by Miles Harvey
My biggest fear is getting shot or ending up dead. ‘Cause I always think that the people that have something going for themselves, they end up being the one that’s gone first. Like my friend Cordero, he was just walking, and then mistaken identity, and he ended up getting shot in the head. I think it was a drive-by. They stopped and they was shooting and then he ended up getting shot. On 111th, down the hill, by the park.
Red, which is what we called David Rodgers.63 We graduated with honors from eighth grade, and he was real smart then. In our freshman year, we had honors classes and we was both getting A’s and B’s and, you know, he was doing something positive. And then hell broke loose. He started shooting people and robbing people. It just went from there. But I remember, like a week before he died, he knew he was going to get killed. He was like, “I know it’s too late, because I messed up.” And then, next thing you know, he died. He got killed. Right there on 115th and Michigan.
My one good friend, Gregory, he got killed just by walking. He was just walking. They was shooting, and then I remember we was in front of my grandma’s house. We all run in the house and my friend, he was walking, he was trying to run in the house and, next thing you know, he got shot in the face and just laid straight down. In front of my grandma’s house, on 65th and Washtenaw.
My other friend, Derrion Albert—you probably know about Derrion. We was all at a party the night before, and so, the next thing you know, Derrion got into a stupid argument. Um, I didn’t know it was going to wind up being that serious—you know, where they could just beat you to death.
Me and Derrion, we was close in his freshman year. I was a junior and he was a freshman. And we just clicked from then on. We was so cool. So cool and close. His killing affected me real bad. I mean, I couldn’t even sleep, ‘cause I’m like, “I just spoke to Derrion that day before.”
For a person to have that much hatred in their heart, where they have to hit you and beat you with a stick—it’s just sad. But I’m trying to not let what happened to him bother me. I could never forget it, but I could just erase it out, you know—just keep living life, just doing something positive. I mean, I’m trying to live a productive life. I’m still young. Life is too short, and life is passing by. So I’m not trying to waste time.
I live with my auntie now. She’s supportive; she’s real supportive, but
she lives off the first-of-the-month check. She’s never had a job. I don’t want to live life like that. I don’t want to live life half-the-way and get $674 a month just to pay the bills and then you don’t have no money left over. It’s like, your life is not going anywhere, ‘cause you settling for less than you could be.
I want to buy my own home someday. I don’t want to just live in someone else’s apartment. I’m going to move to a better place, like hopefully the suburbs somewhere. I’m just looking out for the better and the self in my life. When I look in the mirror, I see a positive person. I see me striving for the best in the future. Hopefully, I mean I was in college at Olive-Harvey, but I took a semester off because I needed to get a job. So I’m planning on going back in the fall. But right now, I’m just looking for a job. It’s kind of hard because I’m like, I don’t have no one to take care of me. I want to take care of myself but it’s like, a lot of jobs say they’re not hiring or, you know, call back next month. It’s, like, very hard.
I see a lot of teens my age, you know, they out here robbing, smoking, gangbanging, drinking. I’m just trying to live life and just stay away from all of that, but it’s kind of hard because it’s like we trapped in the environment. You can’t just play basketball, hang out with friends, go shopping. You can’t do that without getting robbed. Without getting shot at. So it’s basically like we living in a prison. We have to watch ourselves. Sit in the house and look out the window before we step out the door.
—Interviewed by Olivia Karim
Endnotes
63 This is the same “Red” whose killing Diane Latiker describes in her narrative.
I ONLY WORK HERE
THOMAS McMaHON
Retired Chicago Police Capt. Thomas McMahon was with the force for 37 years. From 1980 to 1996, he worked on gang homicides, a job he describes as tough but rewarding. During his career as a detective, McMahon worked on some of Chicago’s most high-profile cases, including the 1984 killing of Simeon Vocational High School basketball star Ben Wilson, the federal conspiracy case that led to the 1987 conviction of El Rukn gang leader Jeff Fort,64 and the 1998 rape and murder of Ryan Harris, an 11-year-old Englewood girl. He operated under fierce pressure. Just a few days before his retirement in 2010, in fact, he was running errands in his family minivan, when he heard gunshots and spotted two assailants who, he would later learn, had just killed a 20-year-old man. Unarmed, he chased the suspects in his car, drawing their gunfire as he called 911.
Now in his 60s, the white-haired and bespectacled McMahon drives through that same neighborhood in his brown Toyota, offering a tour of the streets he used to patrol on Chicago’s Far South Side.
I’m taking you to 111th and Vernon. A kid was killed here back in the middle of November. At 10 minutes to 12, not too far from our time frame right now, in broad daylight, two kids came out of the alley with .40-caliber guns and fired 25 rounds at this kid who was just standing there by the pole and killed him instantly.
The street corner here has a police camera on top. The assailants completed the job right under it. There’s a tape of them fleeing. They were 15 or 18, probably. They weren’t that old. They weren’t men. They didn’t wear hats or cover their faces, either. They could not have cared less if their faces were seen. They just came out and blasted. That case is still not cleared. We don’t know who did it.
You can see the flowers and flags and the signs over there on the pole. That is a memorial for the victim. It used to contain bottles, teddy bears, other flowers, with R.I.P. written on everything. We’ll see R.I.P. LeBron, R.I.P. Chico, or R.I.P. whoever it was that got killed, spray-painted on the side of a wall.
Let me tell you how police work works. For me to have a successful day, someone has to die. When you think about it, it’s a paradox: Someone has to suffer something major to them for me to have a successful day. Point blank, it’s a paradox.
So now I will present the problem to you. I can’t present the solution. (Should I have ever come up with a solution that would work, I would have written a book, made a million dollars and been long gone out of this city.) In order to understand gang violence, you need to understand the school situation. It will all happen in the school and carry over into the streets; something that happened in the streets the night before will be brought back into the schools. It gets to a point that no matter what the discipline level is in the school, the gangbangers do not care. They will walk into a classroom and attack a kid right in front of the teacher. Will they take a 10-day suspension for fighting? Absolutely. They do not care. It’s just that way. The gang becomes more important than the school. Besides, many of these kids who come to school don’t come for an education. School is where their friends, their girlfriends are; it’s about the socialization. When it all mixes into the school, and you have three or four different gangs all operating in the same school, the potential for gang violence is very high.
Michigan Avenue and 103rd—this unassuming, very idle street corner at 3 o’clock is the epicenter for gang violence. When school lets out, we have police officers literally at every corner. We have a new security program with guards patrolling Michigan Avenue for any gang activity. We have a police helicopter that flies overhead focusing right on this corner. CTA brings a number of buses, so we can get these kids on buses and out of these neighborhoods right away. At dismissal time, there’s an enormous amount of police resources that are used to create safe passage for the students to go back and forth. It’s unfortunate: You would think that even with all of these resources that it would create a safer environment.
There’s no one on the street right now
because of the time. Normally, they would be out all over the place, but the kids are in school, and those who are gang members who aren’t in school are laying up in their crib. Their break time is from school to 3 o’clock. But there will easily be 100 kids around at 3 o’clock. The most critical time is between 3 o’clock and 8 o’clock. If you can find something for a kid during that time, I can tell you it would keep kids away from gangs. If you even had an after-school center that kids could go to, and what you do is have them work on homework, work on a computer, socialize, play some games, whatever it is they do, they won’t have that fear of being threatened by a gang.
The question is, do gangs recruit members or are the members recruiting gangs? Some members will actually join the gang without being recruited. In the nature of how kids are, their streets, their alleys, their little area becomes their area of influence. They can’t control that block and that whole street; they can’t control the whole neighborhood, but they can become part of an organization that does. This is their world: “This is my block. I run it. I own it.” If those guys standing on the corner are all Black Gangster Disciples, then why would he go out and join another gang? These gangs are prepared because over the years, more than likely, they have offered the kid some kind of protection. He sees this as his peer group or the group that he looks up to.
Think about this: You’re 12 or 15 years old, and an older guy says to you, “Hey listen, shorty, if anyone ever messes with you, you come see me. I’m gonna take care of it for you. We’re out here and we’re running the street.” To a 12- or 15-year-old, it certainly puts an impression in his mind. He’s not getting that kind of support at home or at school. A gang gives a kid a sense of belonging, a sense of self-esteem that he’s not getting from anywhere else. Plus, you get to hang with a 21- or 22-year-old who’s been to jail, so it’s like, “Hey man, if he’s a bad guy and you’re hanging with him, then you must be a bad-ass too, you know.” The kid thinks, “Yeah, that’s right. I am somebody you don’t be messing with.” And that’s the only thing this kid has got in his life. If you think about it, he derives no other benefits from life except in the street gang culture.
In other social strata, you don’t see a 21-year-old hanging around with a 15-year-old. However, in the street gang culture, it’s not uncommon to see a wide range of ages of people who gather together in certain locations for camaraderie, for safety, for income. And everybody has a role. You’re a shorty; you’re a new guy; you’re going to be the lookout, and eventually then go to jail or get shot, and that’s how you come up in the order. And then you can take over my role as the drug dealer and become the beneficiary of the income that the gang has. Of course, everyone in it makes a little bit of money. The kids who are lookouts can make $50 to $100 a day.
It’s ironic that sometimes we find that a particular guy serves a four- to five-year sentence and then he comes back to their corner and wants to take over the corner. “Man, I’m back. This is all mine now. I’m running this corner.” And a guy who has been out there for four or five years ain’t ready to give up his role, so you have internal gang conflict. Somebody is going to get killed, either the boy who came out of jail or somebody on the corner to re-establish himself. The young buck goes, “You know what? Screw you, pal. While you’ve been inside, we’ve been out here dodging bullets.” And he’ll take the other guy on. I call this thinning the herd.
You see this guy over here with the hat on standing there with all those clothes on? He’ll be yelling something as people walk by. He’s the salesperson telling them where to buy. He doesn’t have anything on him. You can stop him and go all the way down to his underwear; he ain’t got it on him. If I ask him what he’s doing there, “I’m waiting on my cousin.” We’re not dumb. We know what he’s doing there. Or you’ll pull up to a kid standing there with two pairs of gloves, three hats on, four pairs of pants, boots. He is so insulated and freaking immobile that he’s been out on the corner for over an hour, and a cop pulls up asking, “What you doing?” and he says, “I’m waiting on my cousin. He’s coming down the street. He should be here any minute.” You drive off and come back an hour later, and he’s still standing there.
Why should they continue to go to school or get a job at McDonald’s for six or eight bucks an hour? It’s easy money. They just have to work two shifts. It’s a 24-7 operation. So $100 cash money, $500 a week, $2,000 a month, he buys his own gym shoes. In this case, he becomes the breadwinner in the family. He’s important. He’s bringing them the bacon. He’s 15, and mama won’t fight it. She won’t ask him what he’s doing. They need the money. It’s more than a welfare check.
It really starts with more economics. It starts with parenting. You’re looking at remarkable facets that are influencing this problem. Even then, you’re looking at street gangs in more affluent suburbs. People think street gangs are just in the city, but let me be the first to tell you, they are in the suburbs. They still have kids who establish street gangs out there. Sometimes there are actual branches of the original gang, and sometimes they are copycat gangs. It’s just a phenomenon, a cultural thing, that bad-boy image taken to another level. The question I always ask is, “If a wannabe gang member shoots another wannabe gang member, do you have a wannabe murder?”
Now this street, called Kensington, is Latin King territory. From this point forward—Michigan Avenue all the way east to the riverfront—is their territory.65 This is a Mexican food mart, a taco stand next to it; you have a lot of Hispanic people here. They have been here for years, I mean 30 to 40 years. We’re talking about third-generation Latin Kings. No one’s out here now, but if this was the summer or a Sunday afternoon, people would be all over. This is Prairie Street. This is definitely one of their locations.
You see the 7-4-11? Here’s one for you. What’s the seventh letter of the alphabet, the fourth and the 11th? G.D.K., Gangster Disciple Killer. It’s a warning to the Gangster Disciples that if they enter this territory, the Latin Kings will try and kill them. So with three numbers you probably wouldn’t pay attention to, the Latin Kings are identifying their territory and warning their rivals to stay out. Like I say, you can read it like a newspaper.
The local gangs all know that this is their neighborhood. They know the yards they can run through and they also know what houses they can run into. The streets are where they live. They are going to control that. No doubt about it. This is their territory. I don’t live here. I only work here.
—Interviewed by David Cueman
Endnotes
64 Jeff Fort was one of the founding members of the Blackstone Rangers, later known as the Black P Stone Rangers, the Black P Stone Nation and the El Rukns. In 1986, while in federal prison, he was indicted, along with other high-ranking El Rukns, for attempting to purchase high-powered weapons from Libya to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. government.
65 This corner is only a block and a half from Kids Off the Block, Diane Latiker’s community organization at 11621 S. Michigan Ave.
THE WALK HOME
JUAN AND ESTHER PITTS
For nearly three decades, Juan Pitts and the Rev. Dr. W. Esther Pitts have shared a life. They can tell endless stories about their relationship—including the one about being divorced once and married three times, and about their busy life mentoring children in Jeffery Manor, a South Side neighborhood with winding, mazelike streets and a history of gangs, guns and drugs.
The Pittses have raised two biological daughters and six children adopted from foster care. They have also taken in 14 other children in need of a stable home. Esther Pitts wears a flattering blazer and still has the flawless skin of her days as a model. Juan Pitts wears a sweater and slacks, and sports a subtle goatee. They are friendly and dignified, but their smiles appear weary. In February 2009, two of their teenage sons were killed within two weeks of each other. The Pittses stay busy with family life and church work, but they are in the process of leaving Chicago for the warmth—and the new memories—of Florida.
Esther: When my mom and dad purchased their home on the West Side, it had a cottage in the back, so we felt wealthy. It was a mixed community, predominately Caucasian and a few black families. I remember my mom would put on talent shows in the backyard. Her house was the type where all the kids, throughout the whole community, would come and sit. She taught the Bible, there in the basement.
We would ride our bikes to the Brach’s Candy Company. At some point, Brach’s decided they wanted to buy up all the homes so they could expand. It hurt so many people in the community. That’s when we moved to the South Side.
Esther: We met working at the Tropical Hut restaurant at 91st and Stony Island Avenue. It was a Hawaiian-type atmosphere. Very homey. People were so attached to this restaurant that they would come from as far as Carol Stream to eat there.
Juan: We all worked there: all my brothers, my mother, my whole family.
Esther: I think I was 23 when I met Juan, and then I ended up pregnant by him. I was only kicking it with him; we weren’t really a couple. I was modeling back then, and it took a lot of people for a shock, because I was so career-oriented. But I stopped working, because it was a high-risk pregnancy. After the baby was born, I was about to marry somebody else.
Juan: She wasn’t about to marry someone else.
Esther: I was. Because I knew enough about God to know that what I had done was out of God’s wishes. I was raised in a two-parent household, and I was really serious about marrying someone. Juan was like, “No, no, no, wait. Don’t do anything until I come over!” So he came over and changed my mind.