Pete Stidman

JAMAICA PLAIN GAZETTE

HYDE/JACKSON SQ.— Teachers from JP Head Start organized a hasty playground escape for around 70 children, ages 3 to 5, when an anonymous tip from a bystander advised them to evacuate Mozart Park at around 4 p.m. on May 18.

“We just barely got out of the park when we started hearing shots,” said teacher Kendra Buckli, who said she and 18 toddlers were only yards from the park when eight gunshots rang out.

“Initially they kind of did what we said,” said Buckli of the kids. “But I have one little boy who still asks, ‘Is the park safe? Have they stopped fighting in the park?’ and ‘Will the people in the park come here?’”

No one was hurt in the incident. Although police said they rounded up one crew of teens that “matched the description” of those involved and made a few unrelated warrant arrests, they did not find any of the actual participants.

The shooting and a second one involving a car chase on Sunnyside Street the following day, were two of a 59 of shots fired in the first five months of this year in Jamaica Plain, according to statistics provided by the Boston Police Department. Only 42 incidents were reported in 2005, making an increase of 40 percent.

None of these incidents have resulted in murder, but 12 netted injuries as bullets found their marks. That’s triple the number of non-fatal shootings (incidents where victims were struck by gunfire) reported by May 31, 2005, when only 4 people were hit.

Most recently, on May 21, a man was put in Boston Medical Center after being shot near 1900 Columbus Ave., the location of the Grace and Hope Mission and church. Members of the church were away at a conference at the time.

Aggravated assaults with knives and other weapons have also significantly increased in JP, almost doubling in some categories. Gunfire, although statistically more lethal, is not the only expression of violence on the rise.

The tripling of non-fatal shootings exceeds an overall trend in the city, in which non-fatal shootings have almost doubled from 81 to 150 as of June 4. Homicides with firearms in Boston have jumped from 13 to 18.

“Every summer since I was hired there is a shooting happening,” said a mild-mannered Ruiko Rasting-Sera, who has been a teacher at JP Head Start for three years. “Somebody described it to me as Russian roulette. Some days we go out there, some days we don’t. We’re always scared in the summer.” However, this is the first shooting during daylight inside the park in recent memory.

Members of the community surrounding the park and Jackson Square suspect a group of teens that congregate in the park are under attack from rival groups from other neighborhoods.

“In my neighborhood everyone knows each other,” said Rosario Cruz of Sunnyside Street. “It’s the best street in JP. Nothing happens over there.” But gunfire reached even this enclave of neighborliness.

“I was looking through the curtains and I saw the guy come out shooting,” said Cruz’s granddaughter Nyviana Colon, describing the May 19 shootout in front of her grandmother’s home. “I couldn’t believe it. They asked me to identify him. It was hard. I could not tell because I was looking at the gun. I knew it wasn’t one of the Mozart boys. But the car in front [being shot at] was a black Honda Civic, a car from the neighborhood.”

Neighborhood to neighborhood

Turf skirmishes and settling beefs have long been habits of distinct groups of teens and young people that form bonds in their immediate neighborhoods. Bromley-Heath, Academy Homes I and II, Mozart Park, Bragdon Street and dozens of other areas throughout the city have such groups, which Community Service Officer Carlos Lara of JP’s E-13 precinct hesitates to label as gangs.

“The problem I have with calling them gangs is, I’m giving them a title they can brag about,” said Lara in an interview. “It’s like in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The minute they were called the X-Men, they became so much more violent. Once they were told they were a gang they became tough and mean. Same thing with the Mozart kids, the minute they gave them the title they became violent.”

The X-Men hailed from the Egleston Square neighborhood and attracted a great deal of attention from media and academics after repeated violent confrontations with police. At the time, some police officers referred to themselves as the “gang in blue,” and some of the confrontations with the X-Men carried racial overtones.

“The big problem [is] parents not looking after their kids,” said Avonda Graham, E-13’s new juvenile officer, of the current situation. “If the parents don’t have control over them, how are we going to have control over them?”

Learning curve

Community groups and police have been experimenting with new ways to reach out to kids in at-risk communities, including pulling teens that live at developments such as Bromley-Heath out of their classes and lecturing them on how to stay safe.

Local B-Smart teams, coalitions of youth-related organizations and community groups interested in stopping the violence, have initiated a series of dialogues in Bromley-Heath moderated by City-Wide Dialogues on Boston’s Racial and Ethnic Diversity. So far, the results of these meetings have motivated a second series of meetings involving parents and grandparents, the creation of a Know Your Rights Task Force that helps spread the word about the rights of youth, police officers and adults and a series of regular meetings with police in the development.

“One of the things we learned was that young people have a great desire to have a good relationship with cops,” said City-Wide Dialogues Co-Chair Jeff Stone. “They want cops in their neighborhoods, and they want to be treated with respect.”

The youth that participated in the dialogues came from already-existing youth groups in the area, including the Hyde Square Task Force and Bromley-Heath’s own youth programs.

Out of meetings like these, E-13 hopes to build support and community ownership for a new comprehensive plan for addressing the problems at Bromley-Heath, said Lara. The development is where many of this year’s shootings and other violent crimes have occurred.

Housing issues

More than one attendee at a May 25 meeting among police, teachers and mothers at JP Head Start cited problems with the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) Police. One mother said one of her neighbors, a teenage boy, communicates from his apartment with whistles to others below and drops down packages from his window. She said she called BHA police, but they never came to investigate.

“I’ve called BHA police, too,” said Cindy Rodriguez, another mother, “but sometimes they don’t even show up, so what’s the point of even having them?”

“I don’t know enough about these particular incidents,” said BHA spokesperson Lydia Agro, “but whatever information we get from residents is passed on to the Boston Police Department and they then investigate. Residents may not always know when those investigations are going on.”

“It’s awful to live there,” said Rodriguez after the meeting. “They have people there that they should throw out, but they don’t bother. If you get a little behind on rent they have a problem, but not if you’re dealing drugs. Downtown housing [BHA] should be more involved. They do it from downtown but they don’t come to check out the environment.”

The Tenant Management Corporation, which manages Bromley-Heath, did not return Gazette phone calls for this article.

“I’m kind of scared to go outside,” said Gladys Santana, a mother who lives at Academy Homes I, just across Columbus Avenue from JP. But she said the managers of Academy Homes I, Urban Edge, are good about kicking out troublemakers.

Police had few answers for mothers of toddlers at JP Head Start.

“You can help by using your eyes and ears to help remove these individuals in the community that are making our lives difficult,” said Officer Joe Greene to the crowd of around 40 mothers and teachers. He gave a list of tips and strategies, including joining crime watch meetings, calling 911 for any suspicious activity and being “aware of what’s happening around you.” Many of these points are repeated at every police/community meeting, but given the age of the children involved, some felt they were inadequate.

“They’re telling me the best thing I can do is go back to the park,“ said Buckli. “But what they don’t realize is that when I go to the park I bring 18 little kids with me. All the answers I’m getting from them are unacceptable, and I need acceptable answers.”