By Scott Brinton
Todd, however, believes that he's been stigmatized by the reputation that his primarily minority, lower-income hometown has throughout the county as a hot zone for gang violence. It's a reputation that he says is unfair and severely limits opportunities for teenagers like him.
Todd, who is African-American, said he's honest and hard-working, like most people from Roosevelt. Still, when he recently sought an after-school retail job in one of the surrounding nearly all-white, upper-income communities such as Merrick, Garden City and Mineola, Todd was turned down again and again, he believes, without cause.
"The only jobs they give Roosevelt are fast food," said Todd. "We can do a lot more than flipping burgers. We got people who are street smart and book smart."
Marvin Caswell, 17, a Roosevelt High School junior, feels as trapped as Todd. He, too, couldn't land a retail job in communities near Roosevelt. And, he noted, inside his one-square-mile hometown, there isn't much work to be found.
Each day as Caswell heads to school, he also feels a terrible foreboding, as if he were about to enter prison. "We in a jail," said Caswell, who plays for the Roosevelt football squad. "They [Roosevelt High security guards] put us down like we're criminals. It's every morning, they pat you down, you go through metal detectors."
Roosevelt young people are assumed to be gang members, but relatively few are, according to Caswell.
Both Todd and Caswell turned out for the Mt. Sinai Baptist Church Cathedral's Anti-Gang Violence Rally and Youth Summit last Friday night to send a message. Roosevelt, they each said, is more than the gangs that run through its streets. And, they said, earnest Roosevelt teenagers deserve the chance to succeed like any other decent young people.
The rally brought an estimated 200 to 300 people, ranging from toddlers to grandparents, to the I Support Roosevelt Youth Center, which sits on a quiet block of modest homes in the heart of Roosevelt. A handful of former gang members also sat in the crowd.
People came from as far away as Inwood and Lakeview for the rally, which was in part intended to raise awareness of the growing threat of gangs throughout the county. At the same time, rally organizers worked hard to dispel the commonly held perception that Nassau's minority communities are inner-city ganglands where people are regularly slain in factional feuds.
Gangs have infiltrated communities like Roosevelt, Hempstead, Uniondale and Freeport, among many others, but they have not yet taken over, said rally organizers.
The evening included a memorial tribute to Jonathan Harris and Hosea White, two innocent young men killed recently by Roosevelt gangs.
On the positive side, the rally also featured presentations by children's groups from the I Support center, including a karate demonstration and a series of short choral and dance numbers.
Gangs on the rise
Indeed, gangs are on the rise in Nassau, so much so that County Executive Thomas Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) recently empaneled the Taskforce Against Gangs, or TAG.
TAG's mission is two-fold: to end gang violence while also stopping gangs before they start by educating young people about their dangers. The task force comprises police, sheriff, probation, corrections and district attorney's office officials, as well as community and civic groups, school board trustees and religious leaders.
"Gang violence requires a number of solutions, and the first step is to acknowledge that gangs are in our communities and in our schools," county Police Commissioner James Lawrence said in a recent prepared statement.
According to Nassau County Police Department statistics, Long Island is now home to more than 4,000 gang members. Nationwide, there are over 1 million members of some 20,000 gangs.
Gangs are defined as any group of three or more people that carves out a territory and commits crimes, according to Bishop J. Raymond Mackey of Roosevelt, who in 1999 founded Helping End Violence Now (HEVN) to stop the spread of gangs in the Roosevelt-Uniondale area.
Traditionally, gang activity has centered on the illegal drug trade, and as narcotics use has soared in the suburbs during recent years, so has the number of gangs taking root in Nassau, according to an HEVN Web site.
As profits from drug trafficking have skyrocketed, so have the stakes. Increasingly, gangs are willing to kill to claim territory -- at times measuring only blocks -- where they can control the rights to sell drugs.
As more gangs like the infamous MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha, a particularly violent El Salvadoran gang) move from New York City into Nassau in search of new territory, local turf wars are becoming more common.
Mackey, who serves as spiritual leader of the Tabernacle of Joy Church in Uniondale, said those wars aren't confined to communities like Roosevelt. He noted that gang violence has broken out in recent years at upscale malls across the county, and bystanders have been injured. So, Mackey said, these days any Nassau resident could become the target of a gang, intentionally or not.
Stopping the violence
The first and most important step toward ending the violence is educating children about alternatives to gang life, said Mackey, who has convened numerous community meetings in Roosevelt, Baldwin, Hempstead and Uniondale to get the word out that gangs exist on Long Island.
Mackey knows of gangs that recruit children as young as 8 and 9. As a form of initiation into the gang, male recruits are often severely beaten by members, then required to commit a violent crime. Female recruits are "sexed" in, meaning they must sleep with every member of the gang. They, too, must then commit a crime.
Mackey said that more youth centers like I Support Roosevelt are needed to give young people a safe harbor from the gang violence erupting around them. And, he said, young people must be empowered to lead meaningful lives.
At the rally, he told the many children and teenagers in the audience, "You do have a future. You do have a precious life. I stand here as a product of Roosevelt... .
"There is a lot of good that has come from Roosevelt, and there is still a lot of good that will come from this community."
Rev. Arthur Mackey, spiritual leader of the Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, a rally organizer and brother of Bishop Mackey, called on the Town of Hempstead and Nassau County to make good on promises to revitalize Roosevelt's ailing downtown. A better business district, he believes, would raise Roosevelt's esteem and provide young people with jobs to keep them out of gangs.
Nassau County, the Town of Hempstead and the non-profit group Sustainable Long Island recently began studying Roosevelt's downtown to see what could be done to refurbish the once-vibrant business district. Meanwhile, though, the blighted commerce zone mostly remains a mix of fast-food eateries and abandoned buildings.
"We're going to have to build up some broken-down walls in our community," said Rev. Mackey. "We need some revitalization in our township."
The Town of Hempstead, he said, has developed plans to revamp Roosevelt's business district. Now, he said, the town must "make sure that vision becomes a reality."
Raymond Rhoden, of Uniondale, the town's commissioner of planning and economic development, who is African-American, said little about revitalizing Roosevelt when he spoke during the rally. Most of his remarks were along the lines of, "I'm saddened it takes a tragedy to bring all the family together," referring to a recent gang killing in Roosevelt.
James Norman, director of the Ketsuten Karate program at the I Support center, said that, to stop the gangs, "We as adults, as parents, first must stand tall, and we must get involved in the lives of the children inside the community... .
"We must give our children an alternative to hanging out on the street corner, fighting, killing each other."
To accomplish this aim, the I Support center now runs daily after-school classes such as karate, said Deacon Aaron Scott, the center's chairman.
"There was a time when we carried guns to protect ourselves from the Ku Klux Klan," said Scott. "We don't have to carry guns" today.
"We can't fight each other and survive. We must come together as one person."
To get involved with HEVN's campaign to stop gang violence, call Bishop Mackey at (516) 485-5660.
Why kids join gangs
According to the non-profit group Helping End Violence Now, the top reasons young people join gangs are:
oSense of family
oProtection
oIdentity/recognition
oRespect
oAcceptance
oFinancial gain.
Helping cops stop gangs
Crime Stoppers and the Nassau County Police Department are seeking the public's help in ending gang violence.
Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $2,000 for information that leads to the arrest of anyone involved in a gang-related crime.
Additionally, Crime Stoppers will pay a reward of up to $2,000 for verifiable information that prevents a gang-related crime. To reach Crime Stoppers, call 1-800-244-TIPS (8477).
