Putting a lid on violence Police and community vigilance

Strictly by the numbers, July was a quiet month in the statistical category of shootings and victims, which city police consider one of the most important crime rates they monitor.

Between Jan. 1 and June 30, there had been 14 shootings with 17 victims in Worcester, alarmingly high numbers compared with the same period last year and raising concern among command officers that the city could be headed toward a repeat of the violence that made 2004 and 2005 the worst since 2000. While they took some relief that there was only one shooting and one victim in July, a number of factors, particularly recent gang activity, have the Worcester Police Department redoubling efforts to keep a lid on violence.

“We are at a crossroads,” Police Chief Gary J. Gemme said, “one where we really need to re-energize and stay focused on gun violence.” But, he stressed, police and community vigilance, and measures already in place should keep violence of all forms under control.

Some in the city fear that increased violence, most especially violence spawned by gangs, is on the immediate horizon. “… Only seen the tip of the iceberg” was a phrase used at least three times Thursday night at a public forum seeking ways to prevent incidents such as the brawl involving about 40 young people — both players and spectators — that broke out following a youth basketball league game two weeks ago at Friendly House on Wall Street. Speaking at the session were several elected city officials, and many parents, social workers, coaches and league players.

Chief Gemme counters that while concern and attention to problems involving crime in the city are welcome, suggestions that the city is on the verge of open gang warfare is extremely misguided. “If I thought we were losing control of the city and there was an emerging gang problem,” he said, “I would be the first to be out there speaking about the need for personnel, resources and staffing.”

The brawl, mostly fistfights that lasted about five minutes, followed a long-simmering dispute between members of two gangs and resulted in suspensions from the Telegram & Gazette Summer Basketball League of the teams with players from Doherty Memorial High School and South High Community School. The team with North High School players withdrew from the league after refusing to suspend two players said to associate with known gang members.

Predictions that the brawl was a harbinger of serious gang violence continued to be aired at the forum even after Capt. Steven M. Sargent, commander of the police department’s gang unit, told the audience that just two of the players involved in the fight were known gang members, and that what happened could have been avoided had the league heeded an advisory from police of problems brewing between the pair. As well, he said, moving the Doherty-South game inside the “hot and humid” Friendly House gym because of rain and then not requesting a police officer be present fairly guaranteed trouble would follow. Further compounding the problem, the captain said, was the failure to notify police when the brawl broke out.

“You have to have a plan in place” for such circumstances, Capt. Sargent said. “All of this could easily have been prevented.”

Concern about escalating violence has been fueled by other recent crimes in the city, which although not unusually high in number, have been linked with gang activity. The list includes:

• Problems throughout much of July on and near Brooks Street. There were complaints of drug trafficking, loud parties and fights between members of a gang from that neighborhood and another from the University Park area in Main South. Police paid heightened attention to the situation and the area has been fairly quiet since July 26 when they arrested five teenagers armed with knives and other weapons, just as the two groups were about to do battle. One of those arrested, a 17-year-old, was identified as an instigator of the Friendly House brawl who also has been arrested for possession of crack cocaine within a school zone and of assaulting another youth at a bus stop, cutting him with a knife and hitting him in the face with a rock. Another of those arrested, also 17, had been arrested last spring and charged in connection with the May shooting of a 30-year-old man on Grafton Street.

• The shooting of a reputed ranking member of the Latin Kings street gang on April 13 near the Shell gas station on Southbridge Street. The man, Luis Acevedo, 34, who was not seriously injured, was identified as a member of the gang in a previous court case. The shooting is believed one of a series of retaliation crimes stemming from the stabbing of Mr. Acevedo’s girlfriend two years ago by another man.

• The shooting of a 20-year-old city man, Klevis Hila, on Midland Street in the Newton Square neighborhood on Feb. 25, which police believe stemmed from a dispute between rival gangs and was the first crime of its kind to occur on the city’s West Side in many years. The victim, shot in the right eye, has since recovered. Three men, ages 18 and 19, have been charged with assault with intent to murder and are awaiting trial.

In addition to several approaches undertaken by police, responses to the violence are coming from several fronts in the city.

U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern last month set up a meeting with Chief Gemme and community leaders to address what he believes is a rising tide of youth and young adult crime. A follow-up session is to take place at his local office this Wednesday and he wants the meetings to continue on a monthly basis.

The goal, according to the Worcester Democrat, is either to create a model that other cities would want to copy or to find a suitable model employed elsewhere and copy it.

“We need to figure out a way to try to get to those people or they will spiral down the road of hopelessness, helplessness and despair,” he said.

A number of city clergy have committed to the effort, members of the Black Ministers Alliance and local Catholic priests among them. Chief Gemme said their support is especially welcome because of inroads they can provide to the families and others who have contact with gang members and potential gang members, as well as to victims of crimes.

One of the ministers involved is the Rev. Jose Encarnacion from the Christian Community Church in the city. Crimes now occurring here, he said, necessitate a far-reaching effort to seek peace.

He and the other clergy members, Rev. Encarnacion said, face a special challenge in trying to reach the offenders in the 21-to-26-year-old age group — people past the point they can be reached by the police gang unit’s efforts, which include a number of proactive programs.

“It is going to take more than the liturgical stance,” he said. “It will require us to get out of our comfort zone on the pulpit and engage that young population on the streets.”

For starters, he added, “We have to get some of these young men and women employed. Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”

Frances R. Manocchio, director of the city’s Human Rights Commission, believes that the involvement of clergy will be a significant step in reducing violence.

“For many folks, a faith leader represents a symbol of hope and a trusted person,” she noted.

“There is a willingness to turn this tide around,” Ms. Manocchio said. “Many of the religious communities here are doing tremendous work.”

Roberto Diaz, a counselor at the Worcester Youth Center on Chandler Street, who attended last month’s meeting called by Mr. McGovern, said he believes the congressman’s heart is in the right place on the issue of violence, but fears many young people do not relate well to some of the police and authority figures who come along. The meetings can be useful, he said, if they include adult figures who can relate to kids and who truly want to listen to their concerns.

Egbert Pinero, 19, of Worcester, a member of the rap group H.O.P.E, was among those interviewed at the Youth Center who shared the view that problems involving young people are exaggerated and misunderstood. In particular, he criticized news stories about shootings, stabbings, violent deaths and court hearings splashed across front pages and without a comparable dose of more uplifting news. The cumulative effect, he believes, is to tear down the urban youth community in a way that is damaging and long-lasting.

Robert F. Pezzella, the Worcester School Department’s executive assistant to the superintendent for school safety and violence prevention, believes the answers to these problems are, for the most part, known. The next step is to expand and better utilize what already has been started.

In his job with the school department, he has confiscated weapons that range from baseball bats to machetes to pickaxes and pellet guns easily mistaken for the real thing. He has also been frustrated by parents of students involved in violence on school grounds who refuse to assist in taking corrective action.

“We’ve got members of the gang unit coming into sixth-grade classes really encouraging them to become part of the ‘gangs’ that form from involvement in places such as the YMCA, the YWCA and the Boys & Girls Club — places that are positive,” he said. “But those things have to be available to them; they have to be encouraged by their families to go the better route.”

In another capacity, as a board member of the Latin American Health Alliance, he sees young Hispanic men willing to work to overcome their substance abuse and addictions. But once they’re in recovery, Mr. Pezzella added, they need to find jobs that will help lead to productive lives. “The city has done a great job finding summer jobs for young people,” he said, but “there are a lot more people who need work” to keep from returning to lives of crime and abuse.

Ending violence at all age levels, he said, is important if for no other reason than self-preservation.

“Think about it,” Mr. Pezzella said. “It could be you or me caught in the crossfire someday.”

Richard Nangle of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report. Contact Scott Croteau by e-mail at scroteau@telegram.com. Contact Jay Whearley at jwhearley@telegram.com.