In the school's auditorium, a forum of concerned community leaders has gathered to take another crack at eradicating youth violence - the age-old problem plaguing their community of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
They walk past a poster bearing the face of Rashawn Brazell, a former student killed in a grisly attack two years ago that left the 19-year-old's dismembered body on the A-train tracks of a subway station seven blocks away. The New York Police Department has offered $22,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction but no one has come forward.
Beneath Brazell's photo is one of 16-year-old Shaqual May, who was stabbed at a dance party in Bushwick just outside Bedford-Stuyvesant two months ago. The NYPD is offering $2,000 for information about his murder. It is a small price to pay for the risk of retaliation, which keeps some crime witnesses in the neighborhood from speaking out.
Seated in the auditorium of the Brooklyn Academy High School on Marcy Avenue are former gang members, law enforcement officials, religious leaders and community activists with a common message: stay out of trouble.Interspersed among the 150 or so guests are about 20 young people weighing the speakers’ messages against those of their peers. For adults, staying out of gangs - the topic of the annual youth empowerment forum earlier this month - is easier said than done.
"They think they'll be safe," says 14-year-old Dominique Johnson – who lives and attends school in the neighborhood - explaining why some of her friends are in gangs. Her name has been changed for this story to protect her. "They think if they join gangs they won't get jumped. I had it happen to me last week. These girls tried to jump me because I wouldn't join their gang,” said Dominique.Ask anyone in the room what attracts kids to gangs and they give a different answer. Sixteen-year-old Tyrone Phillips of Brownsville, whose names has been changed for this article, blames peer pressure. Marion Little, who chairs the local community board's Youth, Parks and Recreation committee has an emphatic one-word explanation: "Economics." He pauses and adds, "No job opportunities. Maybe broken homes. No father figure."
The forum comes by chance on the same day the Daily News reported a spike in shootings and murders in north Brooklyn precincts, to 142 from January to mid-May, compared with 131 in the same period last year. It comes the day after three shootings wounded a 19-year-old in Bedford-Stuyvesant and a teenager in Bushwick and killed another 19-year-old in East New York in an incident immediately deemed gang-related.
"When you hear like yesterday that three people got shot on one day, it's a horrific statistic," says Beatrice Jones, chair of Community Board 3, blaming guns, lack of summer jobs and a low high school graduation rate for the violence. "Hopefully we can get the kids into these organizations and keep them off the street."
That is, indeed, the purpose of the forum and many like it: to offer solutions to the problem casting a shadow on streets chock full of vibrant churches, entrepreneurial spirit and stunning architecture, and rich with African American history. Bedford-Stuyvesant is home to Weeksville, a village founded by free African Americans in 1838, just 11 years after the end of slavery. It is the hometown of filmmaker Spike Lee, comedian Chris Rock and rap artist Jay-Z.
But it is also sending a large number of young men to prison. It has a historically high rate of violent crime and a high rate of poverty.That has not stopped the developers. New buildings - mostly residential - are popping up all over the neighborhood, and many of the old ones are branded with "For Sale" signs posted by out-priced, longtime residents.
In the northern section, Hasidic Jews are relocating from a rapidly gentrifying Williamsburg that can no longer accommodate their growing population. To the west, new arrivals to high-priced Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are moving past Classon Avenue, which some realtors call Stuyvesant Heights. A two-year-old Century 21 real estate office on the border of Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant is helping new arrivals find homes.Bedford-Stuyvesant's legacy as a center of African American culture and empowerment is being threatened, and some say the frustration is causing more violence.
"It's not development for those that are in the community now," says Rudolph Muhammad, a local Emergency Medical Services worker. "People are frustrated. Everything's happening around us. Everything is going up except the paycheck. It just causes them to lash out."On bad days, community leaders question how a neighborhood of apartment buildings will survive without infrastructure improvements or new services. On good days they encourage young people to apply for the construction jobs generated by the development; they hold job fairs, first-time homebuyer workshops and anti-violence forums.
Today is a good day. In the hallway outside the auditorium, Wadell English from the Fire Department's Office of Recruitment and Diversity is handing out job applications. Reverend Timothy Taylor of the Hebron Baptist Church is giving a motivational speech about coming from a single-parent household in the housing projects of Queens to providing a positive male role model for his three sons.Dominique's brother, an 18-year-old basketball player, is receiving a $400 check from the 79th Precinct Community Council to help him buy books when he becomes a freshman at a local university next year, where he plans to study business management. "Playing basketball could take me a lot of places in life," he says shyly from behind a podium, where he reads his speech quickly. "I always wanted to create my own business."
But as the forum winds down, negativity begins to emerge as three hours have passed and no definitive solutions have been found."More and more of our youth are going to jail. It's a revolving door," says a former gang member. "This is a long-standing problem. The people who it does not affect don't really care."
The media, who frequent Bedford-Stuyvesant when its residents commit crimes, are not around to hear him speak."I'm watching the murder rate and the ambulette call rate going up daily," says Muhammad. "The murder rate is going to explode. We don't need any more plans and programs. We need action. We need jobs."
The conversation turns to suspicion that city government is trying to slash funding for a summer youth employment program."There's no reason that we shouldn't know exactly how much money is in the job program," says Bronc Stallings, a corrections officer at the Riker's Island prison facility. “It is unfair that that happens and that can't happen another summer."
Newly elected Assemblyman Hakim Jeffries stands up to respond. "We haven't been told that there is a shortfall but if there is we will definitely step in," he says about funding for the program. Several people respond that the jobs were poorly advertised and the application deadline is fast approaching. They are worried about summer, when violence typically escalates.Muhammad confirms later that he expects a spike around Memorial Day like he sees around the winter holidays, usually followed by a drop. "It didn't go back down this time," he says, calling for developers to offer more jobs to local youth as one possible solution.
Then he warns the adults about what might happen to the neighborhood’s youth if no solution is found. "They're going to turn on us,” Muhammad says. “Because we were supposed to be looking out for them."
Emily F. Keller wrote this article at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
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