After child's shooting, a cease-fire call
Source: The Boston Globe
Date: 2008/07/02
By Maria Cramer Globe Staff
As a 7-year-old boy recovered in a hospital yesterday, the second child caught in gang gunfire in two weeks, an unusual coalition of ministers, politicians, and inmates launched an effort to stop the bloodshed for at least 40 days.
Police confirmed yesterday that the bullet that struck the Roxbury boy Monday night while he was playing kickball had been meant for a gang member who was exchanging gunfire with rivals at least 150 yards away. The boy remained in stable condition at Boston Medical Center last night, where he was recovering from a bullet wound to the shoulder.
Police arrested an 18-year-old Hyde Park man on a charge of unlawful gun possession in connection with the shooting, but were still trying to determine who fired the shot that struck the child.
The shooting outraged community leaders and police and terrified the neighborhood, where some grandmothers refused to let children play outside yesterday.
"My fear for this summer is that you have more and more young people believing that it's open season in settling their disputes violently, and that's not the case," said the Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, executive director of the Boston TenPoint Coalition. "We're better than that. They're better than that."
Commissioner Edward F. Davis called yesterday for longer sentences, including life imprisonment for repeat offenders and known gang members who shoot indiscriminately in a neighborhood. The sentences should be long, even if the bullets do not hit anyone, Davis said. "This is just unacceptable."
A woman who identified herself as the 7-year-old's mother said last night that she did not know the details of what happened in the shooting. "He was just playing outside," she said.
Yesterday afternoon, 40 to 50 people gathered in the City Council Chamber at City Hall to announce an effort known as the "40-Day Moratorium."
For the next five weeks, several inmates in state prisons have agreed to contact anyone on the outside who they know is violent, including friends, family members, even children, said the Rev. William Dickerson, pastor of Greater Love Tabernacle, who was present for the announcement.
The inmates will plead with friends and family to drop their weapons, renounce any gang affiliations, and seek help from social service agencies for jobs or education opportunities. Those who agree to the moratorium will sign a pledge. In exchange, city organizations and officials will put together a list of resources for them.
Some gang members, including people affiliated with the Latin Kings, signed the pledge last week, said Darrin Howell, an aide to Councilor Chuck Turner. Howell, who served a year in prison for unlawful gun possession, said the idea came from inmates at Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, who recently completed a film about their lives and what led them to prison. The film, "Voices from Behind the Wall," is supposed to serve as a warning to young people in Boston.
The inmates' newest effort to stem violence recalled a similar movement by ministers last winter to stop bloodshed in Boston between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. The holidays were less violent than in prior years, but not without gunfire.
"I think that the call for a 40-day reprieve, even after the fact that this 7-year-old child was shot, shows you the resilience of the community," Dickerson said. "There are people in our community, good, law-abiding people, who refuse to allow their spirits to be broken."
Monday's attack began just before 7 p.m., said several law enforcement officials, when a gang member from the Mattapan area left a basketball game at the Tobin Community Center on Tremont and Parker streets and saw a rival gang member on a bicycle. The rival on the bicycle began shooting, hitting the gang member in the torso, the officials said. The wounded gang member, who the Globe did not name because he has not been charged, was in a Honda with Kenny Francois, 18.
Francois and the wounded man, still in the car, began chasing the bicyclist. Near Sewall Street, the car caught up with the bicyclist, and shots were fired from the car. One of the bullets struck the boy, who was playing behind his home on Parker Street.
Neighbors said the boy collapsed on Smith Street. "We're praying for him," said Ana Colon, 63, who saw the child on the ground. She later saw his mother wailing beside him.
Francois was held on $2,500 cash bail on charges of unlawful gun possession after he was arraigned yesterday in Roxbury District Court.
Police are still trying to find the person who shot 6-month-old Alianna Peguero on June 16 as her father held her in their Mattapan apartment. They believe the shooting was gang-related.
The 7-year-old boy injured Monday has lived in the complex with his mother for only about six months, said neighbor Ernest Partin, a 45-year-old retired veteran of the Air Force, who said he has lost relatives to violence. In March 2007, his nephew, 18-year-old Dwayne Graham, was shot in the head as he sat on an MBTA bus, Partin said.
Partin said he prays constantly for the violence to end.
"Being a newborn Christian, I keep reading my Bible, dealing with my children," he said. "We go to church and do our best to hear what God has to say."
Milton Valencia of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.
