by Lynette Holloway
“Black-on-black” crime– especially gang violence– happens every day, but doesn’t receive the same attention as more racially charged incidents. We delve into the whys of intra-racial crime and what’s being done about it.
When Jason J. Davis set out to settle a score with a compatriot of the Bloods who “had messed up,” his mission was clear: teach him a brutal lesson. The then 23-year-old pursued his prey with the venomous rage of a man with a personal vendetta, even though they had no beef. “That was just his penalty,” he told UPTOWN magazine recently in a telephone interview from his home in Harlem.
The attempted execution took place one day in October 2003, just as a chill began to hang in the air of Dover, Del. Davis and two other gang members rode around with their target in a car and stabbed him repeatedly—a total of 16 times—until he was on the brink of death.
The victim survived, and Davis spent the next four years on the run. He became one of Delaware’s Most Wanted before he was finally captured in May 2007 as he walked down a street in Lebanon, Pa. He pleaded to a charge of conspiracy to commit a felony and spent a year in prison. A charge of attempted murder was dropped after prosecutors failed to prove a case.
Today, Davis, 31, is a changed man. He joined forces with Terrie M. Williams, founder of the Terrie Williams Agency public relations firm and The Stay Strong Foundation, which is dedicated to youth advocacy, to work as a mentor. He also became Williams’ mentee. Davis heard about the PR guru through another Blood named DaShaun Morris, who was writing a gang-awareness book, War of the Blood in My Veins: A Street Soldier’s March Toward Redemption. Williams promptly recruited Davis to write poetry for the project.
It’s a good thing. Davis had been a poster child for gang-affiliated bloodshed, which is a neighborhood scourge in urban cities across the nation—New York to Philadelphia, Chicago to Los Angeles. Elected officials, law enforcement authorities, and more and more “civilians” continue to grapple with gang violence, even as the FBI reports that violent crimes and murders declined by about 6 percent in the first half of 2011.
The reality of black-on-black crime is not only a tragedy in black communities, but it has become the rallying cry of conservatives in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting. Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old African-American, was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a white Hispanic, in Sanford, Fla., after a still-contested altercation in February. Because Martin was unarmed and Zimmerman was not initially charged, there have been scores of emotional protests across the country. Yet, many on the right say that Zimmerman is a statistical anomaly, and the truth is that a black man is most likely to die at the hands of another black man.
During an episode of ABC’s This Week, Washington Post columnist George Will said that despite the Martin tragedy, “150 black men are killed every week in this country” and “about 94 percent of them by other black men.”
And though pundits like Edward Wyckoff Williams have pointed out that whites, as the largest racial group, commit the majority of violent crimes in America, it almost seems like a hollow statistical tit for tat. In an op-ed column for TheRoot.com,Wyckoff Williams writes, “With respect to aggravated assault, whites led blacks 2–1 in arrests; in forcible-rape cases, whites led all racial and ethnic groups by more than 2–1. And in larceny theft, whites led blacks, again, more than 2–1.”
REASONS
Yet, while these statistics negate the conservative agenda of painting all violent offenders as African-American men, there is still the very real issue of black-on-black violence and gang activity. It is a particularly pressing issue as summer approaches, because this is when cities traditionally see a spike in crime. Consequently, there are those working tirelessly to rid the streets of guns and break the backs of gangs.
Terrie Williams, who worked as a clinical social worker before public relations, and who is the author of Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting, believes a lot of violence is a manifestation of pain and untreated depression. “We prey on one another,” she says about all crime— regardless of the race of the perpetrator or victim. “It’s what it is. I showed some kids at an at-risk high school a public service announcement that we did for StoriesThatHeal.com, a web site for individuals living with mental illness, and this kid gets up very courageously and says that he stabbed somebody like seven times. After that, he said something that really pierced my spirit. He said that he wasn’t even mad at the person he stabbed.”
Williams says that part of the problem of crime in black communities is the way blacks are treated in society. “Every day we are made to feel less than, like we don’t matter. I say that in front of mixed groups because it’s true. Barack Obama is the president of the United States and people call him out of his name. He doesn’t matter to them. We have to change the dialogue. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
THE SNITCHING SOLUTION
Troi Torain, the former Star & Buc Wild radio show shock jock of Philadelphia was so incensed by violence in the black community that he launched the Start Snitching campaign last year. The program, aimed at getting residents to report gang activity, has achieved moderate success by using the Internet and anonymous tips to help tackle violence. Since mid-October, Torain has been using his @startsnitching Twitter account to inform followers about unsolved crimes in Philadelphia and around the nation.
“The Internet provides a better way for people, especially in small communities, to build a unified front to help with the apprehension of those committed to a lower standard of living,” says the former host of the morning show on Philly’s 100.3 FM “The Beat”. “Although some will argue that the message of the police to ‘protect and serve’ gets lost in translation, [as] people of color [we] have to hold ourselves responsible for the future of our children.”
Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter has resolved to tackle the problem, too. During the inaugural address for his second term last January, he called crime in the black community a local and national epidemic that has not sufficiently been talked about, much less tackled. He lamented that too many Philadelphians feel unsafe in their own neighborhoods.
Nutter urged residents to have an honest conversation about the things that are holding them back—including the economy and joblessness—and asks, “What are we prepared to do about them [as a community]?” The most sobering part of his speech was when he turned to the murder rate.
Of the 317 people who were murdered in Philadelphia last year, 83 percent were killed with a handgun, and nearly 75 percent of those were African-American men, he said. Also, about 80 percent of those accused of the crimes were African-American men.
One way to tackle Philadelphia’s crime problem is to add more police to the streets, Nutter says, explaining that there will be 120 new officers on foot patrol in time for summer. Additionally, he announced plans to build partnerships with the community through community policing.
“Working with mayors around the country and with leaders in our own community… we have started to develop strategic action plans to deal with the proliferation of illegal guns and the fact that people and their guns are wiping out an entire generation of African-American men and boys,” Nutter said during the address. “We are developing a new approach, which we will roll out in the coming months, to getting these illegal guns off our streets—targeting the people who have them, the people who are supplying them, and the neighborhoods that they’re operating in (five police districts account for almost 50 percent of the homicides in the city)—and working with our partners at all levels of government to go after them aggressively and relentlessly. Every day.”
CHICAGO GANGLAND
Earlier this year, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called on the Illinois General Assembly to pass a law to target gang members with federal-style racketeering cases. The mayor’s call for antigang legislation comes as murders rose 60 percent citywide for the first three months of 2012, compared to the same period last year. Most of those slayings were gang-related.
According to the FBI and the most recent Chicago Crime Commission Gang report, the city and Cook County is estimated to have more than 68,000 gang members. Prominent gangs include the Gangster Disciples, the Black Disciples, the Black P Stones, the Vice Lords, and the Latin Kings. The legislation would allow racketeering prosecutions of anyone charged with participating directly or indirectly in gang activity through violent crimes, gun and drug crimes, or the collection of illegal debts. A conviction would carry a prison term of 10 to 30 years, along with a fine of up to $250,000.
“We cannot fight criminal gang violence alone and need additional tools to go after gangs in our city and throughout Illinois,” Emanuel wrote in a letter in March to Illinois Senate President John Cullerton.
ESCAPE
When Jason Davis returned home to Harlem following his release from prison in 2008, New York City was a hub of crime, homicides were up about 4 percent compared with the previous year. But the unmarried father of four children, who range in ages from 2 to 11, knew he needed to stay on a straight and narrow path. He worked closely with Williams, which helped, he says.
Davis also stays straight by remaining a member of the Bloods. He says he is still an active, but nonviolent, member, meaning he avoids criminal activities that gangs are known for, but instead counsels young men away from violence, preaching nonviolence like a Baptist minister in the pulpit on a Sunday morning.
“I truly believe when you know better, you do better,” says Davis. “The careless attitude of many criminals comes from giving up on the world. Many feel like no one cares if they live or die, let alone kill, rob, or steal from one another. Teaching people the means to make ends meet without hurting others is hard when you’ve been committing crimes and acts of violence as a way of life. But I’m committed.”
Davis, who experienced a violent upbringing, has learned that much of the violence he engaged in was, in part, the result of post-traumatic stress disorder. He says that just before he was arrested on the attempted murder charge, he was in such mental anguish that he was misdiagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic when he went to a hospital seeking help. Symptoms included suicidal and racing thoughts, agitation, and hallucinations, he recalls. He also suffered from night terrors because he worried that killers that were mirror images of him were stalking his family.
“I didn’t feel bad about killing someone who looked like me,” Davis says. “Killing a white person could be done, but what would I gain? I might gain news coverage, but that would limit you from doing other crimes. You stick to your people that no one cares about—other gangbangers. Who cares if a gangbanger kills another banger? But they care if, while trying to catch another gangbanger, you spray bullets at a 9-year-old girl who got straight A’s in school. The successful ones that people talk about in the neighborhood are the ones who kill each other and never get caught because it’s so under the radar. You make a name for yourself.
“Today, I preach against killing each other every chance I get,” he continues. “There are other ways to make a name for yourself, like holding down a job, being a good parent, and owning your own home. Those are things to strive for.”
