Recently, NC Wanted sat down with three teenagers in Durham to talk about their experiences growing up in neighborhoods where gang violence is a part of everyday life. They spoke candidly about their experiences, and their interviews will be featured in a July episode about gangs in North Carolina. In order to ensure their frankness and protect their safety, the names of the youth have been changed.
Nikki was in the eighth grade the first time she was shot at. It was a Friday night and she was at a party with her friend when someone drove by and opened fire. The bullet hit her friend, who was taken to the hospital and eventually recovered. She tells the story in a matter-of-fact sort of way, with less dramatic flourishes and facial expression than one would expect of a 17-year-old girl recounting a recent trip to the mall. Violence is a way of life.
Alan was around 10 years old the first time he was shot at. He was minding his own business when a group of men drove up to him and some friends and, after a brief exchange, started firing. He also is 17, but talks like an old man, world-weary and cynical of the vices that drive some to profit and others to suffering. He says he sees opportunities – college, a job and a family – beyond the neighborhood, rife with drug use and poverty. Addiction is a way of life.
Mario remembers living at MacDougal Terrace. At points, he said, weeks would pass where gunshots rang out every night. He was never scared and got used to it, a strange sort of urban symphony. He has family and friends who are gang members but as for himself, he never sought to link his self-worth to a color or a flag. Things may have been intense for a while but as he’s gotten older, he’s gotten better at making his own decisions and being his own man. Gangs are a way of life.
All three said that eight out of 10 people they know are affiliated with gangs in some fashion. It’s what they see; it’s what they know, and each says they know better and feel sad for the people who become consumed by that lifestyle.
They do not speak of the violence they’ve seen with sadness but each feels it is wrong. Nikki has a 2-year-old and she says she’s nervous for him but sees a way out. She wants to go to college but she doesn’t know yet what she wants to be when she grows up. She’s never seen the ocean.
The two men each own a gun. Both stop short of saying one would be stupid not to have one, but both indicated they would use it if they had to. Mario did some time at the county jail when he was 16 and knew when he got out he didn’t want to go back. He’s hoping to graduate high school in a year.
All three talk of gunfire, murder and jail as if it’s a universally accepted truth; all three say they wish they didn’t have to see it, that they don’t want it to be a part of their lives.
It’s not a new problem and involves very basic human drives – the drive to belong, the drive to have material wealth, the will to power. The ‘have-nots’ have always hated the ‘haves.’ And within the ‘have-nots,’ groups of people have always hated other groups of people and committed violence to further their goal or rectify some perceived slight. But the current gang problem bears the burden of other current social ills – the gun trade, the drug problem, a feeling of social inequality that is both blunted and augmented by a pervasive media – which creates a unique and critical problem with which law enforcement, prosecutors and the community at large struggles to deal.
Much money has been put into the effort, most recently in the form of a $2.5 million grant to Raleigh-Durham, which takes effect this month, and although it will take years to quantify what recent grant money has done to alleviate the problem, recent statistics indicate crime is on the rise. Prosecutors are hopeful pending legislation will make it easier to define a gang member and gang crimes, thereby toughening penalties. The issue is a frequent talking point for politicians.
But for now, the courts are crowded and the streets are violent, and gangs continue to fill a dangerous void in some children’s lives.
In July, NC Wanted will take an in-depth look at the gang problem across the state and will talk to community activists, law enforcement, prosecutors and youth about what they see.
