Gangs of Bed-Stuy

Gang graffiti on bus stop sign - Blood Gang, Piru, G's Up.

More gang graffiti - Bounty Hunter 112 St.

In 1959 Bruce Davidson photographed Brooklyn gangs, all comprised of white teenagers. That's not the image of Brooklyn gangs today, which are now largely Latino and African American. Today's gangs are described in a comprehensive article in New York Magazine:

Names like “Crips” and “Bloods” conjure images of old-school, dyed-in-the-wool gangsters orchestrating crime through disciplined, hierarchical posses. But that’s not modern New York. “These are all young kids,” says Ric Curtis, chair of John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s anthropology department and one of the authors of Hynes’s study. “They may claim allegiance to ‘Bloods,’ but it’s a bunch of neighborhood guys who got together and decided to call themselves Bloods.”

They’re still gangs, to be sure, but the label is more stylistic than organizational. The distinction’s important: Instead of a couple of big gangs, there are dozens of small, clannish sets, often made up of literal cousins and next-door neighbors. Walk around Brownsville and the signs cry out from the walls. There are spray-painted B’s and C’s with arrows pointing upward, meaning “Bloods up” or “Crips up.” But that’s just the beginning. There’s a laundry list of acronyms—GCC, L*C, MAC, COC$, all groups calling themselves Crips. Northeast Brooklyn is chock-full of these mini-gangs, and they’re fighting.

Errol Louis, a reporter for the Daily News, and who also has a blog about crime in our hood, urges Bed-Stuy residents to clean up the gang graffiti:

Exhibit A is the main walkway in the middle of the Tompkins Houses public housing. The Bloods gang has taken over the complex so completely that for months - a full year, according to some residents - ominous words were spray-painted all over the main walkway of Tompkins in big red letters: WELCOME TO DEATH ROW.

The walkway runs two blocks and has cast-iron fences on both sides. Once you're on it, there are few places to run. Criminals have found it an ideal spot for ambushes.

There could be no mistaking what the red spray paint meant. Each message was tagged with the nickname Teflon.

In one place, there's one red arrow pointing to DEATH ROW and another pointing to MEMORY LANE, festooned with half a dozen initials of the dead. There's even a no-trespass sign painted across the street on the walkway of the adjacent Sumner Houses: a red arrow, the label TOMPKINS and the warning DON'T SLIP.

For reasons best known to themselves, the Housing Authority and the NYPD left this murder manifesto undisturbed, in full view of the complex's 3,300 residents. It's hard to imagine a better way to let people know they are completely outside the concern or the protection of the city, hostages at the mercy of murderous thugs.

As we've heard ad nauseam since the early 1990s, the NYPD's vaunted "broken windows" approach to crime-fighting depends on stopping little infractions to show crooks that somebody cares about the area and will fight to protect it.

You'd think that bright red gang graffiti in foot-high letters would qualify. It seems the cops - and officials of the Housing Authority, the landlord - either passed by the DEATH ROW markings every day and ignored them, or quit patrolling the area at all.

A few exasperated Bed-Stuy leaders took matters into their own hands last week, covering the gang markings with black spray paint. The minute they began spraying, residents ran over to thank them and point out other spots to cover.

Two exemplary Bed-Stuy organizations help troubled local youth. Isis Sapp-Grant, a former gang member, started the Youth Empowerment Mission in 1995:

YEM targets communities struggling with the influence of street gangs, drugs, and violence in their neighborhoods. YEM is dedicated to creating comprehensive long-term solutions for young people in high-risk environments while offering a range of community and youth initiatives, including our flagship program, the Blossom Program for Girls.

In an article in the U.K.'s Independent newspaper, Sapp-Grant talks in-depth about being the leader of a violent girl gang when she was fourteen:

There was violence everywhere when I was in high school. Your survival depended on letting people know that you wasn't gonna be punked. There were lots of cliques and posses. My group mostly came from single-parent backgrounds, were dirt poor, felt powerless and as if nobody was really listening to their struggles. We got together to watch each other's backs because a group of bad-ass girls was bullying everybody. Within a few months we went from just trying to protect ourselves to looking for trouble.

After being arrested for assault and robbery at age sixteen, she began to turn her life around:

Now, my life revolves around my son, my husband—who knows my background—working with communities and intervening with high-risk kids referred by the juvenile justice department, schools and churches. I earned my master's degree in l997 and I've started my own Youth Empowerment Mission to help kids get out of gangs. It's so rewarding when at the end of a workshop a kid says they're dropping their gang colours. It's incredible if you can get somebody to even think about leaving a gang. They won't even say the words. They think the gang is all they have.

I can definitely see myself in these kids. I can see the goodness in them. If we delve a little below the surface and help them with their struggles with friends, family or school, we can get them out and give them real power in the world, not this bullcrap power that they're getting from gangs.

At the age of 21, Barnabas Shakur started Project Re-Generation after the arrest of a childhood friend and gang member:

In 2000, a childhood friend of Barnabas Shakur was accused and found guilty of a crime. This individual was given a life sentence in a maximum-security prison. Only 19 at the time of his arrest, he belonged to a notorious gang called the Bloods. Upon his friend's conviction, Barnabas was devastated and decided to create change. In 2001, he founded Bed Stuy's Project Re-Generation, Inc. (PR-G) with a vision to eliminate teenage after-school idleness in Bedford-Stuyvesant and similar communities through educational programs.

Foot Soldiers is one of their programs:

What is the Foot Soldiers program?

Foot Soldiers is an environmental, job readiness, community service, and financial literacy initiative, which through a combination of volunteer and paid activities teaches Bed-Stuy teens the skills they need to:

Work responsibly - Based on punctuality, attendance, work quality and respect for authority.

During after school and weekend hours, PR-G stipends economically disadvantaged high school students to recycle, remove rubbish, leaves and snow from sidewalks, and curbs of our members' properties.

Elevate their financial IQ.

Manage and track their finances.

Create and implement a plan to improve the environment.

Who benefits from the Foot Soldiers program?

Property owners in Bed-Stuy who have neither the time nor inclination to deal with the headaches of frontal property maintenance.

Teenagers learn work ethics, money management skills, and how to care for their environment.

Bed-Stuy benefits when its youth take an active stand towards enhancing their environment.

Property managers seeking a cost-efficient and reliable street cleaning, garbage and snow removal services.

An article in Our Time Press, talks about Shakur and PR-G in detail:

In a way, PR-G has become a positive spin on the usual gang lifestyle that attracts many male youth of color in Brooklyn's poorer neighborhoods. Spending a sunny afternoon in PR-G's offices, one of Shakur's "kids", Andre C., showed this reporter his "tags" of achievement - metal army-like dog tags around his neck. The first, "ROP New York, Andre C., First Class 2003, 12" stated Andre's program and graduation date. The second tag represented "things that are most important to us, what we value: family, leader, warrior, virtue, patience, pride and community," nineteen-year-old Andre C. ,aka "Spectacular", proudly explained.

Usually, when most people think of Bed-Stuy, negative connotations such as gangs and crime statistics arise. Even for gentrifiers who've bought property here. Some even talk about leaving. Well you can complain, or you can leave, or you can make a positive difference like Isis Sapp-Grant and Barnabas Shakur. Donate some money to their organizations or volunteer your time, hire a foot soldier and cover up some gang graffiti. The future of Bed-Stuy is in our hands.