Former gang members work to prevent repeat of violence

[Lucinda F. Boyd]

Former gang members work to prevent repeat of violence

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(File)

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• R.O.C.A.N (Reaching Our Children & Neighborhoods)

Reported by: David Goins

Email: [e-mail]

Updated:2/28 8:41 am

Published:2/16 3:30 pm

LITTLE ROCK, AR - If you think gangs are a thing of the past, the Little Rock Police Department says think again.

Gang task force officers say they're tracking 29 active gangs right now within the city, the same number that existed 20 years ago.

Some of those hardened gang members then want to change the gang violence trend now.

Yasheka Holmes, a mom now in her mid-30s, found herself recruited into the city's escalating gang war - as a middle schooler.

"One day, I was just a kid getting on at a bus stop going to school,” Holmes said. “The next day, it was demographics. If you lived in this zip code you were this color."

Film crews brought the gang epidemic to light in the 1994 documentary Banging in the Rock. It brought to light the big time gang activity that ran rampant in small cities like Little Rock.

"Really, honestly, when I look at myself, I can't believe I was heartless,” Holmes said. “That I was the type of person that didn't care about human life."

Leifel Jackson's street name was O.G., which stands for Original Gangster, for the "14th and Booker" Crips. Jackson was eventually sent to prison for selling drugs in the early '90's.

"Everyone was carving out their territory," Jackson said. "And that was one of the most deadliest times in the history of the state of Arkansas."

He can now be found steering kids away from gangs at ROCAN: Reaching Our Children And Neighborhoods, a non-profit after school program he runs in North Little Rock.

"We feed them a meal everyday,” Jackson said. “We give them a snack and we give them a meal."

But Jackson says he's sees the violence he experienced first hand in the gang ridden '90's coming back. Murder numbers have surged to 75, more than the total for 2010 and 2011 combined.

"There's been so much violence in our streets in the last six to eight months," Jackson said.

Are gangs back in 2012? The Police Department says they don't have a running count on the amount of gang members in the city because most people, not surprisingly, won't voluntarily reveal they are in a gang.

Does Chief Stuart Thomas if there are gangs on the streets of Little Rock today?

“There probably always will be gangs,” Chief Thomas said. “Because a lot of the things that help or encourage people to identify with gangs will always be with us."

"When other people know you're from Little Rock, number one [question is about] gangs,” Holmes said. "‘How did you overcome it? How did you come out of that?'"

"It is astonishing how the reputation endures," Chief Thomas said.

Thomas says he still hears it when he leaves town, even with violent crime numbers today nowhere near the levels of 20 years ago.

"It is annoying sometimes because there is that perception out there," Thomas said. "I think gangs are like some elements of organized crime, you're always going to have them."

Back at ROCAN, Jackson meets with police from both sides of the river in what he hopes is an open dialogue to avoid a repeat of 1993. He's recruited former gang member Yasheka Holmes to convince kids from going down the same destructive path.

"It wasn't a good choice of love, I could have found a church or anything. And as an adult that's what I'm teaching kids now,” Holmes said. “Find a church home, find something positive, don't just go to the hood."

"If I could tell anybody today about the person I saw on TV versus the person I am now, that's not the person you want to be,” Holmes said. “Because, it's just like they say, you love the streets but the streets don't love you."

Now she and Jackson have devoted their lives to making sure kids have a place to go after school, instead of turning to the streets.