Gang warfare in a pizza place

Cruz scribbles for the Anti-poets, a crew out of the Parra Projects, near the Tot-lot.

Two Latino gangs. Read comment #42 on UH's previous post on the subject: www.universalhub.com/2010/four-shot-jamaica-plain-...

the Ducky Boys vs. the Fordham Baldies

h-block and bromely heath.

if you dont know what really went down you should duck tape your mouth and swallow your thoughts!

3 less criminal thugs roaming the streets of JP! ....only negatives are the innocent victim who got hit in the leg and the people who didn't get there pizza delivered that night.
Now we don't have to house and feed these shitbums for the rest of there lives in a correctional facility after they inevitabely harmed someone in the future.
Hopefully these losers will all shoot themselves into extinction soon...good riddance!

I agree with many of your overall points, but take issue with the "move to Chestnut Hill" line. I lived on Dalrymple Street for three years and now live on Boylston Street near Chestnut. I moved away from Dalrymple in large part b/c of these guys; their disrespect for other people (drug sales, catcalling female friends of mine, noise, etc.) while demanding respect back is nauseating. The solution here is institutional and parental. Parental first. If you can't provide a good home for a kid, don't have one. And, yes, I realize that makes me sound like a caveman. It is certainly not something I would have said 10 years ago. These kids parents seem to have completely failed them. Failed to protect them from the ugly side of life, failed to provide with the self-respect and self-esteem required to avoid succumbing to the gang mentality, and failed to steer them right when they began to go down a self-destructive path, etc.

Institutionally, we as a society need to attempt to provide the things these kids parents do not. Opportunities, education, and some semblance of stability. I have no idea how we do this - marches and vigils sure are not the answer and bigger structural changes are not right around the corner.

As for moving anywhere else, absolutely not. I love Jamaica Plain and have worked hard to build to a good life in this neighborhood. I am not going to be run off by a few aberrant events perpetuated by the worst among my neighbors.

Uhm...sorry to burst your bubble but I grew up in Section 8 housing, on welfare and foodstamps.....my father, a drug addict died when I was 10...I grew up dirt poor and had hand me downs from family friends as new school clothes, was never handed anything! I know this life because I lived it! I chose a different path...went back to school and got a GED..put myself through college on loans that I'm still paying back to this day. I made a choice to make a better life for myself out of a pile of shit so I don't buy the excuse that they were born into it and have no choice...Bullshit ...we all have a choice! These are grown men with a mind to make decisions for themselves...not lost little kids.....give me a break.

I think I speak for most people when I say we all have sympathy for neglected kids brought up in an environment of violence. You cannot choose your parents.

However, when something like this happens where innocent bystanders are injured and lucky to have not been killed, very few people are going to feel any sympathy for these men. These guys may have had it tough growing up, but they made a conscious choice to carry those guns (a felony) and live the lifestyle they did. If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. These men deserve nothing but scorn from the law abiding public who just want to go about their business without fear of being caught in the middle of some senseless violence.

It sounds like you have worked hard to make something of yourself, and you get nothing but respect from me for that. I hope you can serve as a role model for other kids coming up in tough situations.

Someone with the handle JPSouth posted this on the "Pizza Support" thread. I think his/her words fit into this discussion as well, before people start talking about stringing up members of their own community:

It's something Adam alluded to, but went overlooked in the vitriolic back and forth: "There are two communities here." Neither posting from either side seem to know or care much about the other, but they're both sharing the same space on a daily basis and are almost invisible to one another. The one sees the incident at the same old place as a tragedy in its community because a beloved institution was caught in the crossfire of a gang conflict it didn't invite and innocent bystanders were placed in harm's way in an otherwise safe part of the neighborhood. The other regularly sees innocent bystanders in harm's way and mourns the loss of four people -- criminals though they may have been -- who were family members, friends and people who both failed the community and had the community fail them.

The former will never see how the latter raise their kids, deal with a block-to-block environment that encourages safety via gang membership or scrawl memorials on the wall of Fernandez Spa. The latter will never understand why the former places importance on the safety of institutions like Same Old Place or any other place where members of the public gather frequently, considers the four dead only callous murderers and not complete individuals and can draw a mental map of the exact borders of the "safe" part of JP and tries to adhere to them as often as possible.

This isn't saying that everyone in JP falls into one group or the other, but the commenters seem to. There's a general lack of understanding, and no token kumbaya effort from either side is going to help that. This isn't a question of projects vs. homes or yuppies vs. "real" JP or even rich vs. poor. It's just a question of people whose very different lives don't intersect very often until events like this. It's about not knowing neighbors because you're basically living in very different neighborhoods within blocks of each other. They don't say hi, they don't play with each other's kids, they don't talk poolside at Curtis, they don't shop, eat or drink in the same places.

But they both have a point. The anon picked the most antagonistic way possible to make it, but he's right: Despite what you think of those four boys or think you know from their arrest records, they're going to be mourned by people, especially their mothers. I'm not so sure that they'd be offended by the support for Same Old Place, but I don't think it's a lot to ask to keep the slurring of their sons to a minimum -- as they all paid dearly for their actions. Meanwhile, the other posters are absolutely right: People in the their neighborhood are prone to getting jumpy when something like this happens - I remember the light traffic at Tedeschi after the murder there -- and supporting a place and making sure it stays in business is a great way to show you care. No, they didn't lose anyone, but watching four people kill each other and catching a stray bullet on an evening jog isn't something to take lightly.

The words harmony and understanding tend to get tossed around a lot, but I think the one lesson everyone took away from this incident is one they learned either from living here their whole lives or checking things out shortly after moving in: We really don't know each other, and have little excuse to do so.

I'm not in any position to recommend a course of action or to tell grown adults how to live their lives. I'll just say that the one thing I've learned to do more often since I've moved to JP than in any other place I've lived is just talk. I let a conversation with the clerk at Harvest or Fernandez go about two or three sentences longer than usual. Acknowledge the people who acknowledge you or, for dog walkers out there, your dog. I ask questions: I've learned that Mr. Ferris, besides running the bike shop, also winds the clock at the church in monument square. I've learned from the clerks at Fernandez how to find a good tomatillo and plantain. I've learned from the barbers at Sal's that a soccer player will never succeed if he or she doesn't pass every so often. And I've learned that, if you ask the clerk at JP Variety nicely, you can always find the off-brand version of what you're looking for.

It's not always perfect: There are still double-wide stroller pushers who crowd me off the sidewalk, fixed-gear bikers who try to run me down even when I have the walk signal, dudes in front of the barber shop who take up a whole lot of space filming videos and just shooting the shit and kids at the South Street homes who can sustain a playful summertime scream longer than it seems lung capacity would allow on nights when my windows are all open. But that's a neighborhood. The waitresses at the Galway still throw food plates in front of me, the guys at Burritos pizza still don't know many addresses north of Washington Street (though mine is only a few blocks up Carolina) and kids at the Forest Hills T stop only speak at one ridiculously loud volume when school lets out, but that too is a neighborhood.

I don't think yelling at your neighbors to be more sensitive gets anyone very far -- especially those of you who don't live in the neighborhood -- and I don't think banning anons for rudely introducing facts you're uncomfortable with helps the discussion at all. I'm very glad Adam doesn't seem to be cowing on that issue either, as it only further segregates and isolates people from their community -- which doesn't always agree with them and doesn't feel the need to live up to their ideal. I just think that being a part of this community is a privilege and everyone in it contributes to what unfolds here on a daily basis. There may be two communities living here, but It's all our neighborhood. Perhaps instead of leveling criticism at one another and looking for some token of moral superiority, we could actually listen to each other.

I am a close friend of tito aka as luis I hope you know him personally and hope u didnt do reseach on him! && by the way the death of Tito,Mata,Bo and ariel dume was not gang related