There hasn`t been a shooting in the sprawling Cabrini-Green public housing complex since 7-year-old Dantrell Davis was killed by a sniper as he walked to school two months ago.
On the West Side, where two gangs once engaged in nightly shootouts, the echoes of gunfire have lessened.
”There`s still shooting at night, and there`s still some killing,” said Laura Jenkins, 60, who has lived in the South Side`s dangerous Englewood neighborhood since 1967. ”But we haven`t had the terrible gang fighting we used to. It`s quieted down a lot.”
Shootings and homicides throughout the city fell almost 20 percent in November, compared to last year. And the four-day Thanksgiving holiday marked an occasion of sorts for Chicago: There were just two murders, compared with the usual toll of 11 or 12.
But murder never stops in Chicago, especially those killings that seem to spring from gangs or drugs. A 10-year-old boy was killed Wednesday in a drive- by shooting as he rode in his father`s car. A 15-year-old was found strangled last Sunday with dice and packets of a substance believed to be cocaine at his side. A gunman cut down a 19-year-old with a .357 Magnum in a crowded school gym on Dec. 3.
Even so, things have quieted on the city`s streets since Dantrell`s killing Oct. 13 focused Chicago`s attention on the rampant violence responsible for his death and hundreds of others.
Those who helped forge a truce among 12 major black street gangs say their pact is responsible for the relative peace, and they want credit for it. They have demanded to meet with the mayor, enlisted the support of community leaders and even printed up buttons promoting the truce that read
”United in Peace” surrounded by gang symbols.
City officials and police remain skeptical. Any dip in violence, they say, can be attributed to increased police presence and more security sweeps in Chicago Housing Authority buildings. If the gangs aren`t shooting at each other, it`s because they`re afraid the violence was scaring off drug customers, the officials say.
But it is in the beleaguered neighborhoods, where statistics and reasons matter much less than the prospect of walking without fear, where the truce matters most. And here, people see glints of hope, albeit tarnished by distrust.
Police records do show that violence has slowed in Englewood, where, after a record 99 murders last year, homicides are down 18 percent and shootings down 15 percent for the first 11 months of this year.
As she walked her 4-year-old daughter home recently from an Englewood preschool, Patricia Reed agreed that she hears fewer gunshots lately, but she still prays every day for her six children.
”The truce hasn`t made me any less worried about my kids,” she said.
”Why should you take the word of gangbangers?”
That`s the question many people ask.
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The truce was announced Oct. 25, 12 days after Dantrell was killed, in a news conference at the Tranquility Marksmen Community Center near Cabrini-Green. According to the group who led the conference, the pact was the result of more than a year`s hard work and covered the members of the major black ”nations” in the city.
Police estimate there are 41 major gangs of all races in the city, with about 28,500 identified adult members and 9,000 juveniles. Those working with the gangs say the numbers are much higher.
The truce wasn`t the first time Chicago`s gangs called for peace or sought legitimacy. At least two truces were called between the city`s two largest gangs in the late 1960s. During this period, the gangs also gained a measure of political standing, including some hefty government grants that critics called payoffs.
The roots of this truce are no different from those in the past: raging violence.
The agreement started in Illinois` penitentiaries, where a number of major gang leaders are incarcerated, according to police and truce organizers. From Dixon Correctional Center, Rahim Justice El-a self-described former leader of the Conservative Vice Lords who changed his name from Willie Rico Johnson-said in a telephone interview that recent shootings shocked even those accustomed to gang warfare, prompting them to respond to overtures by activists.
”We had violence in the gangs 10 years ago, but it was violence directed against gang members,” said Johnson, 48, a murderer and armed robber.
”(Then) it wasn`t babies and mothers being shot. Things had gotten so far out of hand that people didn`t care who got shot as long as they were from the neighborhood.”
For the first 11 months of this year, a murder happened in Chicago an average of every nine hours. In September, more people were murdered than in any other September in Chicago history: 108. Twenty-eight people were slain over Labor Day weekend alone.
Yet the city paid little notice until Dantrell was killed. Police said the 34-year-old man charged with the boy`s murder told them he was aiming at rival gang members.
Public outrage prompted city officials to immediately move more police into Cabrini. The CHA came in with 10 days of sweeps. Similar operations followed at Henry Horner and Rockwell Gardens, both on the West Side.
”We shut down Cabrini,” said Sherwood Williams, chief of the Chicago Police Department`s special functions division. ”If you go there at night, it looks like Wrigley Field, there are so many lights.”
The people who live in Cabrini agree they feel safer. ”Children can come and go, old people can come and go, young men can come and go,” said Dolores Wilson, 63, who has lived there for 34 years.
But Wilson and other Cabrini residents attribute peace to the truce.
”You can close buildings if you want to, but people will keep shooting if they want to,” Wilson said. ”I think the gangs just wanted a safe place to live too.”
”Believe me, if the boys wanted to get the guns back in the neighborhood, it would be no problem,” agreed Carol Steele, 41, who has lived in Cabrini since she was 6. ”I think even the gangs were tired of the shooting.”
Another dip in violence-though smaller-has occurred on the West Side, where police say two gangs were involved in almost constant shootouts.
”We have experienced a reduction in the amount of violence with black gangs on the West Side, but as far as attributing it to a so-called gang truce, I`m hesitant,” said Cmdr. Joseph Kelly of the gang crimes west unit.
It`s difficult to calculate the truce`s impact. Police consider a crime gang-related only if it occurs as a result of gang activities or conflicts. Also, the city`s Hispanic and white gangs are not part of the pact, and violence among them continues unabated, police said.
But in seven police districts with large black populations, the November decline in violent crime is pronounced. In Wentworth, which includes the Robert Taylor and the Stateway Gardens CHA projects, shootings fell by 62 percent, compared with November 1991. Other South Side districts with heavy gang activity-including Englewood, Grand Crossing, South Chicago and Gresham- saw shootings plunge by about a third.
In the East Chicago district on the North Side shooting dropped by 50 percent. In the South Side Pullman district the decrease was 44 percent.
”At this point, we can`t make any determination (if the truce is responsible),” said Cmdr. Robert Dart of the gang crimes section. ”There are so many different things you have to plug in-the weather, the economy, personal relationships between two gangs. If there`s something out of whack we can`t account for, we`ll have to write it off to the truce.”
From the edge of the Rockwell Gardens housing complex, at least, the view looked brighter for Milton Ervin, 26, wearing a ”United in Peace” button and several friends standing outside a market at Campbell Avenue and Jackson Boulevard.
”See those two guys?” asked Sidney Spells, 28. ”One is a Conservative Vice Lord. The other is a Disciple (a rival gang). They`re walking around together now.”
Most officials, like Cmdr. Kelly, believe rivals are walking around together out of a concern that violence is hurting the drug trade.
Mayor Richard M. Daley has declined to meet with gang leaders about the truce for similar reasons.
”It (violence) has had a negative effect on their lucrative drug business because customers were afraid to come into the area because they are afraid of getting shot,” Kelly said.
Community activists working with gang leaders deny that.
”We`re just asking not to prejudge it as the guys trying to lie low,”
said Rev. John Porter, pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Englewood. ”Part of the solution lies with those who create the problem. Give them a chance to make it work.”
Truce organizers readily admit they have not made inroads into the drug trade. But they argue that they can`t ask gang members to stop selling drugs until they can offer them other opportunities to make a living.
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”First, we had to stop the shooting,” said Earl King, founder of No Dope Express Foundation and an initiator of the truce effort. ”No one is going to stop the drugs overnight.”
The truce`s future is murky.
”I think it will work if people will wait and see if it will work,”
said Stan Wright, 39, who said he represents a West Side gang. ”It`s not like the 1960s. We`re not trying to get grants. We have to live with this every day, and we just want people to stop killing each other.”
No one would argue with that wish, but people like Adrene and Bennie Sparks, who are raising a 12-year-old grandson in their neat Englewood two-flat, are unsure about its promise.
”I have heard about this truce,” said Adrene Sparks. ”But I still worry.”