The development of crime, gangs, drugs in Denvers five points -neighborhood

Denver – The history of crime in five points is at best complicated.

“Man, it got bad,” said Rev. Leon Kelly, founder of Open Door Youth Gang alternatives. “It got really bad.”

Rev. Kelly talks about drug activities, violence and drive-by shootings in the 1980s and 90s.

Denver7 film material from the news report in the 80s and 90s dates this feeling.

“There are too many weapons out here, there are too many Drive-Bys,” said a patrol police officer in this file material. “We see that small 6-year-old children shot and other people shot in the community who are innocent victims.”

In order to really understand the development of crimes in five points, brother Jeff Fard and Rev. Kelly say that they have to return much further than the 80s and 90s.

In this report Denver7 360 we look back into the decades of crime, culture and activism that have shaped five points. This story is part of a denver7 | Your language series, which was broadcast on May 2 during a special broadcast by shipments from the neighborhood.

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Black influence of the 1950s and '60s

“We moved to this neighborhood in 1955,” said Rev. Kelly. “My mother and father bought our house for about $ 11,000. 37th and St. Paul.”

It was a neighborhood full of life, jazz and trail blazers. We talked to Rev. Kelly in front of the Black American West Museum & Heritage Center about telling the stories of black cowboys and other African Americans who have shaped the western USA

“In the past, Dr. Justina Fords was at home. Dr. Justina Ford couldn't practice a hospital because she was black and she was a woman,” said brother Jeff. “She practiced her medicine in the community (outside of her home). That is five points of points.”

It was – in every respect – a easier time.

Simpler time

“I grew up here in the northeast of Denver, and there was never a time when positive adults were not involved in the life of young people,” said Brother Jeff. “They were coaches, they were mentors, they were always present in the community.”

“And that is the answer. Positive adults in the life of young people.”

History Colorado

“My father came home after getting the job here in the Tramway Bus Company and making a lot of money, you know 1.25 US dollars an hour,” said Rev. Kelly. “These were the innocent times of these days. That was the time we all knew on our block. Everyone.”

But then Rev. Kelly and Brother Jeff Jeff both-dies lifestyle began to erode, for the most part due to the cost of living, the adults who worked more, children with more leisure and a huge wave of negative influence-main state.

Wave of negative influences, gangs from California and elsewhere

“What we started in the early 90s in the late 1980s was the influx of Crack cocaine,” said Brother Jeff. “So you start seeing drug addiction.”

“You have places such as California, Chicago, Detroit, other places that dealt with some problems,” said Rev. Kelly. “But that's Colorado. Not colorful Colorado, man.”

“And then also materialism in relation to fights and killing about starter jackets and tennis shoes and such things,” said Brother Jeff.

The culture layer had started and sneaked quickly.

Cultural shift

“I started seeing a change in the way of thinking of many of the children I had to do with,” said Rev. Kelly.

“This is the first time that the oldest fear of youth are,” said brother Jeff. “It is a turning point.”

Rev. Kelly saw it quickly changed and alarmed -but said he had met the resistance of city leaders.

“Back then I tried to tell the city fathers: This is something that we have to see as very serious if they remain unattended,” said Rev. Kelly. “I equated it with something like cancer. And it will grow at some point and then kill the body. Mayor (Federico) Peña was the very first Hispanic mayor in our city. And no mayor wants to affect the image of the city.”

“It was an episode of murders and violence and detention and addiction,” said brother Jeff.

Rev. Kelly said that children were shot every day. It was spiral and five points were in the middle of the storm.

Storm focus

The journey through shootings became commonplace. The drugs had taken over the streets of the city, and the Crips and Bloods had marked their areas in five points, Park Hill and beyond.

Funerals of young people became an overly familiar scene.

Rev. Kelly's list of people who died violently and died young grew at the end of the 1980s, and in 1990 the numbers were shot up.

In 1991 the list was even longer and the violence in Denver was sprayed across the country across the country. Then the Rocky Mountain News in 1993 came as “The Summer of Violence”.

Summer of violence

“What happened is – there was a young white child who was hit in the (Denver) zoo,” said Brother Jeff. “And it always depends on who is affected by violence – not necessarily violence [itself] In itself, but who affects that? “

“Mary Ann Lowe, a school teacher from Jefferson County, was enthusiastic about the move to Denver,” said Rev. Kelly. “The gangster taught in the school district and went out, they saw them, shot them up, killed them.”

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Then there was 6-year-old Broderick Bell, a first grader on the way home from his first karate lesson-made from a ball on the back seat of a car.

Bell would survive the shootout, but the public had seen enough. And officials from the city of Denver had no choice but to improve the enforcement.

Enough is enough

“The main focus is on gang activities and crack houses,” said an official at a city council meeting in 1993.

Mayor Wellington Webb even gave the police Greenlight to stop someone who was suspicious of what he was also necessary, even as critics argued that it was a profiling.

“Those who are stopped who are not guilty of crime must work with the police department and understand what is necessary to capture the people who take part in hardcore activities,” said Mayor Webb at the time.

At the state level, the democratic governor Roy Romer called a special meeting in which legislators adopted harder punishments for juvenile offenders and gang members.

“It was a feeling of panic, outrage,” said brother Jeff. “What could be done? What needs to be done?”

“And we got the Pope,” said Rev. Kelly about the visit of Pope John Paul II in Denver during the World Youth Day 1993.

“We will call a special session. What do you do? (The governor) got people out of bed and said: 'You have to meet today. We have to find these laws. We have to know, you know.”

Rising of the community activism, youth representation

Community activism also took on site.

Brother Jeff started Brother Jeff's cultural center in the 1990s, while Rev. Kelly founded alternatives for the Open Door Youth Gang.

“We won't have hatred in brother Jeff's cultural center,” said brother Jeff.

“Open Door is still the oldest anti-gang program today,” said Rev. Kelly.

Families flee

Families fled to Park Hill, Montbello, Aurora and elsewhere as five points. Young people were locked up more often.

“This is exactly where the Gillian Youth Hachly Center”, ”

During our interview, Brother Jeff pointed out the Gillian Youth Services Center for downing between 28 and 29.

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“There is a youth correction facility directly in the community,” he said. “So – many young people – that's your first station.”

The gangs were finally limited out.

“And many of them [were] No longer crips and Bloods claimed, “said Rev. Kelly. Young people and families simply cannot afford to live in the city and in the county. So where do you go? You go to Aurora, do you know?

Crime had decreased in the early 2000s, real estate prices were depressed and the neighborhood experienced another seismic change.

Gentrification

“So what happened is gentrification,” said brother Jeff. “You know that there were people in the middle of despair who planned the reinterpretation of these communities. I could get the equity of people who flee or go, and the pain and the despair can become an investment option.”

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Today, when we went with brother Jeff, shopkeepers and managers like Jerry Morgan were able to see and get out of the window to greet us.

It feels like a community.

“This is exactly where street companies are,” said Morgan. “This is our social company. We employ young people to give them a trade, a ability to keep them away from the streets.”

And while the taste and soul of the neighborhood still exist, brother Jeff sees a completely different place than 10-15 years ago.

“It is no secret that there are billionaires who have part of this property,” he said. “I would imagine that Curtis Park, San Rafael, Clements in this entire area at the moment – I don't know if you could find 100 black families in this area.”

The future: preservation of the past

It led us to the question: Is there a future in which black families can return to this neighborhood?

“It's hard to say practical, but it's not practical,” said brother Jeff.

However, there is no doubt that the preservation of black history here – the good, the bad and the ugly – will certainly define the future of five points.

“There is no Muhammad Ali without looking for Sonny Liston,” said brother Jeff. “You don't have a Madam CJ Walker who is the first homemade millionaire. I don't speak of inherited wealth, I speak homemade. That is the hope of five points.”

And brother Jeff says names mean everything.

“When you start taking historical names away, you also start extinguishing the story,” said Brother Jeff.

In the 80s and 90s, drugs ruled the streets from Denvers five points in the 80s and 90s. Then everything changed

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