The drug trade no longer drove the violence. “Now that all the structure and leadership ain’t here no more, everybody doing what the fuck they wanna do basically,” said Cobe Williams, a former Chicago gang member who now trained anti-violence activists across the country for the Cure Violence organization. Now, many shootings were caused by personal beefs. Friends took sides with friends, perhaps showing their support on Facebook or Instagram, and personal beefs escalated into feuds between cliques. To many in Brownsville and other communities, the shootings seemed more arbitrary and senseless. “It used to be about money and territory: you slang weed there, I do it here, and that beef is over,” Vick said. “Nowadays, it’s not about money. It’s about slights and stupid stuff. It’s about girls a lotta the time. It’s about pride and respect and revenge, and those are harder to cool down.” Pride and respect could be valuable commodities for boys without the social status conferred by material wealth, and reputation was sometimes all that distinguished those who were fucked with from those who weren’t.
The prevalence of guns on the streets made these disputes deadly. Though New York City had strict gun control laws, traffickers hauled in weapons from states with more relaxed policies, like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, none of which required background checks in private sales. So many guns poured into the city from the South that police officials dubbed Interstate 95 “the iron pipeline.” More than two-thirds of the guns used to commit crimes in the city in 2014 were purchased out of state—more than double the national average of out-of-state guns recovered in crimes, a pattern also present in Chicago and other big cities. The mix of guns, anger, disillusionment, and youthful recklessness created a climate of fear and panic. It was shoot first or be shot.
At a sentencing hearing in June 2013 for a young man convicted of murdering a member of a rival crew in Harlem, Judge Thomas Farber pointed out that the shooter and victim had lived in neighboring housing projects. “They were the same young men,” Farber said. “They live in the same geographical area.” Their differences, he continued, “don’t exist except in the minds of the people who are fighting. So they are fighting over nothing, really nothing.” But they had found a “feeling of purpose” in the feud. “Unless we are able to impart meaning into our children’s lives, then this drama is going to keep playing again and again and again, and people are still going to die,” he said.
Similar conflicts boiled all over the city. In Far Rockaway, Queens, two beefing crews lived within the same housing project: the Hassocc Boys at the front of the Redfern Houses and the 1270 Gangbangers at the back. During a seven-month stretch in 2007 and 2008 that one local called “the civil war,” a 24-year-old, an 18-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 16-year-old were shot dead. When tensions between rival crews were high, a neighborhood would become like a minefield for young locals, with violence popping off at the slightest disturbance. “It’s like a game of telephone,” said Brodick. “The story changes every time and by the end of the line the details are different and that is how the rumor spreads before the revenge happens.” Young locals understood this. Kenneth, a 22-year-old Brownsville native, said that he carried a gun because he was scared. “Even if I didn’t do nothing, maybe somebody I’m associated with did something, or maybe somebody just mistakes me for somebody else,” he said. “Anytime, somebody could jump out at you, for reasons you might not even know, and so I gotta protect myself.” Staying strapped didn’t solve the problem, but Kenneth didn’t see any other option. “Even though it really just makes things even worse,” he said. “I know he got a gun and he know I got a gun, and now we both scared the other’s gonna pull it first and so do I pull mine first because I know he’s thinking the same thing? And that’s why fights keep turning into shootings. I’m tryna look hard and so is he. It’s like we just fuckin’ in this spot where neither of us wanna die and neither of us probably wanna kill somebody but we trapped.”
Back in the days of the drug barons, Lance Feurtado said, there was a clear distinction between “soldiers and civilians. Between who was in the game and who wasn’t.” That line was faint in the era of crews. Which meant that even weak associations could get a young person tangled in a beef—or a law enforcement sweep. While the street dynamic had changed, authorities still pursued the achievements that brought funding and praise in the previous generation. In June 2014, around 500 NYPD officers swarmed the Grant and Manhattanville houses in Harlem and arrested 103 people who ranged from 15 to 30 years old. Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance Jr. called it the largest “gang” sweep in the city’s history. It targeted three crews who, Vance said, were responsible for two murders, 19 people wounded from gunfire, and 50 attempted shootings over the last four and a half years. Many of those indicted faced conspiracy to commit murder charges under RICO laws. Police pulled much of their evidence from Facebook, where young people made threats against rivals in posts or showed their association with a crew in photos. Some of those arrested were not charged with any crimes beyond their association with a crew. Prosecutors were using laws intended to take down kingpin-led criminal organizations against these casual neighborhood cliques. At a 2014 court hearing, when a lawyer asked a young man how he got linked up with the Wave Gang, he replied, “Just hanging out.”
“It’s damned if you do or don’t,” Kenneth said. “You grew up with these dudes and they been your homies. Y’all was kickin’ it on the jungle gym, the slides and shit. Now that you’re older, you still run with these guys and you can walk around the neighborhood feeling safe, as a pack. Look cool for the girls when you rolling up deep at a party. You got guys you know gon’ have your back if somebody messes with you, and maybe they won’t mess with you because they know these dudes got your back. But then when somebody you know gets caught up in some shit, that’s you too. That’s how the police see it.”
According to street lore, the Hood Starz were formed in the late 2000s by a group of teens who lived in Marcus Garvey Village. By 2010, Poppa’s cousin Hakeem Gravenhise was the crew’s unofficial leader. He was 16 years old, charismatic, husky, great at drawing. He dreamed of becoming an architect. The Hood Starz spent a lot of time at the Betsy Head playground, and that’s where younger kids usually joined up with them. Hood Starz turf was west of Rockaway Boulevard, and the Wave Gang, which was based in the Brownsville Houses, ran the area east. The Hood Starz greeted one another with “cho!” and the Wave Gang used “woo!” But even within these two crews there were smaller groups, circles of friends who affiliated with a crew only in name and territory. Addicted to Cash and 180 Crew were west of Rockaway, and Smoove Gang, Pretty Boy Gang, and Money Gang were on the east side. There were smaller, unaffiliated crews, too: Bully Boyz, Loot Gang, Young Guns, Keep Back Crew, Brownsville Fly Guys, 8 Block, and others. Yet even defining these crews granted them a formality that didn’t exist on the streets. The only place where these groups existed as official units were in NYPD records. When a conflict arose, though, young locals had to draw lines in the pavement.
Nobody seemed to know for sure how the conflict between the Hood Starz and Wave Gang started.
“I heard it had something to do with clothes,” Esau told a friend one day at Betsy Head.
“Like somebody spilled a drink on a white T?” the friend said. “Or somebody scuffed some Js?”
“Nah, like, ‘Yo, you ain’t flyer than me’ bullshit,” Esau said. “But I don’t really know. And I bet these kids still beefing today don’t even know how it started. They just inherited that shit.”
At first, there were fistfights. Then gunplay. Over a two-day stretch in June 2010, Hood Starz affiliates shot and wounded two Wave Gang members. One of the victims died from his injuries in October. Two days later, a Wave Gang member shot and killed Hakeem Gravenhise on a street corner in front of his apartment building. His mother had been walking home from the grocery store when she heard the shots. She hid and waited until the gunfire stopped, and then when she stepped into her apartment, she found h
er son dying. The beef turned into a war. By January 2012, police had tied the crews to six murders and 38 people wounded. Police said that two of the dead and six of the wounded were bystanders caught in the crossfire.
The raid came on January 17, 2012. Officers arrested dozens of young people in Brownsville, none older than 21, and seized 35 guns. Prosecutors announced indictments against 43 people allegedly tied to the two crews. Authorities called it Operation Tidal Wave. Several Mo Better alumni were among those arrested and sent to Rikers Island’s juvenile detention facility. None were convicted of a felony.
When they got out, less than a year later, they returned to a neighborhood that hadn’t changed much, if at all. Even if their time behind bars had persuaded them to stay away from the streets, leaving the streets behind was not so simple. “Life doesn’t stop for them,” Vick said. “They might wanna change when they see where their road is going, but their history is always catching up with them. They’ve done stuff that ain’t going away. These grudges don’t go away.” Some locals remembered that the shooting that killed one-year-old Antiq Hennis had stemmed from a dispute his father had gotten into two years earlier. Anthony Hennis had lain low for those two years because he knew his rivals were coming after him. He rarely strayed from his block at Garvey. “And they laid in wait for him until he least expected it,” Brodick said.
Young locals felt the constant fear, hiding their vulnerabilities behind brash online personas, as peers lobbed threats and boasts in Facebook posts, in YouTube and WorldStar videos, and on Twitter. “That’s how you expected to respond,” Kenneth said. “You gotta show you strong, in hopes that it keeps other people from messing with you.” Viviana Gordon, the director of operations at Brownsville Community Justice Center, recalled a photography class she hosted for local boys and girls on a recent afternoon. The plan was to walk a specific route and shoot the scenery. “But a lot of the kids said that they couldn’t walk this street or that street,” she said. “We had to adjust the route. We had to ask them in advance: Is everybody OK going down this street?” One afternoon last summer, the Brownsville Community Justice Center organized a mural painting outside Betsy Head Park. More than 100 people were there, including teachers, community leaders, parents, and dozens of local teens. In the middle of the event, a group of kids showed up and jumped one of the teens while he was painting. The teen’s friends went after the group and chased them through the neighborhood.
CHRIS WAS IN high spirits as the second practice of the year came to a close. It was the happiest he’d felt in months. More than 30 players had shown up, double last week’s turnout. He had new purple Mo Better hats and new yellow Mo Better T-shirts to sell to parents for $10 each. Best of all, many of his blue chippers had impressed the high school coaches who’d come to Betsy Head to get a look at the latest crop of Mo Better prospects. Hart had wowed them with his demeanor and footwork. Chaka had displayed and his remarkable instincts for catching a football. Naz had rifled tight spirals across the field. And Isaiah, with his smarts and speed, had outshone everybody. Two weeks into spring and already Chris was sure his program was on its way back to the championship form of years past. “Been a while since I’ve been this excited for a season,” he said to Coach Gary.
It had been a perfect Saturday but for one thing: Gio hadn’t come to practice. This disappointed Chris. Gio had occasionally missed practice without good reason last season, so his absence wasn’t a shock. But Chris had been eager to introduce Gio to the South Shore and Grand Street coaches at the park. With practice over, he asked the coaches to wait while he called Gio’s mother. Gio lived a five-minute walk from the park, and Chris hoped the boy could hustle over before the coaches left.
Gio’s mother was in a panic when she picked up the phone. Gio had been missing since Thursday, she told Chris. He didn’t show up for school on Friday and he hadn’t been home. He hadn’t answered his cell phone, either. “I’ve already called the police,” she said.
7
BETWEEN SAVIORS AND A DEAD END
April 2014
JUST A COUPLE OF HOURS EARLIER, CHRIS WAS THINKING this would be one of his easier days, with nothing on the agenda more nerve rattling than impressing a few high school coaches, most importantly the one from Poly Prep––a former Mo Better player who graduated from the prestigious high school and was now one of the few black coaches on the football team’s staff. Chris was eager for the showcase. It was not often he had more than one middle schooler he could deem a “Poly Prep kid,” but the 2014 Pee Wees had 10-year-old Hart and 11-year-old Isaiah.
Both boys knew they’d have to work even harder to make up for the vacuum left by Oomz. Hart was sad to hear about Oomz’s departure from the team. Oomz was only a phone call away, and Hart hoped to maintain their friendship, but their relationship had been largely tied to football. The majority of their time together was at the park, and when Oomz came over, it was usually after practice.
Yet the news about Oomz was not even the worst news of the new year for Hart. His father had blown out both his knees during a basketball game at the jail where he worked. Mr. Hart was now stuck on his back, out indefinitely on medical leave. “You’ve gotta be the man of the house,” his father told him. The injury had cast a pall over the family, but his mother helped Hart keep his thoughts positive. Football was back, she reminded him. And the field was a good place to get your mind off things.
Spring practice was light and loose. Footwork drills and agility work. Learning plays and building lungs. Catching up with old teammates and sizing up new ones. Hart eyed the fresh faces, wondering which boys would stay through the summer and which would drop out before the pads came on. It was too soon to know what his Pee Wee team would look like in the fall, but at least he’d have Isaiah by his side. Though Hart had more experience playing, he looked up to the elder Isaiah. They were like-minded boys, respectful, laser focused, and highly invested in the sport. One day, Chris prophesized, they could very well be teammates at Poly Prep—maybe they’d even end up at the same Ivy League university. Watching Isaiah, taking in his speed and smarts and discipline and commitment, Hart felt confident about his team’s chances this year.
“Water break!” Coach James yelled midway through practice, as the high school coaches, all wearing ball caps and slacks, stood by the fence. The kids sprinted to the water fountain at the far end of the field. Isaiah was among the first there, but the fountain was broken. While most of his teammates jogged over to the bathroom to drink from the hose, Isaiah returned to the middle of the field. He stretched his legs and worked on his cuts.
This was an important season for Isaiah, and he took these months of preparation seriously. A year younger than Gio, he would be a seventh grader in the fall, and with the way things worked in New York City’s school system, his performance that year would largely set his academic path going forward. This was the year he would take the admissions tests for the city’s high schools, and this was the year he had to begin winning over the high school football coaches. It was a lot to think about, on top of all the other thoughts and pressures that flood a 12-year-old’s mind. His body was changing, muscles tightening and voice cracking, and when he talked he tried to make his voice deeper so it didn’t accidentally jump to a higher pitch. He often found himself distracted and preoccupied by the girls around him. He was developing a growing sense of self and a growing concern for his future.
He planned to play football in high school, but he wasn’t sure where he’d play. He wanted to go to Lincoln High School because of its prestigious football tradition. His mother, Roxanne, wanted him to go to one of the city’s eight specialized public high schools, renowned institutions that accepted only the select few students who scored highest on the Specialized High School Admissions Test. These schools were free, and city officials celebrated them as meritocratic bastions where all city kids had a fair shot at an elite education—“no matter what your ethnicity, no matter what your economic background is,” Mayor Mic
hael Bloomberg had once said. Yet the numbers didn’t reflect that. In a city where 70 percent of public high school students were black or Latino, only 12 percent of the students accepted into specialized high schools in 2014 were. It was indeed a tale of two public school systems. At around a fourth of city public schools, more than 90 percent of students tested below their grade level in reading and math. Roxanne prayed that Isaiah wouldn’t end up at one of these schools.
The ideal scenario, Isaiah and his mother agreed, was Poly Prep, which had a strong football program, excellent academics, and would get him ready for college. The institution’s sterling brand had been tarnished after revelations that school officials had failed to act on reports that the head football coach from 1966 to 1991 sexually abused boys, leading to a lawsuit settlement in 2012. But to mother and son, the Brooklyn private school represented only a gateway to a bright future. Coach Chris told Isaiah, “When you go to a school like that, those are the people you get to socialize with and later on in life these are the people you’ll know and it’ll give you opportunities.”
To get into Poly Prep he’d need good grades and high marks on the admission test. But even then, good grades and high marks meant little without what Chris called a “football scholarship.” The yearly tuition nearly matched Isaiah’s mom’s yearly salary. Fortunately, Isaiah was a talented football player. By the end of the previous season, he’d shown the coaches that he might be the next great Mo Better running back. He’d also proven to himself that he had a future with the sport. Now that he had a taste of football success, he wanted more. Isaiah couldn’t wait for the season to start, and though the first game was still months away, he was glad to at least be out on the field, juking past defenders with a ball in his arm.
Never Ran, Never Will Page 11
