Pubdate: Sun, 05 Aug 2012
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2012 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: Darran Simon

CAMDEN TRIES TO STRIKE BACK AGAINST RISING VIOLENCE

Seven men who grew up together gathered in an alley near a notorious
Camden drug corner. The month before, at least two of them had
celebrated a birthday with a barbecue and champagne. But this day, a
squabble over drug turf erupted into an argument.

The men came from at least three sets of the Bloods street gang. They
were packing guns. Eventually - perhaps inevitably - bullets flew near
Sixth and Royden Streets in the Lanning Square neighborhood.

When the firing stopped, Robert Carstarphen, 27, was down. It wasn't
the first time, his mother said. He had survived being riddled with
nine bullets in 2007 and six more in 2011.

This time, he died.

The next day, July 11, two men were killed in retaliation - victims
No. 4 and 5 for July, a month that would become the city's deadliest
since September 1949, when Howard Unruh went on his notorious River
Avenue shooting spree, killing 13.

At the current pace, Camden might not only exceed last year's total of
49 homicides, but surpass the record of 58 set in 1995, figures show.

"It's a major concern for us," Police Chief Scott Thomson said. "We
have more than just one Bloods faction in our city. We have more than
one open-air drug market. So the potential [for a turf battle] is
there in these other markets as well."

Most of the 13 people who died in July were men. The youngest victim
was a 16-year-old boy, the oldest a 42-year-old woman.

Most of the deaths were connected to the drug trade or gangs. But
there were some innocent victims, such as a charismatic 17-year-old
and a 39-year-old father of six who tried to break up a fight between
acquaintances.

Most of the victims were killed in the Lanning Square, Bergen Square,
Whitman Park, and Gateway neighborhoods. Five were shot before 7 p.m.,
one as early as 1:15 p.m.

Camden, often ranked among America's most dangerous cities, is doing
its best to cope. One family held a chicken, fish, and beef
fund-raiser to pay for a funeral and then joined others mourning their
dead. A new clergy task force has held nighttime walks, and residents
took part in an antiviolence march.

Homicide investigators are working 60- and 70-hour weeks chasing down
witnesses and suspects. They hustle from case to case, authorities
say, often unable to immediately do second and third interviews - the
ones that could help to crack cases.

Murder charges have been filed in 17 of the year's 39 homicides and
arrests made in 15 cases, authorities said. Last week, two men were
charged with murder after police said they fired at a van stopped at a
traffic light in retaliation for the shootout in the alley.

Shootings have become more deadly, said Camden County Prosecutor
Warren W. Faulk.

The 103 shootings from January through July were about 16 percent more
than the same period last year, figures show. But homicides spiked
more than 80 percent, to 39.

Thomson attributed the uptick to the drug-turf battle among the
Bloods, Camden's most largest and most powerful gang.

Thomson, whose department has about 100 fewer officers than it did
before massive layoffs 18 months ago because of a $26 million budget
deficit, said he had redeployed officers to daytime neighborhood patrols.

He also said he was looking into prosecuting suspects under harsher
federal gun laws.

Mayor Dana L. Redd has said she wants to accelerate a controversial
plan to replace the undermanned city department, which has about 277
officers, with a county force that supporters say would increase
police presence on the streets.

The cost of the plan is unclear. Police unions have criticized it as a
union-busting political move that would not keep residents safer.

Gangs have long plagued Camden County, particularly Camden City. And
membership is growing.

The number of Bloods members has more than doubled to more than 1,300
since 2007, according to Sgt. Christina DeCristofor of the county
Prosecutor's Office. Membership in the Crips has more than tripled to
more than 270, she said.

The different sets of Bloods include Sex Money Murder, G-Shine, and
Neighborhood Bloods. Other gangs include MS-13 and Latin Kings as well
as the Crips.

Gang leaders are heavily recruiting young teenagers and employing them
in the drug trade because juvenile penalties are lighter than adult
penalties, DeCristofor said.

"Most often, the juveniles are going right back on the corner where
they were just arrested," she said.

And multiple arrests bolster street credibility for impressionable
young people, who mature into adult criminals.

"We have young adults who you can look back and see multiple juvenile
charges," DeCristofor said.

At least one of the suspects charged with murder this month, Jalil
Anderson, a Bloods member, had multiple arrests as a juvenile.

Anderson had a February 2010 conviction as an adult for conspiracy to
distribute drugs. Charges of armed robbery and burglary and weapons
offenses were dismissed last week in an unrelated case from August
2010, authorities said.

There is no magic formula for reducing fluctuating homicide rates,
said Eugene O'Donnell, professor of police studies at John Jay College
of Criminal Justice in New York City, but departments have tried
flooding trouble spots with officers and reassessing deployment.

Suburban communities also need to work with city departments to find
ways to reduce violence, which spreads, he said.

"They shouldn't be hunkering down hoping it doesn't come to them," he
said. "The idea that you can sit back and watch Camden struggle to
survive and look away, that's outrageous."

The Camden clergy task force hopes to use the nighttime walks to forge
relationships with residents in the hope of reducing gang violence and
homicides.

"Right now, we are going to funerals of a lot of victims of the
violence in the city, but we would love to bring about an atmosphere
where we don't have to attend funerals," said the Rev. Heyward Wiggins
III of Camden Bible Tabernacle in North Camden, a task force member.

On Tuesday, families of some of Camden's homicide victims joined with
the National United Youth Council on Sixth Street in the last stop of
the group's 18-city antiviolence rally. The council, which dropped off
petitions in Trenton, is campaigning for violence to be declared a
public-health crisis.

For investigators like Lance Saunders, 45, the Prosecutor's Office's
lead investigator in the Carstarphen homicide, the caseload has been
nonstop. He and other investigators worked past 2 a.m. interviewing
family members.

At 3 p.m. the next day, another man, Jovan Aponte, 19, was fatally
shot by two masked men as investigators searched for more witnesses in
Carstarphen's killing, Saunders said.

Aponte was not in the alley but was an associate of Jalil Anderson's,
authorities said.

Four hours later, Anderson and another man, Turquoise Perez, 25, fired
at a van stopped at a light in front of a barbershop on Haddon Avenue
and Park Boulevard, police said. The driver, Reynaldo Morales, 16, who
may not have been the target, was fatally struck. Anderson and Perez
are being held in the Camden County Jail on $1.5 million bail each.

"It was a violent week among very violent friends who grew up
together," Saunders said.
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