far as the Gang Unit knows, nobody in Congress contacted the LAPD or the Inglewood Police Department for input, either. Can't imagine why. It's not like they aren't down here every night. No, the congressional action seems aimed at places like Rep. Wolf's district in Northern Virginia, now shocked to find itself with suburban gangs.
"I see these programs and quite frankly the money has been diverted away from people carrying out their missions," says Susan Burton, founder of A New Way of Life, which provides food, shelter, and job training for formerly incarcerated women.
In fact, Rice must have missed an article in the L.A. Daily News published one month earlier, in November, 2004. It reported on the six-year progress of Reiner's universal preschool idea, which was funded by Proposition 10 in 1998, saying: "millions of dollars raised by the measure ... have been spent on travel and administration but the universal preschool program it was supposed to fund has yet to get up and running." That $600 million program finally got off the ground when it issued its first small check just last Thursday.
Similarly, it's hard to see how money from Ludlow's Urban Affairs Department would get where it's needed - especially to the children.
"These little kids walk through some of the roughest neighborhoods you can imagine," Guay says. "We're not doing them justice by allowing this community to be this bad. Society should not tolerate this toward children."
How we rollEvery day since 1998, precisely at 2:25 p.m., ex-felon, ex-drug dealer, ex-member of the Grape Street Crips, Pastor Mike Cummings of the We Care Outreach Ministry shows up at Jordan High School to walk the children home. For a while he had a van, but it broke and he hasn't raised enough money to buy a new one. So he runs the length of 103rd Street, to the bus stop and back, cell phone and walkie-talkie in hand, communicating with the one patrol car in the entire area.
"Each child has to walk through at least three rival gang territories just to go home from school," says Pastor Mike. "There's the Grape Street Crips on one side of the street at Jordan Downs, Southsiders on the other. So, we're out here, keeping the children safe."
He stands about six foot four, an amiable but imposing presence on the street. He knows everyone who belongs here and who doesn't. He spots me a block away. More important, everyone - including the patrol officers - knows Cummings. "Reverend Mike is a good man," Diaz confirms.
Even the gangbangers respect Pastor Mike. He knows them as well as he used to know himself. "See how they congregate over there? Southsiders," Cummings says, pointing to eight or so young men hanging out in a front yard. "Let's go talk to them."
I'm guessing the oldest is maybe 21 and he stands out front. Nobody's passing out any names, but they shout at once when you ask them what they need: "Jobs."
"Yeah," one of them adds. "Or a great chemical formula for crystal meth."
The older one shoots him a look and shakes his head. Staring across the street at Jordan Downs, he says: "Maybe we could get a community center where people could go and get work right there. Cleaning up the projects would be good work. People who own the stores aren't from this neighborhood and no way they're gonna hire us."
Down the block, a crowd of teenagers boards the bus. Cummings spots one adolescent in blue basketball shorts, boarding on back. He taps him on the shoulder. "Front of the bus, young man, please get on in front." The kid turns, sees Cummings, jumps off the bus and flees in the opposite direction.
"He's a Crip," Cummings says matter-of-factly. "Maybe he wants to bother the kids, maybe rob them. So I respectfully told him he had to ride up front. See, he wasn't about to do that."
Up front, bus driver Mark Edwards is enjoying an interchange with Pastor Mike. "I ain't worrying," he chuckles, never taking his eyes off the back of the bus in the rearview mirror. "I'm just going to do the best I can."
Old friends, they've shared this cause for years, motivating kids and getting them safely home from school. "That's all it is," Edwards reasons. "Keep the kids, these young gangbangers, motivated. Education is the way."
The media hasn't paid much attention to Edwards. He was mentioned in rapper Tyrese's autobiography, but that was it. "I'm the one that caught Tyrese running in the park from the gangsters. Picked him up and always made sure he got to school. Life is hard," he says, chuckling again. "I keep Jesus in my heart. You can't leave out God. And that's how I keep my sense of humor."
Cummings is first to admit that - like a lot of small faith-based initiatives in Watts - his program is largely overlooked, and it hasn't gotten any better since Bush took office. He funds 30 percent from his own paycheck. Most politicians aren't regulars at church events and the media only comes if the mayor is speaking. And like many, Cummings can't afford the $5,000 or more for a grant writer to raise more funds. So it's one kid at a time. "Some of these kids have parents on drugs; whoever gives the love first, gets the child's loyalty, and that could be the gangs," he reasons. "So, we find them jobs. And our program - many of our local churches - gives out free food."
Holler if you hear meIf you didn't know better, you might call Demaria Perry an "at-risk youth." Raised around Nickerson Gardens, 17-year-old Perry, an honor student who graduated CalTech High School early, has two older brothers in the Bounty Hunter Bloods. But the only thing Watts's most outstanding young citizen is "at-risk" for is that, even though he has a job, he might not be able to scratch together enough money to get to college.
Described in the media as one of the most violent street gangs in history, the Bounty Hunter Bloods of Nickerson Gardens control the largest black gang territory in Watts. For decades they considered themselves the rivals of the Grape Street Crips, until the Gang Truce was negotiated in 1992. On the wall of the Nickerson Gardens gym on Compton and 114th there's the much-photographed symbol of that truce - a mural of the Bloods and Crips united.
The truce is real, but not everyone abides. "I think families are burying their children out of the neighborhood to avoid retaliation," says Ms. Maudine Clark at the Morningstar Baptist Church. "I heard of one last week at a mortuary in Inglewood, and to keep it quiet they didn't announce it till a couple of hours before."
How did Perry manage to keep his head straight in an environment such as this? He shrugs. "I always had a positive head. I kept with my dreams."
Perry dreams about politics. He belongs to numerous youth organizations and is a strong young voice on the Watts Neighborhood Council. In a couple of years he'd like to run for City Council in the 15th District - Janice Hahn's district. He believes that Hahn needs to show up more. "Our residents would do better if they saw their local politicians around," he says, noting he sees more of councilmembers Ludlow and Antonio Villaraigosa than his local representative. "And when I'm elected, whenever I'm not at City Hall, I'll be here."
So far, I haven't caught any sniper fire in Nickerson Gardens. Unlike Rice's "mailman and meter reader," I've never had to duck any flying bullets, either. This is not to trivialize the very serious problem with violence in this community, but why exaggerate about it?
Driving around, however, I do catch stares. Homies are always checking for who doesn't belong in their neighborhoods. When our photographer arrives, the group scatters. "They're afraid of being in a photo with me because of the gang injunctions," Perry informs us. "Because my brothers are Bloods."
For the last decade, Los Angeles has used gang injunctions to keep known members of gangs like the Bloods and Crips from congregating or creating a community nuisance. Delgadillo won an injunction against Nickerson Gardens in 2003. Here's where it gets weird: In a community where everyone knows or is related to a gang member, a father and son can be arrested for walking together.
And then there are questions about whether injunctions even work. A former gang member, and ex-con himself, Stop the Violence gang interventionist Kenneth "KB" Bell doubts they have much effect. "Even when the injunctions are enforced, you're out of jail in five days. "Some homies are like, 'Man I needed that rest.'"
'Cause when you're broke, you break, check it out...
-Dr. Dre, "Lil' Ghetto Boy"We return to Nickerson Gardens to interview Demaria's brother, De'Andre Perry. A sign on the door declares "Peace on Earth." Inside, the living room is nice, with gold and black brocade sofas and a mirror painted with two black panthers facing each other.
Perry wears a white T-shirt, black pants, and fire-engine red fuzzy slippers. He's 18, born and raised in Nickerson Gardens and has been a Bounty Hunter all his life. He recently returned home from County, where he served a sentence for possession of a stolen car and firearm. He has no plans to go back. "I did a lot of wrong stuff, but I'm glad I did it when I was a juvenile, because my record is clean." Now, he's working on becoming a deputy probation officer. In 10 years, Perry sees himself having kids, and living in a nice house, maybe (he says) in Rialto.
Last week, he was put on gang injunctions, like mostly everybody down here. But he wants to talk because he feels that if the public doesn't start thinking about Watts in a new way, nothing will ever improve. "Gangbanging started as a neighborhood watch and it got blown all out of proportion by knuckleheads," Perry says. "We became Bounty Hunters so nobody could come over here and mess with us. But I've never been jumped or shot at and I never shot anyone. Nowadays, people are getting killed over females, drugs, and stealing. It's not gang violence. It's regular problems."
I ask him about all the government-funded gang intelligence work, supposedly going on in prisons nationwide.
He shakes his head, impatiently. "In prison the colors are black, white, brown ... anybody walking around prison going 'I'm a Crip, I'm a Blood,' that's a fool." Both the media and the cops, he says, don't even differentiate between a gangster and a drug addict.
"People only want to hear what's bad, because they see it on TV - selling drugs, shooting at the police, and killing people," he says. "Nobody wants to give Watts a chance. They've been putting us down for the longest."
The penitentiary's packed and it's filled with blacks.
-Tupac Shakur, "Changes""If you murder or rape somebody, or molest a child, you can qualify for welfare and food stamps - but a drug felon can't," notes Susan Burton. "So a woman leaves prison with $200. Out of that they take money for her clothing, out of that she has to buy a bus ticket, and she ends up downtown on Skid Row with $140 to make a life. And then she applies for welfare and they say, 'You're not eligible because you took a drug.' It's cruel and unusual punishment."
Burton figured this out the hard way, and has been incarcerated four times. In 2000, she founded A New Way of Life to reach out to formerly incarcerated sisters and help them find their way back to productive lives. She started her first house in Watts on East 91st Street, a tree-lined block with well-kept private homes. Now she has two homes, comfortably furnished, with computers for job training.
She's been working Sacramento to get the drug laws changed, saying, "Once I got out, I began to understand how the law is shaped to make you stay in that cycle. I saw women losing their children because they're banned from housing, from getting a job, and can't get back on their feet."
Like Pastor Mike, she scratches by on private donations. When the women are able to pay, they help out. And though most everyone comes out of prison clean of drugs, Burton insists they attend substance abuse meetings. She also helps them get jobs. "Just because a woman took a drug should not ban her from getting decent employment as a cosmetologist or a nurse's aid," she says. She estimates that more than 100 have come into her houses and not returned to drugs, gangs, and jail.
Tenoshie Niigeia is 27 years old, and came to A New Way of Life after her last prison stretch. A former member of the Hoovers gang, she's been in and out of correctional facilities since she was eight and began using crack cocaine at 16. Her dad, an ex-Marine, also a gang member, is now locked up, charged with murder. "The streets were all I knew," Niigeia says. "Now I'm learning what the streets mean."
The house is comfortable and well-lit, and everyone has her own space. Niigeia is proud to show off her private closet, full of her own stuff.
It would surprise many in Washington to learn that no young person I spoke with - including the gangbangers - dreamt about being a rap star or a billionaire record mogul. The dreams I heard here were so small, so American - a job as a janitor, grocery clerk, probation officer, nurse, and then college, food, a van to drive the kids, a nice walk home from school. Fifty years of bloated promises on the left and on the right - stuck in the middle is Watts. If Laura Bush - who purports to understand this - doesn't come here and at least listen, it's nothing short of a national disgrace.
One place to start would be Inglewood Peace Initiative Community Breakfast, organized by Khalid Shah. At 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday, a community room at the True Vine Baptist Church is packed with police officers, probation officers, speakers like Inglewood mayor Roosevelt Dorn, gangbangers, and interventionists like Reina Carrillo and KB Bell. Young and old wear yellow Stop the Violence T-shirts while they pray over a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries, and biscuits, plus a roster of issues.
"I was born and raised in Inglewood, second generation gang member," Reina Carrillo says. "My mother was a gang member. I was shot by one of my own. Now, I put my life on the line for these neighborhoods, because when you try to get in contact with big doggs your life is on the line and you better be working with God."
There isn't enough time at this breakfast to tell every story and there isn't enough space to repeat them all here. More than once, I spot Carrillo's eyes welling up. When I first met her in Shah's office, she recounted how once she could only think about killing the Crip who murdered her baby cousin, saying, "I loved him so much." Toward the end of the interview she proudly stuck out her feet and flashes pretty cream-colored pumps. "Look at me, now," Carillo said. "I even wear high heels."
WALKING JORDAN