Dec. 14 - When Kenneth Edwards borrowed 25 dollars from his childhood friend, Jason Ford, he had no idea what it would cost him.

The two boys had grown up only two blocks away from each other. They rode their bicycles together and played on the same baseball team. A resident of Bedford Stuyvesant, and later Crown Heights in Brooklyn, Edwards grew up in a sheltered home. His parents made sure that Edwards was kept away from the lifestyle that existed on the streets– one that often introduced kids to drugs and guns.

Kenneth Edwards lived a sheltered childhood in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. (Photo credit: Kenneth Edwards/Facebook)

But it all changed by the time he was 14, when he got the chance to see what the “guys on the corner” were really about. “The cars, the jewelry, the girls,” Edwards remembers. “Once I got a taste of it, once I found out about it, it wrapped me up.”

Edwards quickly fell in with the “in crowd,” a group of older boys who were selling drugs, shoplifting, and carrying weapons. He was making more money than ­his father, who worked as a mechanic. The more money he made, he says, the meaner he became. His childhood friend, Ford, was also drawn to the streets. At first, they were working as partners selling drugs. “But the drug game will turn you into enemies.” Edwards said.

It was August of 1990 when Edwards borrowed the 25 dollars from Ford. But when he hadn’t paid Ford back after two months, Ford came to find him and threatened to kill him if it wasn’t returned. “It was either I get him first, or he get me first,” Edwards recalled.

On October 28th, Edwards told Ford that he would take him to a house to get drugs and money. As his friend Pepe drove, Edwards climbed into the backseat of a van next to Ford. “We got into an argument,” Edwards remembers. “I pulled my gun and he pulled his gun, and my gun went off first.” He fired the first shot at Ford’s left temple. The sound of the gun startled him, and he fired twice more. His friend fell on the ground, but was still moving, so Edwards pulled the trigger for the fourth and final time. Then he and Pepe drove until they could see water. They stopped on Gold Street near the East River, and left Ford’s body on the street near an underpass.

The police did not have any witnesses when they found a John Doe at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. But Edwards knew he ultimately had to pay for his crime. “That wasn’t the life I wanted to live anymore,” he said. Two days later, he turned himself in. He took a plea deal, and was sentenced to 15 years to life.

In 1990, murders were occurring at an alarming rate. Forty-nine murders were reported in the local 79th police precinct. An increasing number of youth were participating in these murders. The same year, almost 8 percent of murders reported nationwide resulted in juvenile arrests, according to the FBI. Some of these youth ended up on Rikers Island with Edwards, whose life took a sharp turn in jail.

Edwards was placed in Sheila Richard’s GED class at the on-site educational facility. Richards was a new teacher and was hesitant to teach in a jail. But after visiting the men’s ward and seeing the number of youth that were behind bars, she says she felt she had to do something about it.

Kenneth Edwards was placed in Sheila Richard’s GED class at the on-site educational facility on Rikers Island. (Photo Credit: Suvro Banerji)

At first, Kenneth Edwards seemed like every other student in her class. But one thing stood out to Richards. “He was very quiet, and he was one of the kids that didn’t really participate in the madness going on there.” Just three months before Edwards arrived, a bloody uprising on Riker’s Island had left more than 130 guards and inmates injured. Edwards says that what he saw in jail when he arrived was no different than the streets of Brooklyn. “You have your drugs, you have your homemade, jail made weapons, you have gambling.”  Edwards says he had to make a choice- whether he was going to be a part of that crowd, or not.

Edwards chose the latter. With the help of his teacher, he earned his GED and worked several jobs inside of jail. By the time he was released in August of 2007, Edwards had spent almost as much of his life inside of prison, as he had outside. He says he was disappointed to find that the same things were happening. “The only thing that changed was certain language they [were] using,” he said. “Still [you] have people selling drugs and people with guns and using the gun.”

Today, Edwards is back on the streets where he grew up, but in a different role. He works as a violence interrupter for an anti-gun violence program called Save Our Streets (S.O.S.) in Crown Heights. Edwards goes out into the community to hand out educational materials about gun violence, forms relationships with community leaders, including the clergy, and mediates potentially violent situations.

Kenneth Edwards works for an anti-gun violence program called Save Our Streets in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. (Photo Credit: Suvro Banerji)

Edwards was hired by Sharon Ife-Charles, the Deputy Director of the Crown Heights Mediation Center, which runs the S.O.S. program. Ife-Charles says that Edwards was searching for redemption when he applied for the job. “It was as though he and God had this agreement that what he did, he knew was wrong,” said Ife-Charles. “He’s gonna pay the time for it. He paid a time for it.”

Although crime rate in Crown Heights has gone down significantly over the past 18 years, residents still complain about disturbances in the community. Brower Park, located between Kingston and Brooklyn Avenues, has become a safe haven for a notorious gang called the Brower Park Gang, also known as Brower Park Boys. The gang has sparked fear in the neighborhood since they started calling the park home during the summer.

Edwards says that he will always feel guilt for what he did. Although he has a full time job at a window manufacturing company, he says his work with the S.O.S. program is his priority. He says that he hopes that through his work, he can keep others from making the same mistake that he made 21 years ago. “I get people to understand, the kids, that when you commit a crime, regardless of what that crime is, you are hurting someone else, not just yourself.”

Seward's Tenant Patrol keeps watch in Building A's lobby every weeknight from 7-9 p.m.

On a quiet Tuesday night, in the lobby of a building on the Lower East Side, the elevator door stayed open for several minutes while the compartment bounced up and down slightly. Carmen Orta, an elderly, hunched-over woman, pulled out her cell phone.  “I’m going to have to call my secret number,” she mumbled.

It was only the beginning of Orta’s shift on Tenant Patrol, a volunteer security team in place at many New York City Housing Authority developments across the city. Orta is not what one would expect from an evening security guard.  She admitted that she was “tired” and lowered the neck of her shirt to reveal the tip of a recently acquired heart surgery scar as proof of why.

It takes more than heart surgery to keep Orta, who also serves as president of the Tenant’s Association, off patrol.  For two hours, between 7-9 p.m. on weekdays, Orta and three to five other resident volunteers function as the first line of defense in Building A of the Seward Park Extension development. They also serve as watchdogs for mechanical failures.

Tenant Patrols began as a way for public housing residents to make a positive impact on their community, according to NYCHA’s website.  “By volunteering for Tenant Patrol, [residents] can actively improve and maintain safety in their developments,” it says.  “[Their] presence as tenant patrol volunteers discourages loitering, vandalism, and other criminal activity.”

Seward’s Building A has had a Tenant Patrol since 1994, according to Orta, who joined in 1999 and became its supervisor in 2003.  Years ago, she said, some residents wanted to hire a professional security guard, but many resisted. There would have been an extra $3 or $5 of rent charged each month to cover the cost, and few people wanted to pay it.

And so tenants like Orta keep watch. Many of their duties are social–greeting Seward’s residents as they enter the building, and bidding them farewell as they exit.  They wave at children and babies, and help the elderly onto the elevator.

The Tenant Patrol rarely encounters a problem that requires calling the police. Most frequently, the volunteers deal with front door issues.  These have been Building A’s biggest problem, Orta said, citing instances where people have been robbed because the door didn’t lock properly.  “They fixed [it] today, and it’s already broken again,” she said.

To illustrate her point, volunteer Joe Ramos, a hefty young man with a buzzed head – the only person in the lobby who even looked close to a security guard – brought in a piece of the door that was on the floor.  “Dios mio,” Orta mumbled.

“If you push it right now, it’s broken,” said Ramos, referring to the now-unlocked door.

Just then a man Ramos and Orta referred to as Tony, staggered into the elevator and comically tried to push its buttons.  The elevator doors closed, and then reopened a moment later to show Tony still there on the ground level.  “He’s got problems,” said Orta, as they watched Tony linger.  “He doesn’t even live here, but long time he’s been hanging out here.”

Ramos said that Tony “comes from a good family.”  He said he had an altercation recently with Tony that ended when he punched Tony in the face.  “I knocked him out cold,” Ramos said with a smile.

Orta shook her head.  Whether or not that is the standard operating procedure for Tenant Patrol, it at least helped in what is a resident-based security system.  To avoid more trouble with Tony, who later stumbled into the elevator again to attempt another ascension, Orta called for Tenant Patrol to end 20 minutes early. “I don’t want any problems,” she muttered.

As Orta and Ramos watched Tony stagger around the elevator again, they moved the table and chairs from the lobby back into the storage room and went their separate ways for the night.  Tony continued to linger in Seward’s lobby as they left.

At the end of the day, Seward’s first line of defense can only do so much.

Dec. 1 – The Thanksgiving holiday weekend was a deadly weekend in New York City. On Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin openly blamed Harlem gun violence on the community and their families. He said this after sentencing Jaquan “Jay Cash” Layne, to 20 years in prison for gun trafficking.

Harlem Mothers is a non-profit organization against gun violence. Co-founder, Jackie Rowe Adams, 59, says they are at the heart of the battle, located near the St. Nicholas Public Houses at Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 132nd street. Adams says, “As we speak, somebody is getting shot right here in Harlem. Or someone is giving someone/a kid a gun to prepare for a shooting.”

After losing two of her five children to gun violence, Adams and co-founder Jean Corbett-Parker, 59, started Harlem Mothers Stop Another Violent End or S.A.V.E in 2006. The central goal of the organization is to educate the surrounding community about gun violence. Adams says they are partnered with the New York Police Department and New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright (70th A.D. – Harlem).

Adams says she needed to make a choice between hating the children in the community, or trying to save them from the same fate her son suffered. “So I made a choice that I want to make a difference, because I couldn’t bring Anthony back, which was my first son.” She said, “And I couldn’t bring Tyrone back, which was my second son. But I could certainly help another mothers child.”

Adams says her children kept her going. “What I see in my life today, is to pass it on to the young people. Keep hope alive.”

The group sought to develop “a short sense of principles that we are all going to hold, and keep the group committed to ending violence in Bronx River,” said Julien Terrell, who works for the nonprofit Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice and helped plan the gathering at St. Joan.

It would be difficult to measure the effectiveness of the meeting—crime in the area has risen slightly from 2010 while still remaining near historic lows, according to New York Police Department data. But, this method of embracing and working with gangs to affect change demonstrates a widely shared community approach to addressing gang violence far different from the arrest-and-prosecution methods utilized by law enforcement.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has a robust network of field offices throughout the nation called Violent Gang Task Forces, classifies gangs as organized crime. The task forces aim to “root out and prosecute the entire gang, from the street level thugs and dealers up through the crew leaders and ultimately the gang’s command structure,” according to their web site.

The city’s Department of Education has strict standards for gang behavior in schools, mandating punishment for “gang-related behavior,” including wearing apparel or making gestures that are related.

The NYPD also has a gang intelligence unit, but did not respond to request for comment about its goals or methods. Police have, however, cited evidence in the past that these tactics are effective.

In 2009, the department told the City Council that New York had experienced a more than 80 percent decrease in gang activity since 2002. While those statistics were met with skepticism by councilmembers, the FBI’s most recent National Gang Threat Assessment also shows a drop in Bronx County gang membership by more than half since the 2009 report.

But while it may be effective, law enforcement tactics can create discord with community groups, when it conflicts with the more communicative approach they favor.

“NYPD have their own system about dealing with things,” Julien Terrell said. He describes Youth Ministries as working against violence in a way that is, “a lot deeper than being punitive.”

“If you’re going to keep the peace, you can’t just preach to the choir,” he said. “You have to get the people who may be involved to participate. A lot of the violence in the neighborhood involves young people and unfortunately comes from young people.”

These young people have reasons for becoming involved with gangs, Terrell says, which need to be understood.

“There’s a lot, mostly all of them, that were started to stop some kind of abuse, to create opportunities,” said Manuel Oquendo, the Bronx regional director of the Zulu Nation, a nonviolent community organization that grew out of a gang called the Black Spades in the 1970s. “People who get into them are looking for something.”

“Family. Collective effort. People looking out for you. Having a place to go when there’s no other place to go. Being a shield for folks,” lists Angelo Pinto, an anti-prison community organizer and attorney who was heavily involved in gang activity when he was a teenager.

Oquendo, Pinto, Terrell, and other community activists believe the solution to gang violence and other crimes lies not in condemning the gangs, which they call “street families,” but in communicating with them, encouraging them to positively influence the neighborhood and resolve disputes nonviolently.

This approach is advocated most vigorously by the man who led the meeting of gang leaders, a one-time Bronx River resident known in the community only as Zulu King Righteous.

“We have to stop the violence amongst our own people amongst our own children,” he said. “The solution is to sit with the leaders [of gangs] and sort out the difference with all the leaders.”

With the name, and the close-cropped grey hair, circular shades, and leather jacket with the words “Zulu Nation” stitched on the front, Righteous might not appear a typical community leader, but he is the main liaison for the Bronx River Houses with gangs—despite now living two hours away.

“We need to reach out to these kids who don’t have a problem going to jail. We got to let them know what goes on behind those walls and how much we need them out here,” he told a meeting of the Zulu Nation. “Those who have been there know what I’m talking about.”

As a former gang member and inmate in the 1960s—he spent 10 years in jail for armed robbery—Righteous has credentials that he feels helps him speak to youth.

“A lot of them come to me,” he says, after they grow disenchanted with their gangs and want to leave. “What I will do is, I will ask who is their set [chapter] leader and go to them and talk.”

After the meeting with gang leaders at the church, Righteous wants to build larger events. He is planning a larger meeting of members—reminiscent of the rallies held by the Zulu Nation 20 years ago, which drew thousands to Bronx River.

Righteous says to affect change in the community, everyone must be involved, including gang members.

Conversely, law enforcement has historically not been pleased with community efforts to address gang-related crime.

The Zulu Nation rallies, which Righteous hopes to recreate, ultimately led the NYPD to ban the group’s gathering at Bronx River in 1998.

Righteous also noted that when gang problems occur at neighborhood schools, he will get called by parents, teachers, and even the occasional school safety official to come help, but the police try to keep him away.

“When you have police interfere with what I’m doing then they promote the violence that escalates,” he said. “Instead of helping me to defuse the problem, they’re creating more of the problem.”

Nov. 5– As a child growing up on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, Marlon Peterson was familiar with crime and violence. By the time he was a teenager, he had been shot once and “jumped” several times. During high school, Peterson gravitated toward drugs and weapons. At 19, he was one of five men arrested for participating in an armed robbery and double-murder in a Soho bakery.  At the age of 20, Peterson was sent to jail for 12 years.

After serving ten years of his sentence, Peterson came back to Crown Heights where he began working for Save Our Streets as a “violence interrupter.” The SOS program is a replication of Cease Fire, a successful program in Chicago that focuses on educating the community and mediating conflict to change mindsets about gun violence.

Marlon Peterson holds an after-school workshop for a new youth development program called YO-SOS.

For nearly 30 years, murder has been the leading cause of death among African-American men between the ages of 14 and 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The part of Crown Heights that SOS works with is about 72% African American, according to 2010 Census data. In Precinct 77, which serves Crown Heights, murder is up compared to 1998, the year the Crown Heights Mediation Center opened its doors. That year, there were 9 murders. Last year, there were 20 murders in Precinct 77.

Peterson, now 32 years old, is the program coordinator of Youth Organizing to Save Our Streets, a program that encourages teens to fight gun violence. It operates out of the Crown Heights Mediation Center on Kingston Avenue, part of the Save Our Streets violence mediation program.

The SOS Violence Interrupters canvas the streets to diffuse escalating conflicts before they become deadly. On most nights, VI’s head out around dark – armed with picture postcards of young children that read, “Don’t shoot, I want to grow up.” The VI’s use the cards as conversation starters with those who live in the program’s area of focus:  between Atlantic Avenue, Eastern Parkway, Kingston Avenue and Utica Avenue. Their work often starts with a tip from a friend, a phone call from a former gang member, or a few words overheard on the street that hint at a potentially violent situation. Once they arrive at the scene, the VI’s act quickly. They have been trained to separate the groups that are involved, not to step in front of bullets, but rather calm people down and talk them out of using weapons.  Some of the most successful mediation attempts have ended with rival gangs shaking hands and walking away.

SOS messengers patrol the streets at night and talk to people about the dangers of gun violence.

Peterson says that SOS works because they use credible messengers – individuals like himself who have “been there, done that, been through some things, and are in a position now where they are willing and able to kind of draw people out from the same rut that they were once in.”

The Cease Fire model treats gun violence the same way an organization would treat a spreading disease. The model began in Chicago after Gary Slutkin, a physician and professor of Epidemiology and International Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, returned from working on cholera and tuberculosis epidemics in refugees in Somalia. According to the Director of the Mediation Center, Amy Ellenbogen, Slutkin realized that gun violence operates in the same way that many diseases operate. He applied a three pronged approach of disease prevention to identify the presence of gun violence, interrupt and intervene, and change norms and behaviors. According to a U.S. Department of Justice evaluation, this approach has worked in Chicago. They found that 5 out of 8 areas served by Cease Fire, have had a 100% reduction in retaliation murders since they were introduced to the program.

Although major crimes, such as rape and robbery, have decreased in Precinct 77, some community members say that they still don’t feel safe. Phyllis McDuffie has been in the neighborhood for over thirty years. “It’s a really beautiful place, but lately we had shootings, all kind, rape, different things. I just think the community as a whole- Jews, Blacks, all of us- have to come together as one,” she said. Resident Dana Davenport, 26, agrees. She lives in Crown Heights and thinks that the problem lies in the youth. She says that the area needs cops at every corner.

SOS held its second annual Peace March on Oct. 20, 2011.

Peterson says that gun violence is so normalized in neighborhoods like Crown Heights that it has become a public health issue. “You don’t necessarily have to be the person that grew up in a broken household to get involved with violence, whether it be the person that’s a victim of it, the person behind it, or the person who witnesses it first hand,” he said. However, in the area where SOS focuses their efforts, the number of shootings have dropped 60%, according to Ellenbogen. She says they can’t say for sure if their efforts have contributed to this decrease because they have not been evaluated. “But whatever it is, we are happy to be a part of it,” she said.

Peterson says that the community is taking notice of their efforts. The center has distributed signs that now hang in the windows of nearby stores, recording the number of shooting-free days in the SOS catchment area. They hired a clergy liaison, Reverend Kevin Jones, whose own son used to be involved in gangs but now works for SOS. A recent “Week of Peace” featured community-wide anti-violence sermons, a Peace March, and a youth flash mob. Peterson says that compared to when he was a child, people talk about violence more as an unacceptable part of life. And to him, that alone is a “step in the right direction.”

One of the bullet holes in the front door of 730 East 163rd Street, Building 3.

Several days after a shooting at McKinley Houses, a New York City Housing Authority development in the south Bronx, police are still trying to determine the identity of the gunman, according to a police source. The shooting, which took place on the afternoon of November 2, did not result in any known injuries.

Wallace Diamond, president of the McKinley Houses Tenant Association, was meeting in his office with resident Rafael Gonzalez to discuss a broken pipe on Wednesday afternoon when their conversation was interrupted by the sound of gunfire. Diamond, Gonzalez, and Tony Moe, a friend of Diamond’s who was also there, all immediately hid under Diamond’s desk for protection. Moments later, said Diamond, a female resident ran in “screaming and crying.”

Although the exact number of shots could not be confirmed, Diamond said he heard seven. The sunny, tranquil Wednesday afternoon had taken an unexpected turn.

Once the gunfire ceased, Diamond went outside to see what had happened. He found that the only casualties were the front doors of 730 East 163^rd Street, Building 3, which was hit by several bullets. He saw no sign of a shooter.

Diamond called the police as soon as he heard the shots, and officers from Police Service Area (PSA) 7 arrived roughly 20 minutes later, he said. Overall, he was not satisfied with the police response.

“The cops didn’t do anything,” he said. “[They] looked around and left.”

The Community Affairs Unit of PSA 7 declined to comment.

Gun violence has previously been a problem at McKinley, said Diamond. However, he was surprised by this incident, because it occurred on a weekday afternoon when several people were outside, and because it seemed the shooter was simply aiming at the building.

“In 49 years of living here, I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” said Diamond.

As you approach the building, it begins to make more sense. Beneath the big, green pyramid are high sandstone walls decorated with barbed wire. Inside, through the metal detector and past a couple of guards is the prisoner meeting room, a large space with some tables and chairs, a few vending machines and yellow lines on the floor that tell prisoners where they can and can’t step. Children run around while their parents talk, a couple holds hands at one table and a pastor studies the Bible with an inmate at another. Still another inmate stands alone in the room wearing prison garb, a doo-rag over the dreadlocks he is growing for charity, and a cheeky grin.

His name is Curtis Tucker III.

Arrested at his cousin’s wedding in Coney Island in November 1988 at age 23, Tucker was convicted of being an accomplice in the murder of a friend and has been in prison ever since.

He has also maintained his innocence the entire time.

But Tucker, now 47, isn’t the only character in this story. This is also the story of his mother, Janice Tucker, who lives in Bushwick Houses and visits her son as often as she can. It’s the story of Nawanna Snipe, his ex-girlfriend, who took a course in criminal justice and administration with the University of Phoenix in 2009 in hopes of helping him. And of retired city police Sgt. Derek Brown, now a private investigator with Brooklyn Defender Services, who also grew up in Bushwick Houses and offers his help free of charge to the family to help exonerate a kid he used to play ball with on the basketball courts off Moore Street. It’s the story of their fight, now entering its 24^th year.

“I haven’t seen the likes of this in quite some time,” Gregory Rheubottom, a Harlem paralegal, said of the group’s dedication. He has known the family for two decades and he, too, is helping them with the case: “Because of their fight, because they fight, I fight with them.”

So do others in the Bushwick Houses community, where Tucker grew up. More than 400 people, mostly from the development, have signed a petition which is continuously being sent to politicians and lawmakers in an attempt to have them review the case. And the Rev. Reggie Bacchus, pastor of Mount Ollie Baptist Church – which Janice Tucker attends – is holding a forum on Nov. 11 to see how the church can help.

“Bushwick taught me family values,” said Tucker from the visiting room at Eastern Correctional. “It taught you that you can go to anybody’s house to eat. There is a togetherness in the projects.”

It is this togetherness that is keeping his fight alive.

Curtis Tucker's daughter Urica Tucker, Curtis Tucker III, Saadiq Demoss (behind - Tucker's ex-girlfriend's son), Tucker's son Curtis Tucker IV. (Photo courtesy of the Tucker family)

*  *  *

When Curtis Tucker III was a kid, his uncle dubbed him “Lep” – short for “Leprechaun” – because he was little and his ears stuck out.

He grew up in Bushwick Houses during the 1970s and ’80s. He owned and went on to run a club on Fulton Street in Brooklyn called “Cat’s Paradise” as well as disc jockeying around town. He was also, by most accounts, quite popular with the ladies.

That’s not to say he didn’t make mistakes. As drugs flooded the streets of Brooklyn in the 1980s, he freely admits, he – like so many others in that neighborhood – found himself wading through the crack epidemic as a drug-dealer, looking to make fast money. This earned him a related weapons conviction, though he didn’t serve any time for it.

“I wasn’t a good guy. I did things wrong. At first I thought I was being punished for that, on God’s own terms,” he said.

“I sold that s—. I messed up whole neighborhoods. And maybe I did need to go away to become what I am.”

But the irony, he insists, is that when he finally did end up in prison, it was for the one crime he didn’t commit.

It was June 20, 1988, and he was heading to a friend’s house to hang out. Out the front of the house he saw Kevin Turner, whose sister he was “seeing” at the time.

They arrived at 684 Monroe St. in Brooklyn at around the same time as a group of acquaintances including two guys named David Smith and Lawrence Moses. The conversation jumped from the New York Knicks, to a cute girl from Manhattan, to Tucker’s club. They also spoke about jail after seeing a news report on the television, Tucker recalled.

Soon, a phone call came through from a guy named Ronnie “Poop” Blackett. He and Tucker had grown up together in Bushwick Houses, their parents took turns looking after them, and they played in the same playpen and on the same basketball courts. Poop, hearing that Lep was there, said he would come over right away.

But when he got there, the conversation changed, Smith would testify later. It turned to money.

When the phone rang again, Smith answered it. But the line was not good, he testified. He hung up, turned around – and he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

Turner shot him in the side of the face, then turned and shot Moses and Blackett dead.

“I just jumped up and ran to the back door to get away,” Tucker said recently, describing his own reaction that night.  “There was a shot guy next to me, so I just ran to the kitchen, but the back door was locked.”

Smith, badly injured but still alive, played dead. He would later testify that he remembered Turner yelling and Tucker running for the back door.

“Maybe I should have been killed or shot,” Tucker would say later in court. “Then maybe I wouldn’t have been here today, facing a serious sentence for a crime I didn’t commit.”

After the incident, Tucker said, he went to his club and sat, shaken, with a bottle of Bacardi. He had just seen his childhood friend shot and murdered. He didn’t call police, because, he said, that was the code of the streets, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t affected.

“I remember him shaking, nervous, scared,” said Janice Tucker who saw him when he arrived home a little while later. “Not the type of boy that just shot someone.”

Today, the shooter Turner is serving 100 years for the homicides that occurred that evening. Tucker was offered a deal to confess; ironically, had he taken it, he would have been out of prison now. But Tucker never shied away from defending his innocence. He pleaded not guilty, but was convicted by a jury.

The presiding state Supreme Court justice read out the sentence in small bursts:

Robbery and assault…10 to 20 years.

Accessory to murder…15 years to life.

And again, accessory to murder…15 years to life.

After the sentence was read, Curtis Tucker recalls being led away by officers and then simply lying on the floor in the holding cell, looking at the ceiling.

“I was numb. I couldn’t believe I was convicted for something I didn’t do. I was gone. I was there, but not there.”

As of this year, he has spent more of his life in prison than he has outside of it.

Curtis Tucker III, Janice Tucker and Courtland Coleman, Tucker's younger brother. (Photo courtesy of the Tucker family)

*  *  *

New York City Police Sgt. Derek Brown first heard that Tucker was wanted for a double homicide in 1988 when he saw a picture of his old friend on a bulletin board at the precinct where he was then assigned.

“I tore it down,” said Brown, now retired from the NYPD. “I just knew this was not something that Curtis would do. I went to talk to my superiors.”

Brown didn’t hear anything more about the case until 2009, when one of Tucker’s cousins told him about it at a family gathering.

By now, Brown was working as an investigator at a non-profit called Brooklyn Defender Services that serves the needs of the indigent community in Brooklyn. He offered to help for no charge, and is trying to track down the only witness Smith, to see if he will testify again.

“Curtis is still my man,” said Brown. “Not every case you see is 23 years old. There are flaws in the process…He wouldn’t get convicted if the trial was held today.”

His mother also worries that these flaws helped to convict her son.

“No jury ever heard the other side of the story,” she said.

Janice Tucker often makes the trip up to Eastern Correctional Facility to stay overnight in one of the on site trailers, where she can cook and spend time with her son. She says being there is more relaxing than being at Bushwick – like a “little holiday.”

“You will never see a more dedicated mother than Janice,” said Rheubottom, the Harlem paralegal, saying that such devotion is unusual when someone has been in prison so long. “I’ve seen mothers last only two years before they stop sending letters and packets.”

Even more striking is the dedication of Nawanna Snipe, Curtis Tucker’s former girlfriend, who will often head north to talk to Tucker about the case, something she is doing more regularly after finding what she says are a number of anomalies in the trial notes.

Among them:

In testimony, Smith changed details, saying at one point he felt someone take money from his pocket four minutes after Turner yelled instructions to do so, then later saying it was only one and a half minutes.

The prosecutor admitted in his summation that the only witness in the trial, Smith, said, “without equivocation, he didn’t know what part Curtis Tucker played in this incident.”

Snipe is most curious about the role of the judge, however, in relation to the main witness Smith, who was called as a material witness and arrested to testify in the court. The judge said at the time, “I don’t believe the witness was held in custody. Not by me.” But Snipe has a copy of a material witness order that is clearly signed by the judge.

But there’s more:

The floor plan of the room where the murders took place, as entered into evidence, was not the way Tucker described it – he said was sitting in a different place.

Early on in the trial, referring to his previous firearms conviction, the judge described Tucker as a “professional armed felon,” which doesn’t sit well with the family.

With their concerns and Tucker insisting on his innocence, they appealed the case in 1994, with no luck. In 2000, Tucker started saving money and working on his case himself with a view to another appeal. In 2006 Snipe started helping more and soon after started her law-school correspondence course.

The family has also tried to contact Turner, who will spend his life in prison, to see if he will provide testimony to exonerate Tucker. So far he has been unwilling to cooperate.

Curtis Tucker and Janice Tucker in the visitors' room at Eastern Correctional Facility. (Photo courtesy of the Tucker family)

 *  *  *

The only times Curtis Tucker has been back to Bushwick in the last 23 years have been at the funerals of his father and two aunts. He arrived in shackles and accompanied by two guards. He hadn’t been in a car for so long that he got motion sick on the drive down to the city. And that wasn’t the worst part.

“I can see the hurt in my loved ones, and not just for the one in the casket, but for the one in shackles,” said Tucker.

From prison, Tucker still sends Christmas and birthday cards back to residents of Bushwick. He paints and draws, and designs the logos for family reunions. He finds he really enjoys writing poetry (he normally writes about things like love, he says). He also reads a lot. (He just finished “The Mastery of Love” by Don Miguel Ruiz.)

He helped to raise funds for the victims of the Haitian Earthquake and families of 9/11. He plays for the prison football team. But mostly he tries to be involved in the lives of his family, especially his two children.

His son, Curtis Tucker IV, who was a toddler when his father was arrested, didn’t learn until he was 11 where his father really was. Before that he was told his father was “at college.”

Now 25, the young Tucker, who family members say looks like his father at the same age, is himself studying business management at La Guardia Community College. He is also trying to break in to the world of DJing, just like his father. After recently traveling to Dubai, he thought a good combination of the two would be to try to be a professional DJ and party planner in Dubai. (He likes the slogan “From Bed-Stuy to Dubai.”)

That is not to say there haven’t been tough moments.

Curtis IV recalls crying at church as a boy when there was a father-son event; the DJ played Will Smith’s “Just the Two of Us,” and he sat there alone looking at all the other boys with their fathers.

“It always hurt, but I just knew I couldn’t keep crying,” he said. “I had no one to turn to, but the past helps spur me on.”

That, plus his father’s continued involvement.

“We still speak as much as we can,” said Curtis IV, who recalls having the seminal chat about the birds and the bees on one prison visit. “He is always there for me. I know some fathers that give up, but he never gave up.”

For Curtis Tucker Sr., growing up Bushwick was an important part of learning the values that have seen him still supported by so much of that community.

“I’m feeling great,” he said from the table in the Eastern Correctional visiting room, the specks of gray in his goatee hinting at the passage of the years. “I preach this a lot. When we think positive, positive things happen. When we think negative, then negative things happen. You have to stay positive at all times.

“Just because we are in prison doesn’t mean we can’t be a part of their life. I’m proud of where I came from.

“But I have been in here for 23 years for something I didn’t do.”

Unless his family and friends are successful in their fight, he won’t leave Eastern Correctional Facility as a free man until at least Halloween 2023.

***

To contact the writer:

Email nic.j.stone@gmail.com or via Twitter @NicStone

Police say Saul Chavez, above, is a suspect in a shooting at Astoria Houses on Oct. 21

Police are seeking suspects for a series of shootings that took place the weekend of October 21. Three residents of the Astoria Houses were shot and wounded on nearly three consecutive days – Friday, Saturday, and Monday night. There were no fatalities.

One victim was a young teenage girl, who was shot in the knee. Neighbors said she was recovering at home. Two men injured separately on Friday and Monday are in their late 20s. Friday’s victim, a 26-year-old male, was quarreling with the shooter. The shooting suspect pulled out a firearm and began firing, striking the victim in the left thigh. The victim was then taken to Elmhurst hospital where his injuries were treated.

On Monday, another 26-year-old male was shot once in the right leg and once in the right foot. He was taken to Cornell Hospital in stable condition.

Residents and police believe the gunmen were all adolescents, but the police say only the first and third incidences may be related. Deputy Inspector Edward F. Britton of the 114th precinct in Queens said the two men shot on Friday and Monday were good friends. “Somebody wanted to shoot them,” said Britton, who is the commanding officer of Police Service Area Nine (PSA 9), which covers public housing in Queens. “So we believe somebody has a beef with at least one of them – if not both of them.”

The police also have gang units investigating, though Britton said the perpetrators may not be organized gangs, but crews of young troublemakers.

“This will be very detrimental to these groups,” said Britton, “because this will put them under a microscope.”

The last time someone was shot in this quiet, isolated neighborhood was January of 2010. But in the 114th precinct, felony assaults are up by 23% since last year. And some Astoria Houses residents said recently more and more young people have been playing with guns in the area.

“For the past month, I’ve been hearing people shooting up in the air outside my window,” said resident Priscilla Roy. “I don’t think they’re shooting at anything particular, but it’s new because things were getting better here.”

About 20 policemen will be rotating shifts patrolling the housing development, and NYPD floodlights have been set up in different parts of the neighborhood.

NYPD has placed floodlights in various parts of the neighborhood in response to the shootings.

The heightened security will remain, said Britton, until another incident occurs or there is a break in the case.
Britton said no arrests have been made in connection with the weekend’s events, but the police are seeking suspects, particularly in connection to Monday and Friday’s incidents.

On 1:15pm Friday, 33-year-old Saul Chavez, was seen fleeing the location after firing at the victim in front of a residential building. He was last seen wearing a black hood over his head.

Monday’s suspect, a teenage boy, was caught on tape in one of the building’s elevators holding a handgun shortly after the shooting. He was wearing a red backpack, green jacket, dark jeans and brown shoes.
Some residents complained that the police only show up in the neighborhood when some incident happens. And, they say, residents who call anonymously about a crime often have the police show up at their door

But Roy, who lives in the neighborhood, says she can’t criticize the police response to the shootings. “They do what they can,” Roy shrugged. “I don’t know what else people expect them to do.”

But she says she hopes that, following the police response to the shootings, the neighborhood will be quiet for a while.

Video Courtesy: NYPD

Malina Gourdine-Barbosa has been fighting to organize tenant patrols in the Riis Houses but her initiative has received a lukewarm reaction from her fellow residents.

The round blue and yellow stickers dot the lobby of many of the Riis Houses buildings in the East Village. The “T” and “P” interlaced in the center are meant to tell the world that this is a tenant-patrolled building. Except that it isn’t. The last tenant patrols in the building actually took place a full 10 years ago, in 2001.

Now, NYCHA is attempting to resuscitate them. But at a Sept. 29 meeting organized by the agency to discuss it, only two residents showed up.

“Tenant patrols are a dangerous proposition,” said Gilbert Alicea, a resident of the Riis Houses, explaining why he opposes a resident watch in the building. He said most of the potential volunteers would be retired, elderly people, an easy prey for criminals. “It might work in another neighborhood but not here,” he said. “They have guns and sell crack here. It’s very dangerous.”

Asked if he’d volunteer, he shakes his head: “If I do it I’d be tagged as a snitch.” Besides, he said, “nobody likes a civilian acting like a cop.”

Carlos González, a longtime resident, said he thinks the agency should put security guards in every building instead of expecting tenants to form patrols. “[It’s] like working for NYCHA without pay.” he said.

But the two residents who attended the meeting – Louise Velez, the unofficial building captain and Gourdine-Barbosa, who lives in another building – aren’t giving up.

Gourdine-Barbosa said that before coming to Riis eight years ago, she lived in the Bay View Houses, where she was the development’s tenant-patrol supervisor — the liaison between management and the volunteers, the one who organizes patrols and recruits volunteers.

“It was beautiful,” said Gourdine-Barbosa, remembering those years at the Bay View Houses. “Tenants were happy to sit. We had a good time.” And crime, she said, dropped “considerably.”

Lenore Tucker, who was the NYCHA tenant patrols coordinator when Gourdine-Barbosa was the supervisor at Bayview, explains that the program “was very active.” It was widespread all over the city, she said.

“The program is volunteer driven so there is no limit on the number of volunteers that can sit in a building,” NYCHA press spokeswoman Sheila Stainback said in an email. To set up patrols, a minimum of two residents is needed; then NYCHA and the volunteers lay out a schedule. After three months of active patrols, the volunteers vote to elect a captain and a co-captain. Building captains are elected by the resident watch volunteers and have several duties, such as opening up the patrol on a nightly basis or preparing the lobby patrol’s schedule, according to Stainback.

At that point, NYCHA provides equipment: four chairs, a table, a fan, a heater and a telephone. Every volunteer also receives a hat, a T-shirt and a jacket and each building is entitled to a $20 monthly budget for light refreshments. Manuel Pacheco, the New York City Housing Authority resident watch field consultant, explains that he conducts random checks to make sure the patrols are up and running.

As part of the program, all developments supervisors receive training in “observation skills, terrorism awareness, first aid and gang awareness,” Stainback said. According to NYCHA’s website, the purpose of the resident watch program is to “enhance the safety and security of their communities.”

Not everybody thinks this is a great idea though.

Salma Figueroa was a tenant patrol volunteer during the ’70s, but she’s not interested in repeating the experience. “I don’t think it will work,” she said, “I hope somebody will do something about it but it’s very bad.”

Despite the apparent opposition to the program, Stainback said that NYCHA is currently looking for a Resident Watch supervisor at Riis.

Even though she attends every lobby meeting, including the ones that are not for her building, Gourdine-Barbosa knows it’s not going to be easy to reach her goal. “People won’t fight with me,” she said. But she’s not going to surrender either. “I wanna fight for this building.”