Dec. 16 – When Frank Cunningham Sr. gave his son money to buy a gun, he said it was only so Frank Cunningham Jr. could defend himself. But more than a decade after Frank Jr. went to jail for killing their neighbor Cunningham Sr. regrets his decision.
“I don’t enjoy Christmas, I don’t enjoy Thanksgiving,” said Cunningham Sr. “I don’t even enjoy my birthday.” He’s wracked by the guilt of what happened that fateful night, and the loss of his son for the next 15 years.
The Cunninghams live in the Walt Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Frank Jr. had been having some trouble with a neighbor who went by the nickname called “Coach.” Cunningham Sr. said Coach robbed Frank Jr. But he told his son not to press charges against him. More problems ensued, said Cunningham Sr. He said Coach “he kept on stalking, watching the house, following {his} son around.”
Frank Cunningham Sr. looks at a picture of his son, Frank Jr.
One night Cunningham Sr. walked across the street to pick up a pack of cigarettes. When he returned two hours later, a neighbor told him Coach was shot. Neighbors said Coach kept verbally harassing Cunningham Sr.’s son, and that Coach had his hand in his pocket. When he refused to back off, Frank Jr. pulled out his own gun.
“I didn’t tell him to shoot him,” Cunningham Sr. said, “but I gave him the money to buy the gun.” He said it would upset him when he looked outside his window and spot Coach lurking behind the trees, waiting for his son to come out.
But Cheryl Hamilton, Cunningham Sr.’s neighbor and longtime friend, thought there was more than paternal protectiveness at play.
“I felt like Frank antagonized that boy,” said Cheryl. She said Frank Jr. may have been upset by Coach, “but because there was a gun in that house, and Frank [Sr.] said ‘No, you don’t take S from nobody,’ that’s when that boy went around that corner.”
Guns were responsible for nearly 13, 000 homicides in the United States last year according to the FBI.
Cheryl Hamilton was sitting on a bench when she returned home from work the evening of the crime. She saw Frank Jr. turning the corner moments after Coach was shot. She said she believes Cunningham Sr. is hurt by the incarceration of his son, but it’s because he knows what part he played in it.
“He is a bitter black man,” she said. “He is bitter about everything. And I think it’s because of what he did to his son.”
Frank Jr. was charged on two counts, manslaughter and possession of a weapon. He is set to be released from Gowanda Prison in May 2012. Hamilton said when he does get out of prison, he should not return to the neighborhood. She said she doesn’t believe the “young hoods,” as she called them,” will take to him lightly, and he may find himself in trouble once again.
Frank Jr. at his father's apartment in the Walt Whitman Houses a few years before the crime.
Cunningham Sr. agreed. He said he’s glad his son served the sentence for his crime, but he’s afraid of what people who knew Coach will do to him and his family when Frank Jr. is released.
“I’ve got anger in me, I’ve got it in me for a long time,” said Cunningham Sr. “The first time somebody says anything about my son and I hear about it, I’ll be in jail or hell.”
Ten years ago, Frank Jr. asked his parents to stop visiting him in jail. He said it was too difficult to see his family leaving, knowing he could not. Since then, Cunningham Sr. spends his days quietly with his wife. Most mornings he’ll sit on his walker outside, watching his dog, Lady, caper across the garden. Sometimes he exchanges niceties with his neighbors.
Whitman resident Cora Cartwright, an old friend of the Cunninghams, said she understands why Cunningham Sr. stays to himself. “Everybody goes on with their lives,” said Cartwright. “But you know it’s sad, because you could have looked and said that could have been my child that something could have happened to.”
Cunningham Sr. plans to move away early next year. He plans to leave the only home he’s known for 40 years. He bought a house in Augusta Georgia five years ago in anticipation of his son’s release. Cunningham Sr. said he hopes the move to Georgia will bring peace to his son, and himself.
