Jamell Crouthers

  Alphabet City 12

  UUID: 02982251-62a9-4478-805e-8921bf405fb9

  This ebook was created with StreetLib Write

  https://writeapp.io

  Table of contents

  Introduction

  Cheryl-Gangs

  Jermaine-Gangs

  Kevon-Drugs

  LJ-Guns

  Ronald-Guns

  Vicky-Death

  Evelyn-Death

  Xavier-Children/Women

  Tiffani-Food/Health

  Wayne-The Education System/Investments

  Kendra-Mental Health

  Shameka-Mental Health

  Xavier-Policing

  The Panel

  The Inner Cities of America

  Final Thoughts of Alphabet City Series

  Social Media

  Introduction

  It's a town hall meeting that has been a long time coming. It's the police chief, mayor, governor, city council, and all others who are involved in shaping the outlook of Alphabet City. The characters you've met and gotten to know from the community of Alphabet City are in attendance to discuss the direction of this neighborhood.

  There are no media members at this meeting. No one with an agenda to write an opinionated piece on the events that occurred. No clickbait articles, no advertisers promoting this meeting, no outside forces of money and politics are involved.

  The goal behind this book is to galvanize people who are reading this to work on improving their communities. While this book series was all fictional stories, a lot of things are based on real life and situations that happen in underserved neighborhoods all over the country and world.

  This is a story of the characters you’ve read about, and their thoughts and feelings on how to change the place they’ve known for too long…

  Cheryl-Gangs

  It’s the gang life that almost cost my children their lives,

  As my children Jermaine and Shameka were shot in the middle of our neighborhood.

  We were walking home from the supermarket on an ordinary day,

  As gunshots rang out as gang members were trying to kill each other.

  Gang life has cost families so many young lives,

  The question is what are we doing to solve the problem of violence?

  Gang members trying to recruit my son Jermaine into their lifestyle,

  As I’m trying to support and provide for my children from day to day.

  Imagine praying that your child makes it home everyday,

  Hoping that you never get the phone call that your child is dead in the morgue?

  Gang members infiltrate our neighborhoods toting their guns on their waists,

  While you hear gunshots, police sirens and coroner’s trucks driving through the neighborhood frequently.

  Imagine watching not one child but both of them being shot,

  As you’re scrambling to get away from the bullets flying through the air of the place you’ve grown up in.

  People yelling, screaming as your son is unresponsive,

  While your daughter is in excruciating pain from the gunshot wound to her stomach.

  I ask you how would you feel if you were to experience a near death experience?

  Have any of you ever experienced a near death experience?

  Where your adrenaline is in fight or flight as you try to protect your children,

  Where your life flashes before your eyes and the potential of losing both of your kids in a matter of moments.

  But this is gang life, this is what’s normal for us, right?

  It’s already sold and glorified in the media on your TV screens.

  From clickbait news articles to television shows and movies,

  It’s what our culture is personified as, not the smart young kids who make it out.

  News trucks drive through Alphabet City and park on street corners,

  To put up their satellites and have reporters tell a story of another kid who was shot and killed.

  It’s the poor black and latino kids whose parents tried to protect them,

  But the streets got to them first and now we’re fighting the police for answers while burying our sons daily.

  There’s all of this time spent building cases when these kids are known criminals,

  With histories of crime longer than the torn and broken textbooks my kids bring home from school everyday.

  But that’s neither here nor there, am I right? Is that accurate?

  It’s easier to let us just kill each other until there’s no more of us?

  My son Jermaine almost being paralyzed as the bullet was inches from his spinal cord,

  Or my daughter who is finally getting her stomach back to some normalcy.

  She’s spent months trying to get her digestive tract back in tact,

  But I’m just another mother speaking on behalf of the ones who have lost their kids.

  Whatever happened to kids burying their parents,

  Not vice versa where parents are burying their children.

  Gangs have infiltrated Alphabet City for decades,

  Now there are three gangs where we have to be on the lookout for everyday.

  The worst part about all of this is, our case went unsolved,

  Those same gang members who shot up the neighborhood are still in the streets raising hell.

  By now, they have a new untraceable gun and ready to shoot and kill again,

  They won’t have a care in the world for who’s around, they’re firing away with no regard for human life.

  It's the gangs that ruined my family life as a young child,

  Watching cousins and uncles be part of a dangerous life.

  Where I was either at a funeral of theirs or talking to them through plexiglass,

  It was either the morgue to the cemetery or the streets to prison walls.

  It's gang life that has destroyed families where they never recovered,

  Mothers I've seen turn to drugs after losing their sons.

  They would walk the streets high and potentially walk past the killer,

  As the police have no answers to who killed their child, it's an “ongoing” investigation.

  The amount of robberies that happen for drugs and drug deals that go on by the river,

  When the river is supposed to be a place of peace away from the madness that goes on in between buildings.

  A potential shooting can happen while going to get food,

  Or the store robberies that happened in broad daylight and people turned a blind eye scared of being shot and killed.

  It's gangs that keep Alphabet City from growth and people living in fear,

  Where they can't talk to police because they fear for their own life.

  It's been part of my life directly and indirectly my whole life,

  While I've been able to keep my son from being involved in it, he was still shot by them indirectly.

  The problem is this has become “normalized” and “glorified,”

  But I bet none of you sitting here listening to this speech has a worry in the world about any of this.

  The amount of nights you hear screams of people running for their lives,

  As they try to dodge bullets and protect those they’re closest to.

  Hearing the police and ambulance sirens every night,

  As I lay in my bed wondering who’s next and do I know them?

  It’s what gang life has caused in Alphabet City,

  Trauma, sadness, death, murder and mayhem and it needs to end.

  I spent months walking Alphabet City knowing I could potentially look the shooter of my children dead in their eyes,

  And I wouldn’t even know it because of how quiet people stay in this community.

  Gang life is about retribution and killing the next man, that’s it,

  It can be anyone, especially if we’re caught trying to imprison one of them.

  So here I am asking you, how are we going to solve the gang problem in Alphabet City?

  Granted I’m gone from the madness, I still have friends and parents who live here.

  I’m speaking on behalf of them and for all communities like this one in America,

  That we just chalk it up to black kids having no sense of direction.

  But gang life started in the middle of the drug epidemic in the 80s,

  Which turned into violence, drugs being sold and people dying.

  So is gang life here to stay, that’s the concern for all of us,

  I came back for good reason and it’s to speak of mine and other people’s experiences.

  The psychological trauma of kids watching others die in the streets,

  As they wonder everyday if they’re next to be hit by a bullet.

  Imagine your kids not being able to go to the park to play,

  Afraid of potential violence happening and they have to fear for their lives.

  Think of the future of the kids who want to make it and can’t get out,

  Are they a born statistic without a fair chance at being a solid person in this lifetime?

  Let’s start by making changes in this community and right now,

  We’ve all experienced enough sadness, sorrow and bloodshed in this city…

  Jermaine-Gangs

  My case was just like any other young teen in Alphabet City,

  Being shot and nearly dying as I somehow survived.

  It wasn’t my time to go but other kids, I guess it was,

  Sometimes I ask myself how and why I lived and others didn’t.

  Everyday, I fight to protect my mother and sister,

  I failed them the day I was shot as my sister Shameka was hit by a bullet.

  As my mother said, I was nearby paralyzed as it took months to get back to myself,

  I still walk gingerly some days and have PTSD nightmares of what’s happened to me.

  Gang life has ruined our neighborhood and killed thousands of people,

  A lot of innocent bystanders were killed senselessly and gang members did not have a care in the world.

  The drugs and guns being sold, our neighborhood being ruined daily,

  Summer nights where you have to worry about being shot instead of enjoying the weather.

  Where you can’t even enjoy your own neighborhood because gangs are fighting,

  Over territory to sell their drugs and guns and the colors that they’re wearing.

  Guys who are constantly on the prowl for young kids like me to join their life,

  Of fast money, violence, cars and evading the police everyday.

  The mentality of having nice, flashy jewelry and feeling accepted by older grown men,

  Grown men who have no sense of direction and don’t care about killing someone who stands in the way of their money.

  Because money is all that matters to these young men in the hood,

  Meanwhile, they’ve never left the confines of the 26 blocks they’ve seen since they were babies.

  Young babies have sat in strollers with their parents in parks around the neighborhood,

  And being an innocent bystander to bullets flying as they’re hit and die instantly.

  The ambulance doesn’t even come for the baby, the coroner’s office does,

  The state doesn’t need to spend money on an autopsy, but money is spent on a case that goes unsolved.

  Now we have a grieving mother and family, no case solved,

  Justice isn’t served and now we look to you guys, the ones in power and say, what now?

  See, we’re born a statistic that’s setup to fail in the education system,

  That’s if we can even get to school in the mornings without something happening.

  Everyone in this community has been affected by gang life and violence in some way,

  Whether it’s directly or indirectly, someone knows someone who has been killed due to gang violence.

  When does all of this change and we get back our neighborhood,

  Or are we going to continue allowing more deaths to happen in our community.

  Someone in Alphabet City has been shot right now in the streets,

  As we sit and address things that have been going on for decades.

  I’m currently in therapy because of all that’s happened in my life,

  Thankfully I’m able to do it, I now have the resources to do it.

  What about the other kids and people who are traumatized from all that’s happened in their lives?

  Do they just bury it inside and keep moving forward? Continue to be strong and you’ll be okay?

  The majority of us aren’t okay, that’s reality,

  You can see it in people’s eyes as their souls are gone at this point.

  People are on their last leg of dealing with the atrocities of this neighborhood,

  Every few years, the elected officials come out and say “vote for me.”

  The elected officials that sit before me as I speak,

  What are you doing to make this part of town right and safe again?

  Statistics don’t matter anymore, it’s getting the guys I’ve known since childhood off the streets,

  There’s the police department, FBI, and DEA and these ruthless killers still roam free?

  We keep electing government officials and nothing is happening or changing,

  Enough is enough with the agendas, the politics, it's time to take back the community our ancestors built…

  Kevon-Drugs

  After being involved in gang life and selling drugs,

  Drugs have ruined the community I grew up in.

  As I speak behind prison walls, I had no sense of direction,

  Making money was my mentality from a young age.

  Opportunities weren't there to make it financially,

  When nothing is there, I gotta go to the streets.

  Selling drugs only meant making easy money for myself,

  Not that a person is poisoning their mind, body and soul.

  There was someone in need of an escape from life,

  And we as gang members and drug dealers were there to sell it.

  The demand for drugs had to be fulfilled back then,

  There was a failure to keep drugs out of the neighborhood.

  When you’re a drug dealer in a bad neighborhood,

  You only care about the money and not the death and overdoses.

  It wasn’t until I started walking the neighborhood,

  Where I started to see people I sold drugs to strung out on the streets.

  You learn of their overdoses and it becomes out of sight, out of mind,

  It’s the money you’re after, not the stories of what happens to people.

  As someone who has been in the streets and seen so much,

  It’s at a place where things won’t change until there’s a significant plan to do it.

  The amount of deaths caused by drugs was surely high,

  I know it because everyday I'd hear someone overdosed from a drug I sold.

  My mindset was the competition of other gang members getting my money,

  I wasn't thinking of the lasting effects me selling drugs would have.

  There's no compassion or empathy for those you’re around,

  It's either you get money or be broke trying to make it.

  We grow up in certain environments that aren't beneficial to us,

  What we see is all we know and that can take a toll on us.

  Watching our mothers live check to check barely making it,

  While the hustlers in the streets are making easy money daily.

  The biggest challenge is keeping the drugs from getting into Alphabet City,

  Along with getting people the help they need for the struggles they're facing.

  People wouldn't turn to drugs if they were given a chance at life,

  It's about cleaning up the crime but it's also about giving people outlets to get help.

  When people are on drugs, they're trying to escape something in their lives,

  Whether it's pain, trauma, abuse, mental health, financial woes, etc.

  A neighborhood of constant negativity, will have a person trying to escape,

  If it isn't the drugs gangs sell, it's bad food or even liquor.

  People are given bad things to escape their realities,

  In other neighborhoods, it's a different case and situation.

  People are products of their environments, what they see is all they know,

  Even if there's another outlet, if it's not reachable, people won't steer in that direction.

  People on drugs is a cry for help if you really think about it,

  So working on getting rid of it will always be a constant battle.

  Everyday, we make choices and decisions, it's whether to sell drugs,

  The drug addicts make a decision to buy from us.

  If you as a city council, government official and police department make changes,

  The drugs don't make it in, gang life folds, people are forced to get help.

  Gang members is another battle in itself from a mentality standpoint,

  The culture of our lives are messed up and it's something we as men have to change.

  Will it be a constant battle to keep the drugs out of Alphabet City, definitely,

  But something has to give and if it takes a few people from a collective effort to do it, then by all means I'm willing to help.

  The start is focusing on bringing community back,

  Giving people resources other than drugs to comfort their souls.

  It’s also opening up more opportunities for men in the neighborhood,

  To head in a direction of positivity, instead of negativity.

  Behind these prison walls are no joke and male role models are imperative,

  The loss of men with the right mindsets have been lost and young kids need to see more than what’s on TV.

  If I had the right men around me, I would not be sitting here speaking from a TV screen,

 

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