MEMPHIS HAD 158 HOMICIDES LAST YEAR.
Posted on 06/23/2002 5:42:12 AM PDT by GailA
Child murders shine harsh light on gang problem in Memphis
By Kevin McKenzie mckenzie@gomemphis.com June 23, 2002
Gangs don't worry LaShun Woody.
Woody, 29, mother of four, lives in the South Memphis apartment complex where gang-related gunfire killed a 10-year-old boy, Damien Woodard, on April 14.
"Gangs don't kill people, people kill people," Woody said last week, sitting outside an Oak Park apartment at twilight with friends.
"People in gangs are nothing but individuals that are in selective groups," she said.
With at least three Memphis children murdered this spring by stray gunfire linked to gangs or illegal drug deals gone bad, Woody's view may be the mildest that Crips, Bloods or Gangster Disciples are likely to see.
Gangs already were a target of local prosecutors and police agencies for several years, but the fatal shootings of four children this spring and the serious wounding of a fifth have sparked public outrage.
The children clearly killed by stray bullets in gang or drug-related shootings - Damien, Marrqutte Mason, 9, on May 26 and Jessica Borner, 3, on June 12 - have focused new attention on gangs. "I have 18 confirmed gang members serving at least a life sentence for homicide," said Jennifer Nichols, director of the Anti-Gang Team in the District Attorney General's Office. "Three of them were death penalty."
Last year, gangs in Memphis were responsible for 13 murders, 27 rapes, 79 business robberies, 423 robberies of individuals, 73 carjack ings and 239 cases of aggravated assault, police statistics show.
The total number of gang-related crimes last year, 854, was down from 908 in 2000. Crimes involving three or more suspects are considered gang-related.
The Metro Gang Unit - Memphis police and Shelby County sheriff's deputies united in October 2000 to combat gangs - often identifies gang members by asking them. About 10,000 confirmed gang members are listed in the Anti-Gang Team's computers. However, roughly 4,100 of those names are the men considered active, prime targets for the law.
Crips, Bloods and Gangster Disciples are gangs imported to Memphis from other cities. The Gangster Disciples have roots in Chicago; the Crips and Bloods in Los Angeles.
Another major name is the Memphis MOB. Authorities say there are about 125 separate groups in the area.
Memphis gang members often align themselves with the larger, nationally known gangs, but band together in smaller groups and localize the gang name, authorities said.
Most members of the Kansas Crips, for example, may live on Kansas Street. While young, black men are the usual suspects, authorities have identified local gangs composed primarily of white, Hispanic and Asian members.
And where there are criminal gangs, often there are illegal drugs.
"One of the problems with gangs, in addition to the fact that they are very violent, is they are very organized and one of their main businesses is trafficking of narcotics," said J. Robert Carter, director of the West Tennessee Violent Crime & Drug Task Force.
However, illegal drugs by themselves, without gangs, may also lead to violence like drive-by shootings, said C. Ronald Huff, professor and dean at the University of California Irvine School of Social Ecology and a past president of the American Society of Criminology.
"Don't automatically assume drive-bys are gang-related," Huff said. "They may be drug-related."
The most recent Memphis gang member convicted of murder was Detrick D. Cole, 22, Nichols said.
In April, a Criminal Court jury sentenced Cole to death for the Raleigh-area murder in October 2000 of Santeife Thomas, 27. Cole's motive was $15 and respect, prosecutors said.
Cole is an example of how gang members are given opportunities to quit criminal life before authorities seek the most severe penalties available. "When he was 15, he was bound over to be held as an adult for rape, kidnapping, robbery and reckless endangerment," Nichols said.
Cole was then given a shot at improving his life by the judge, prosecutors and parents saying they were willing to do everything they could to help, she said. He blew the chance.
"The next time we got him, it was on murder one," Nichols said.
On Friday, the third and final suspect charged with murder in the drug-related shooting of Jessica Borner at a house full of people on Rosamond turned himself in to police.
Veronica F. Coleman-Davis, a former federal prosecutor, said law enforcement and the criminal justice process should hold such men responsible for what they did.
But law enforcement only provides a short-term solution and not one for the long term, said Coleman-Davis, who served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee for about 7d years until last August.
She now serves as president of the National Institute for Law & Equity Inc. in Memphis.
The new institute has 12 black former U.S. attorneys as its board, she said. Its mission is to stimulate discussion about criminal justice issues and their effect on Americans, particularly on black people and other minorities.
Long-term solutions go beyond law enforcement, Coleman-Davis said.
"I think the rest of the community has to start talking about taking a look again at what creates the climate for this type of lawlessness," she said.
"Not knowing anything about the backgrounds of these young men, maybe that's where we ought to start. We start there so often."
She pointed to extensive national interest by the media and others in probing the lives of two students who in April 1999 killed 13 people with guns and bombs before taking their own lives in an attack on Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo.
The Columbine perpetrators were white and not from poor neighborhoods.
"We don't do that very often with young black men," Coleman-Davis said. "But they do have families. They weren't created the night before the crime was committed. The leadership needs to take the time to put together the kinds of multidisciplinary task forces that they've done in other communities to address what are social problems."
An example of this multidisciplinary approach in Memphis is the Community Institute for Early Childhood.
Composed of a broad group of 30 to 40 institutions, ranging from hospitals to local governments, the organization acts on the theory that the root causes of violence begin in the womb.
A book, Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence, by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley, provides inspiration for this new, long-term crime prevention strategy.
"I think it's a book everybody in the community should read," said Barbara Holden, executive director of the institute. Based on new brain research, the book's authors say that how children are nurtured in their first 33 months of life, from conception onward, determines a person's capacity for empathy and impulse control.
Therefore, ensuring proper brain development in early childhood works to prevent a host of future problems, from school delinquency to criminal violence.
The Community Institute for Early Childhood plans to put the theory into practice through community-based research, demonstration projects and other steps, Holden said.
One of its first public steps has been to make a community services directory available on the Internet through Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center's Web site. The directory inventories services for children from their prenatal stage through age 5.
Coleman-Davis also points to the need for broad community involvement to fight gangs and other violent crime. Even joining a Neighborhood Watch group is one example of getting involved, she said.
However, neighborhood-level crime fighting suffered a blow this spring.
Memphis Metropolitan Neighborhood Watch, an organization that acted as the home office for the area's groups, ran out of money, shut its doors and laid off two staff members who had worked for several weeks without pay.
Mike Rossi, a longtime board member, said the roughly 1,400 existing Neighborhood Watch groups in the Memphis area are basically self-sufficient and still running.
But "now is not the time to be killing any kind of crime prevention program," said Lisa Price, executive director when the organization collapsed.
- Kevin McKenzie: 529-2348
MEMPHIS HAD 158 HOMICIDES LAST YEAR.
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