Pubdate: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL) Copyright: 2000 The Sun-Times Co. Contact: 401 N. Wabash, Chicago IL 60611 Feedback: http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/feedback.html Website: http://www.suntimes.com/ Author: Mary A. Mitchell ANOTHER VICTIM OF WAR ZONE Tsarina Powell died in a war zone. And hours after the 12-year-old was killed trying to escape gunfire into her home, her neighbors sat on their front porches weary of the strangers who intruded into their own private hell. It was eerie. Another young life is crushed under the weight of the drug war, but where is the outrage? Where are our elected officals, clergy and others? Where is our march to the killing room to demand an end to this carnage? Last Saturday in Mississippi, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was able to lead about 1,000 demonstrators to a tree where a black teenager died last month in a hanging that was ruled a suicide, which Jackson believes was a lynching. Yet here on Chicago's South Side, a girl was murdered in a volley of gunfire most likely by people who look like her, and except for the drone of a carpenter's saw, hours afterward it was as if the tragedy never occurred. "If we don't hear gunshots, that would be something wrong," a resident conceded. "We are brainwashed. We've gotten used to being terrified." Tsarina's neighbors eyed the news media suspiciously as we tried to make sense out of why the young girl apparently became a victim of the ongoing turf battle between gangs in her neighborhood. No one was willing to give their names because eyes were watching, even if we did not see them. People talked furtively out of lips that barely moved. This is what it means to live in a war zone. You must stay out of the way. Everyone knew what was up at 5955 S. Honore. Some of them even know who the shooters are and whom they were looking for. It was not Tsarina. She was the only innocent one in all of this. By the time I arrived at the deteroriating frame house, fear had blanketed the block like the humidity in New Orleans. Tsarina's body had already been taken away and her family had fled. Her stepgrandfather learned of her death from the afternoon news and came leaning on his cane to try to see for himself whether it was true. His taps on the screenless door and a window roused only a dog somewhere upstairs. The old man did not go to the backyard and count the 19 bullet holes that riveted the back of the house. The old man had no answers. "I don't know. I really don't know. They must have been messing with some of the wrong people," he said, identifying himself only as Mr. Lucas and refusing to give a first name. "Maybe they were targeted by mistake." Unlike a declared war, it is hard to avoid the enemy in a drug/gang war. Gang members are landlords, relatives, husbands, boyfriends and fathers. For many, the illicit drug business run by gangs has become a legitimate lifestyle protected by silence. It is safer to keep to yourself and keep your mouth shut while the gangs fight over the size of their territory. According to one resident, Tsarina's family had lived in the house for about a year, but few people knew them. The upstairs apartment was where an alleged ranking gang member named "Mooney" lived, and everyone knew him. "I try not to socialize. I try not to get to know anyone," a resident said. "Everything around here is gang-related." More than likely, the people who killed Tsarina will be found and charged even if neighbors do not say a word. The murder of a child demands swift action, and police are bound to take it since Englewood is also poised to launch a renaissance with the redevelopment of Kennedy-King College. But what about the next time? Unless residents join forces to get the guns out of the hands of criminals in communities like Englewood, there will surely be a next time. How many Tsarinas do we have to bury in these communities before the residents themselves begin to give up their own corrupted fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins in order to save the lives of their uncorrupted children? Not one more, I pray. Not one more. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake