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STL Gangs Feature 1 Air: Wednesday 5:50 AM, 7:50 AM, 4:50 PM

08/18/08

allington

Host In: St. Louis is home to one of America's most active and aggressive gang cultures, helping make it one of the most violent U.S. cities.

In parts of North St. Louis and North County gangs wage turf wars that, in some cases, run block to block.

The impact this has on people living in these neighborhoods is overwhelming.

In part 2 of KWMU’s 3-part series on gang violence Adam Allington examines the fallout for communities living under the perpetual threat of shootings, robberies and constant police presence.

[STLgangs2]

SOQ @ 5:32

Music out at 6:28

-please promo during the 7:00 AM and 5:00 PM hours-

Host Out: You can download copies of Adam’s gang series and view other St. Louis gang information at our website, K-W-M-

Tomorrow in part three of the series we’ll take a look at law enforcements response to gang crime and what the system does to help gang members leave the lifestyle.

Adam1: Kyle Moore’s body is living testament to the pain and destruction caused by gangs in St. Louis.

The 20-year-old has tattoos up and down his arms which remind him.

[Kyle10] :26

Kyle: This was my uncle, he was a Blood but he died, it was over…a guy was jealous because he was talking to his girlfriend and he killed him cold blooded in front of witnesses and everything.

Adam: This is on your right arm, it says…

Kyle: “Rest in peace Jommy”, that was my uncle’s nic-name, he was killed.

Adam: What’s that one?

This one says “ready for war”, because like I say, any time you never know who do what, you got to be prepared out here—its dangerous in these streets.

Adam2: Kyle is the grandson of 4th Ward Alderman Sam Moore from the Ville neighborhood in north city.

Even though he’s not in a gang, just living in his neighborhood Kyle says he feels like a target.…gangbangers, drug dealers, car jackers, smack addicts… there’re just so many ways for a person to get killed or hurt.

Kyle doesn’t own a gun yet, and that puts him in the minority.

[Kyle3] :15

“The youngest kids got em, I mean, I’ve met some kids who’ve guns in their pockets almost bigger than them, and are willing to use their weapons and that kind of thing blew my mind. But, I see it so much now I’m used it. That’s nothing any more, that’s a typical thing for everybody”

Adam3: Gangs aren’t just a St. Louis City problem, far from it; Larry Bastain Junior just graduated from Hazelwood Central in north St. Louis County.

[LarryBastain2] :20

“In the county we basically watched it go from good to bad…its one person that just kind of blew it up. Now, you go to Hazelwood Central and you say something wrong…I mean a girl just got stabbed this year, in front of everybody…I mean, the girls are worse than the boys.”

Adam4: Even though he’s not in a gang, at 18 Bastain probably knows the ins and outs of gang culture better then most cops.

He says being in high school these days, its all about gangs, right down to the pep rallies and sporting events...

[LarryBastain9] :15

Everybody’s doing it, there’s white gangs, black gangs, everybody’s doing it…the biggest gang in north county, they’re all football players. If you aint in O’Fallon or St. Charles then basically its at every school.

-Music-

[Robinson6] :09

“They’re not allowed to “clique up”, what we call cliquing up, come in numbers showing colors. We got zero tolerance for them attending activities as a gang”

Adam5: Lieutenant Ronny Robinson is a watch commander for the metro police department’s crime suppression unit.

As gangbangers have gotten younger and their respect for the law growing smaller and smaller, Robinson says police have had to adapt a more street-level approach…in many ways he says it comes down to respect… something they understand.

[Robinson8] :26

Robinson: If I say hey you leave this kid alone right here, he don’t want to be part of this gang no more, he belongs to us now, he belongs to the police department. If anybody touches him on the way to school or on the way to store or approaches him in a negative way and comes back that you involved or your gang involved, you’re going to have a lot of problems with the St. Louis Police Department.

Adam: The police are kind of like another gang.

Robinson: Well, we’re the most organized gang in the City of St. Louis, we have to be

Adam6: Overall crime in St. Louis is actually down, almost 30 percent in the past two years.

One statistic however is way up. The murder rate is on track to reach a 13 year high… And many of the people dying aren’t even in gangs.

2 weeks ago 16 year old shot and killed a man after an argument about cheeseburgers, the day before a north county woman was struck by a stray bullet in her home.

This kind of happens more often then you might think.

[Watson4] :10

“Right here’s a bullet hole, it went across the ceiling right there. We was out on the porch me and my mom, they started shooting from the corner all the way up to the next corner.”

Adam7: Jerrell Watson and his mother Belinda live in the Jeff Vanderlou neighborhood, just off of north Jefferson.

A year ago a car full of guys dove down their street firing a machine gun randomly into homes, nearly killing a young boy.

Now, Belinda’s afraid to be outside. She says that kind of stress wears on a person.

“If I lived somewhere else I wouldn’t have to grab everything and run in the house when I get ready to come in every day. Because you never know who’s gonna drive up and just start shooting. When we get of the car every evening or whenever we come in and out of the house, we have to literally run in the house.”

Adam8: For Belinda, she says it seems like kids these days don’t have respect for anything…including another person’s life.

But the for the kids in gangs, most of them can’t remember a time when every day didn’t involve a struggle against life and death…it’s their normal.

[lil-skip2] :11

“Put it like this, every day, somebody bustin’, somebody shooting, somebody getting locked up. You can walk up and down kings highway and you see it. They’ve got so many dics and feds riding around here, messing with people.”

Adam9: Zach Hernandez is keeping an eye on some younger cousins as they play in the parking lot next to Fairground Park.

[lil-skip1] :05

Everybody call me youngster, you know what I’m saying, youngster, lil’ skip, lil’ Zack.

At 16 Hernandez has already seen more than his share of loved ones die.

[Lil-skip5] :17

“Oh yeah, I know a bunch of people who was killed, Pilant got killed a couple days ago, my other homeboy on Emerson and Lillian he got killed, some other homeboy, Sidney he got killed out in the County, my sister she killt herself, so I know a bunch of people who got killed.”

Adam10: Hernandez says he’s to avoid getting to deep into gang life but sometimes he has to, or as he says “get in where he fits in.”

One thing he says for certain he keeps his eyes open and his head up when he walks down the street.

For KWMU I’m Adam Allington

[Bastain1] :28

“You have kids that see one of their homies get killed, and they have t-shirts, RIP t-shirts, you know whoever died, RIP Joe or whoever, and they see all these family member and all these friends coming together…they want to kind of feel that. They feel that they finally feel some love and its ridiculous but it makes them feel like somebody important.”

[Kyle4] :

“Its just like a street thing for real, like most of these guys do it for the credit, they call it stripes. Like some of these guys not even gang members, they just out protecting themselves and they sell drugs because that’s the only way they know how to make a living.”

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