Articles
Publication: Chicago Sun-Times
Date: December 6, 1992
Author: Lee Bey
Section: SUNDAY NEWS
Edition: LATE SPORTS FINAL
Page: 1
Word Count: 1561
Street gang leader Stan Wright says he has been making rounds on his West Side turf for the last few weeks, talking to fellow gang members and working the phones like a United Nations delegate.
"It's all about keeping the peace," said Wright, 39, who heads the Black Souls gang. The peace is a citywide truce and cease-fire proclaimed by Chicago's 41 African-American street gangs after the sniper slaying of first-grader Dantrell Davis at Cabrini-Green.
To the cops and City Hall, it's all hype to avoid the heat generated by an outraged public, media attention, beefed up police patrols and sweeps of public housing.
Critics say that if the truce exists, it is a thinly veiled ruse to dim the spotlight on the gangs' primary livelihood: drug dealing. It is also their primary source of violence, they say.
"They should turn in their guns and get out of the narcotics business," Police Supt. Matt Rodriguez said. "They should get out of those activities and become productive in the community.
"And what about extortion?" he asked. "Again, if they diminish one activity and continue others, does that make the remaining activities OK? No."
Some drug dealing goes on - but not to the extent police say - and gang elders are trying to stop it, gang leaders said.
Behind the spin control by both sides, frontline police officers say something is going on. There have been fewer gang shootings in the last month, for whatever reason.
The effect, if any, on gang drug dealing is harder to gauge. Police say it is business as usual.
In their public statements since the Oct. 25 truce, gang leaders have not promised to give up dealing drugs or to disarm. But the gangs' 10-point peace plan denounces the sale of drugs and calls on gang members to seek education and increase their political awareness.
The bottom line? Prove it, says the city. Trust us, say the gangs.
"A lot of the older members are tired of ducking and dodging," Wright said. "We've got babies coming up behind us and we have to stop the violence. In fact, if there's anyone not talking about stopping the violence, I'm telling you, I ain't with them."
The leaders of Chicago's other gangs also have told their members to stop the killing, those close to the truce negotiations say. Gang chiefs are meeting daily, they say, to settle decades-old dis
putes and to smooth out day-to-day squabbles.
Complicating it all is more violence.
On Tuesday outside a West Side video arcade, four people were wounded in a gang-related shooting. Gang leaders say it was "personal" and not ordered from above.
Another fissure in the truce surfaced Thursday night at Woodson North Elementary School on the South Side. Two gang members opened fire on two rivals in a crowded gym during an after-school basketball game. One man was killed.
Police said it was a dispute between the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords, both signatories to the truce.
"If the (shooting is gang related), we will go to the heads of the organizations . . . and we will see if this was an ordered shooting, then we will go on from there " said communty activist Prince Asiel Ben-Israel, one of the architects of the truce.
"We know a thousand-mile journey starts with the first step," he said. "When we begin to see isolated incidents like this, we can understand where the pockets of crime are and indentify them."
Chicago isn't the only major urban center where gangs have declared peace. Members of Los Angeles' two largest black gangs embraced each other on national television in April during the uprising that followed the Rodney King verdict.
Gangs in Newark and Detroit also began peace talks this year.
"There is something in the wind," said Salim Muwakkil, who
lectures nationwide on African-American issues and hosts a call-in
show on WVON radio.
"It's too widespread not to be. We may be entering a new phase where people are serious about finding some other way to deal with life."
Hispanic and other white gangs in Chicago aren't part of the truce. And pessimism concerning the truce runs deep in some circles.
As a South Side tactical officer put it:
"I think some (gang members) on the lower level really have believed the hype and think this truce is out of altruism. But the deal is this: The leaders realize the drug `pie' is big enough to share and you don't need murder."
Area 2 Detective Cmdr. Robert Beavers:
"I know the murder rate for the month of November has gone down. But I don't know what to attribute it to. Is it the truce? Or is it colder weather? It's hard to say."
There were 133 gang-related murders last year. The toll so far this year is 100.
Police Supt. Rodriquez:
"If a group is involved in criminal activities then voluntarily (stops) that one element, that doesn't make a situation that should be rewarded. One is just as bad as the other, and the drug activity is robbing the United States of America of a whole generation of its youth."
South Side activist Otis Monroe, who worked with Englewood community leaders to quell gang violence last summer, has reservations.
"With the truce we have here in Englewood, there is outreach work going on, conflict management (lessons) and trying to plug in these people into jobs or what have you," he said. "I'm skeptical about the citywide truce. I went to some meetings on it and all I saw were (organizers) trying to get publicity for themselves."
Mayor Daley has scoffed at the truce, boring in on the drug dealing, and he refused to meet with gang leaders.
"The people talking about us know nothing about the ghetto," said Wright of the Black Souls. "Some of them are so uppity, they don't want to relate to us. They just figure its a scam, a joke; that it ain't going to work."
Part of that skepticism is no doubt deja vu. City gang leaders in the late 1960s announced a truce, and government money flowed to gang members, most notably Jeff Fort, the leader of the Blackstone Rangers.
Fort later was imprisoned for misappropriation of the funds. His Blackstone Rangers became the El Rukns crime organzation.
"People are looking at the gang truce of the 1960s, where that one guy misappropriated the funds," Wright said. "What makes this time (different) is that more (gang) families are involved. Back (in the 1960s), you had two, three, maybe four gangs saying they run the city. They didn't run the city. And people in the government got tricked."
Backing up this call for a truce is a 10-point plan called the "Declaration of Peace" that includes the denunication of drug sales
Gang leaders have also promised not to shelter members involved in shootings - - called "renegades" - during the truce. Ben-Israel said the gangs also would turn in drug dealers, and he pointed out street gangs do not illegally import narcotics.
"We can't stop the Colombian connection," he said. "We'd be ludicrous to think we could stop that. But the dope dealer in the community would be exposed."
Another truce organizer, Wallace "Gator" Bradley, spokesman for jailed Black Gangster Disciple gang leader Larry Hoover, said the ties between gangs and drugs are not as tight as people think.
"Gangs are not surviving off drug sales," said Bradley, who is also an aide to Cook County Commissioner Jerry Butler. "Only a few members of the organizations sell drugs. It's total hype. If all these young brothers were selling drugs, they would be
multimillionaires."
Wright said younger gang members sell drugs, but gang higher-ups would pass the word to stop selling for the sake of the truce.
"It's just a matter of following orders," he said. "Just a matter of an older member pulling a younger member to the side and saying, `Look, we're trying to do this.' "
Organizers of the truce said they have talked to the private sector, seeking the funds and know-how to turn the street gangs into legitimate businesses.
"We are proud the killing has stopped," said Earl King, founder of the No Dope Express Foundation.
"But everything takes time. Now that we have made a major step, lets put in an economic development plan that would enhance their communities (and deter) drug dealing."
Al Carter, founder of the Al Carter Youth Foundation near Cabrini-Green, said his area has been quiet since the accord was announced.
"People are maybe coming to their senses," he said. "But this should have been automatic. People should have been able to see that killing is wrong, that shooting somebody is crazy. They should have come to their senses a long time ago."
Gang Crimes South Cmdr. Ron Jablon said violence in his area has decreased since the truce, but pointed out shootings often occur in sporadic "cycles" thoughout the year.
Jablon also said increased police presence in gang turf has curtailed gang activity.
"We need to walk toward our young people and embrace them," said Muwakkil. "Even if we're proven wrong."
Contributing: Jim Casey