For the surviving classmates, each death adds to the sense of despair they already deal with growing up in the inner city
Sunday, May 14, 2006
BY JONATHAN SCHUPPE AND JONATHAN CASIANO
Star-Ledger Staff
Yusef Johnson, 15, an honor student and football star, was shot while walking home from a girl's house on a summer evening.
Isaiah Stewart, 17, a recently released juvenile offender still wearing a monitoring bracelet, was gunned down two days before Christmas at 3:25 a.m.
Dawud Roberts, 16, a football player with college dreams, was stabbed in the middle of the afternoon outside his house by a 15-year-old neighbor who was bullying Roberts' younger brother.
Craig Harris, 16, described as a well-behaved student, was shot and killed while committing a robbery, according to police.
Two more died last week.
Central High School juniors Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson, both 16, were killed in a drive-by shotgun attack just after midnight Tuesday, election day. A 16-year-old was arrested Friday in the slayings.
In the past 18 months, at least 17 young men between the ages of 15 and 19 have been shot or stabbed to death in Newark streets.
Some were good kids. Some were not. Some had admirable school records. Some had lengthy juvenile records.
Mostly, they were normal kids growing up in a city where the desire to excel in school often competes with the desire to fit in on the street. They went to school, played sports and dreamed of college. But many also had friends in gangs, stayed out late and rode in stolen cars.
And while that number of teen homicides is troubling, it is not an anomaly in Newark. In fact, it is about the same death toll over similar periods in the previous decade, police say.
The difference now is the official response and public outcry.
In recent weeks Newark School Superintendent Marion Bolden called for new anti-violence measures, and Mayor-elect Cory Booker made street violence his main campaign issue.
Bolden said each death has a profound impact on the city's schoolchildren.
"There's a sense of depression, a sense of hopelessness among many of our schoolchildren," Bolden said. "They want to be hopeful and optimistic, but when you see this so often, it's scary."
In the communities, many say the deaths are building an aggregate sense of despair among friends and classmates left behind.
"Going to school in Newark, it happens a lot," said Reggie Campbell, 17, a West Side High junior who knew Kelvin Kelley. "By the time you finish getting over one of your friends another one probably gets killed."
RAISING THE ALARM
For a few years now, police and public officials have been concerned about the number of murders and shootings in Newark, even as other crimes have decreased. The alarm was raised again Tuesday when Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson were killed.
After the murders, Bolden used the word "madness" to describe the violence in her district, and the schools went into their oft-used crisis mode. Grief counselors were sent into Central High, and rooms were set aside for reeling students seeking help. In February, they had done the same thing at Central after another junior, Jamale Edwards, was shot to death following a Saturday afternoon basketball game.
"Central is a community where we try very hard to nurture a family atmosphere, so our children grieved very hard when they lost these three young people," principal Gregory W. Stewart said. "They'll be grieving for weeks, and we hope to get them past this point."
Classrooms set aside for counseling were packed Tuesday. By Friday, students were still coming in for advice or to sign a "wailing wall," where they wrote messages to their slain classmates.
The administration also asked staffers to be on the lookout for grieving students who weren't asking for help but may be hinting they need it.
"Some kids try to hold things in, but their body language lets you know," Stewart said. "Some write what they want to say in classroom essays. Some may make drawings on a math problem. So for the next month I'll tell my staff to look for these things because grieving is a long process."
With 17 deaths since the beginning of the 2004 school year, it is a never-ending process across the city.
At Weequahic High School, four students, including Craig Harris and Isaiah Stewart, have been killed since November.
A West Side High School junior, Alexis Alvarez, was shot while leaving a bodega on a Saturday afternoon in February 2005. West Side was touched again in August, when Yusef Johnson, who played on the school's football team, was killed. Johnson attended a magnet school, University High, where he was on the honor roll.
"In other areas, somebody might die in an accident or from some type of disease, but around here it's violence," said Derrick Causby, 16, one of Johnson's former teammates. "I say 'Hi' and 'Bye' to everybody because you don't know when you're not going to be able to say it anymore."
Malcolm X Shabazz High School football coach Dave McCombs, who coached Dawud Roberts, has seen many mourning students turn to prayer.
"In some cases, the kids may want revenge, but in most cases I see them being prayerful," he said. "As tough as these kids seem to be, in many cases it's a front. Many of them do go to church or a mosque, and many of the kids who claim to be reckless and being from streets are really from great families."
EMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCES
Outside Central High School last week, students who knew Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson said they had been taking their deaths hard.
"It's devastating when people who are your classmates die," said sophomore Chanel Dunston, 15, who took art classes with Kelley. "It makes you wonder if it's safe to go anywhere anymore, except your home."
Michael Greene, director of the Youth Consultation Service Center for the Prevention of Violence in Newark, said the students' reactions are typical. Whether a child is a victim of violence, witnesses violence or knows someone who falls victim to violence, it can have serious emotional consequences, he said.
"The response is typically one of depression and hopelessness and futurelessness," Greene said.
McCombs, the Shabazz High football coach, said the constant threat of violence sometimes encourages a reckless lifestyle -- and more violence.
"The kids want things, and they want it now because so often these kids don't think they're going to have longevity," he said.
"This continues to be an open wound," said Central High attendance counselor John Peterson. "Not just for the students but the teachers as well. But where's the Band-Aid going to come from? When will it stop?"
For more than two years, Bolden said, she has been pressing the police department and city council for help providing more security in her schools and along the routes students take to and from classes.
Bolden said her requests largely went unfilled until last year, when she, Newark Police Director Anthony Ambrose and officials in City Hall worked out an arrangement that allowed the district to hire six special police officers to patrol six of Newark's most troubled public schools.
One of those officers, Dwayne Reeves, was shot and killed last summer after he tried to break up a fight among summer school students at Weequahic High. After that, the police department added three city officers to patrols. Earlier this year, Ambrose agreed to put more officers at "hot spots" outside schools where students felt unsafe.
A COORDINATED EFFORT
To truly make a difference, Ambrose said, a coordinated plan is needed -- one that gets parents more involved in their children's lives, puts more police on the streets, gives kids more job and recreation opportunities and expands school programs to boost self-esteem and problem-solving skills.
"With all our great minds, we have the capacity to save our future," Ambrose said. "But it can't be done alone by the police department or the board of education or anyone else. The entire community has to be committed. Including the students."
For that kind of leadership, officials are looking to students like Sharita Williams, 16, a Central High School junior.
Months ago she talked to classmates about figuring out a way to do something to keep young people from killing each other. It seemed too overwhelming a problem until the murders of Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson, who were both childhood friends of hers. That shocked her into action.
"Someone dies and we're supposed to accept it and move on?" she said. "No one should be living like this."
Williams is now organizing a group of students called "Enough Is Enough," which she says will try to raise awareness of the devastation -- and stupidity -- of violence.
The first step will come tomorrow afternoon, when she and other Central students will hold a candlelight vigil at City Hall in memory of Kelley and Ferguson.
"Enough is enough," she said. "We need to make people see that we're not playing around.
"We have to change this."
Jonathan Schuppe covers Newark. He may be reached at jschuppe@starledger.com or (973) 392-7960. Staff writer Bill Kleinknecht contributed to this report.
For the surviving classmates, each death adds to the sense of despair they already deal with growing up in the inner city
Sunday, May 14, 2006
BY JONATHAN SCHUPPE AND JONATHAN CASIANO
Star-Ledger Staff
Yusef Johnson, 15, an honor student and football star, was shot while walking home from a girl's house on a summer evening.
Isaiah Stewart, 17, a recently released juvenile offender still wearing a monitoring bracelet, was gunned down two days before Christmas at 3:25 a.m.
Dawud Roberts, 16, a football player with college dreams, was stabbed in the middle of the afternoon outside his house by a 15-year-old neighbor who was bullying Roberts' younger brother.
Craig Harris, 16, described as a well-behaved student, was shot and killed while committing a robbery, according to police.
Two more died last week.
Central High School juniors Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson, both 16, were killed in a drive-by shotgun attack just after midnight Tuesday, election day. A 16-year-old was arrested Friday in the slayings.
In the past 18 months, at least 17 young men between the ages of 15 and 19 have been shot or stabbed to death in Newark streets.
Some were good kids. Some were not. Some had admirable school records. Some had lengthy juvenile records.
Mostly, they were normal kids growing up in a city where the desire to excel in school often competes with the desire to fit in on the street. They went to school, played sports and dreamed of college. But many also had friends in gangs, stayed out late and rode in stolen cars.
And while that number of teen homicides is troubling, it is not an anomaly in Newark. In fact, it is about the same death toll over similar periods in the previous decade, police say.
The difference now is the official response and public outcry.
In recent weeks Newark School Superintendent Marion Bolden called for new anti-violence measures, and Mayor-elect Cory Booker made street violence his main campaign issue.
Bolden said each death has a profound impact on the city's schoolchildren.
"There's a sense of depression, a sense of hopelessness among many of our schoolchildren," Bolden said. "They want to be hopeful and optimistic, but when you see this so often, it's scary."
In the communities, many say the deaths are building an aggregate sense of despair among friends and classmates left behind.
"Going to school in Newark, it happens a lot," said Reggie Campbell, 17, a West Side High junior who knew Kelvin Kelley. "By the time you finish getting over one of your friends another one probably gets killed."
RAISING THE ALARM
For a few years now, police and public officials have been concerned about the number of murders and shootings in Newark, even as other crimes have decreased. The alarm was raised again Tuesday when Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson were killed.
After the murders, Bolden used the word "madness" to describe the violence in her district, and the schools went into their oft-used crisis mode. Grief counselors were sent into Central High, and rooms were set aside for reeling students seeking help. In February, they had done the same thing at Central after another junior, Jamale Edwards, was shot to death following a Saturday afternoon basketball game.
"Central is a community where we try very hard to nurture a family atmosphere, so our children grieved very hard when they lost these three young people," principal Gregory W. Stewart said. "They'll be grieving for weeks, and we hope to get them past this point."
Classrooms set aside for counseling were packed Tuesday. By Friday, students were still coming in for advice or to sign a "wailing wall," where they wrote messages to their slain classmates.
The administration also asked staffers to be on the lookout for grieving students who weren't asking for help but may be hinting they need it.
"Some kids try to hold things in, but their body language lets you know," Stewart said. "Some write what they want to say in classroom essays. Some may make drawings on a math problem. So for the next month I'll tell my staff to look for these things because grieving is a long process."
With 17 deaths since the beginning of the 2004 school year, it is a never-ending process across the city.
At Weequahic High School, four students, including Craig Harris and Isaiah Stewart, have been killed since November.
A West Side High School junior, Alexis Alvarez, was shot while leaving a bodega on a Saturday afternoon in February 2005. West Side was touched again in August, when Yusef Johnson, who played on the school's football team, was killed. Johnson attended a magnet school, University High, where he was on the honor roll.
"In other areas, somebody might die in an accident or from some type of disease, but around here it's violence," said Derrick Causby, 16, one of Johnson's former teammates. "I say 'Hi' and 'Bye' to everybody because you don't know when you're not going to be able to say it anymore."
Malcolm X Shabazz High School football coach Dave McCombs, who coached Dawud Roberts, has seen many mourning students turn to prayer.
"In some cases, the kids may want revenge, but in most cases I see them being prayerful," he said. "As tough as these kids seem to be, in many cases it's a front. Many of them do go to church or a mosque, and many of the kids who claim to be reckless and being from streets are really from great families."
EMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCES
Outside Central High School last week, students who knew Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson said they had been taking their deaths hard.
"It's devastating when people who are your classmates die," said sophomore Chanel Dunston, 15, who took art classes with Kelley. "It makes you wonder if it's safe to go anywhere anymore, except your home."
Michael Greene, director of the Youth Consultation Service Center for the Prevention of Violence in Newark, said the students' reactions are typical. Whether a child is a victim of violence, witnesses violence or knows someone who falls victim to violence, it can have serious emotional consequences, he said.
"The response is typically one of depression and hopelessness and futurelessness," Greene said.
McCombs, the Shabazz High football coach, said the constant threat of violence sometimes encourages a reckless lifestyle -- and more violence.
"The kids want things, and they want it now because so often these kids don't think they're going to have longevity," he said.
"This continues to be an open wound," said Central High attendance counselor John Peterson. "Not just for the students but the teachers as well. But where's the Band-Aid going to come from? When will it stop?"
For more than two years, Bolden said, she has been pressing the police department and city council for help providing more security in her schools and along the routes students take to and from classes.
Bolden said her requests largely went unfilled until last year, when she, Newark Police Director Anthony Ambrose and officials in City Hall worked out an arrangement that allowed the district to hire six special police officers to patrol six of Newark's most troubled public schools.
One of those officers, Dwayne Reeves, was shot and killed last summer after he tried to break up a fight among summer school students at Weequahic High. After that, the police department added three city officers to patrols. Earlier this year, Ambrose agreed to put more officers at "hot spots" outside schools where students felt unsafe.
A COORDINATED EFFORT
To truly make a difference, Ambrose said, a coordinated plan is needed -- one that gets parents more involved in their children's lives, puts more police on the streets, gives kids more job and recreation opportunities and expands school programs to boost self-esteem and problem-solving skills.
"With all our great minds, we have the capacity to save our future," Ambrose said. "But it can't be done alone by the police department or the board of education or anyone else. The entire community has to be committed. Including the students."
For that kind of leadership, officials are looking to students like Sharita Williams, 16, a Central High School junior.
Months ago she talked to classmates about figuring out a way to do something to keep young people from killing each other. It seemed too overwhelming a problem until the murders of Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson, who were both childhood friends of hers. That shocked her into action.
"Someone dies and we're supposed to accept it and move on?" she said. "No one should be living like this."
Williams is now organizing a group of students called "Enough Is Enough," which she says will try to raise awareness of the devastation -- and stupidity -- of violence.
The first step will come tomorrow afternoon, when she and other Central students will hold a candlelight vigil at City Hall in memory of Kelley and Ferguson.
"Enough is enough," she said. "We need to make people see that we're not playing around.
"We have to change this."
Jonathan Schuppe covers Newark. He may be reached at jschuppe@starledger.com or (973) 392-7960. Staff writer Bill Kleinknecht contributed to this report.
should be concerned; concerned for the liveihood of all children not just their own children whenever they leave home. And the council sits up in their chambers getting fat while all these murders in the city of Newark are taking place in their wards. But it hasnt happened to any of their children, yet, so they act as if these murders are not happening. And as long as they are not shooting at me and mine, I'm not concerned. Why? because I have around the clock protection at my home.
should be concerned; concerned for the liveihood of all children not just their own children whenever they leave home. And the council sits up in their chambers getting fat while all these murders in the city of Newark are taking place in their wards. But it hasnt happened to any of their children, yet, so they act as if these murders are not happening. And as long as they are not shooting at me and mine, I'm not concerned. Why? because I have around the clock protection at my home.
I hope we don't expect murder to stop simply because Cory and Company take office. We've got to be more realistic. Children are dying on the streets -- especially black children -- everyday. The problem is greater than any good-intentioned mayor.
Now, I'm confident that Cory will take every deliberate effort to reverse this muderous trend, but, I said it before, I'll say it again: black folks need to direct our misfocused anger and outrage to our federal government. We've got to stop classifying ourselves. We all have our racism stories to one degree or another whether we grew up in Harrington Park or Parkhurst Street. We need straight talk in our country about a coherent urban policy with public safety as a major component. Our mayor-elect needs to talk to Mark Morial about stepping this game up. They're natural allies in reinvigorating a new urban deal.
With black executives leading the charge yet seeking to include at all levels every person of goodwill, America, including black America, needs to be educated on the truth of the state of the American Dream. Studies like the one I posted here on Newarkspeaks recently debunking the American dream need to be made known more widely. Even France, with its social/racial issues has more upward mobility than the United States! We're closer to class-based England!
America needs to understand that poverty creates dysfunction. The dramatic school dropout rates, astronomical levels of incarceration, joblessness, second-rate education are not as much moral issues as they are of the structural economy. It's simply a fact, although we all know folks whose children would do better if they took certain steps. It cannot stop there! It's also shown that people who believe in a future for them and theirs are more apt to straighten themselves up on their own. They feel vested in a future in society.
I know I'm soapboxing again... LOL... Anyway...
We got 1/2 trillion dollars for a war of choice and we rather just blame the victims of our poor urban policies instead of finding the funds to successful programs nationwide like the Harlem Children's Empowerment Zone.
The answers are there. We have to insist that the issues are addressed. Nothing is more important. We need true talk dramatically set at the feet of the oppressor-without-portfolio. There's no reason for so much hopelessness. There's no reason for so much death.
Although I wish him well, Cory will not be able to solve muder or crime in Newark. It's a federal problem. All Mr Booker can do is reduce percentage-wise the instances. His most effective tool, unfortunately will be to lock more of our children and young adults up. And, you know, most of us will follow the majority's way and support it (can you imagine if it were their children how differently this whole problem would be perceived) even with scowls on our face. At least until the code of the streets is visited on us. Oh, the anger and shame. One-third of us are under court supervision in some locales. ONE-THIRD!! ONE out of every TWO striving, working black men in NYC between 2002-04 was without employment. These are not lazy people! And to really burst the bourgeois bubble--two families, one black, one white, same income, in the suburbs--the black families' children don't maintain that equality in SAT tests. The best predictor of test results is race!
I don't want to ever run away from any reality because that's how you effect change. All of this is forms the bedrock of my opinion with the $80 million, deputy mayors with gubmint jobs, etc., etc. That's another thread.
It is well documented that a very small percentage of the population is committing a majority of the crime.
STEP 1: Create a fugitive squad and round up all the fugitives and parole violators. I'm talking about people that are wanted criminals. What do you think they are doing, playing bingo and carrying out works of charity? This had a major effect in NYC.
STEP 2: Enforce quality of life crimes. Guess what - the guy who is committing murders is probably committing other lesser crimes too. When NYC-Transit cranked up fare evasion enforcement, they found a lot of the evaders were carrying weapons and were wanted.
STEP 3: Aggressively go after guns. If you're carrying one, you get locked up. Period.
STEP 4: Pass and enforce career criminal laws.
STEP 5: Provide effective drug rehab to whomever needs it.
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From SL - Newark's Dying Youth
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