BRIAN CHILSON
a church with about 100 young people and 10 adults. You’ve got these young people trying to help figure this out, trying to help each other figure it out, trying to help make sense out of nonsense. And you go to the church and there’s a hundred kids in there and 10 adults, and that’s the pastor and the ushers and the people that belong to that church. You didn’t have a community of adults trying to help these kids figure this out, to help them grieve, to help them understand what it is that’s happening with them and to them. None of those kids have the maturity — no training, no experience — to help another youngster through grief. That was the insane part about it in my mind. You’ve got these babies holding each other, crying, and trying to provide for each other and console each other. What I learned personally from those days is the value of consistent, caring adults in the lives of young people, and what that means. You can’t measure that. You can’t quantify it. I know it means a hell of a lot. I had a young lady who was in my program who posted on Facebook on Father’s Day: “Happy Father’s Day, Pops.” She always called me Pops. She let everybody know that I’ve done more for her than her own father has. That resonates, when you see something like that. She was in my program 20 years ago. These kids, I see them now and they’re grown. They’re 30, 35. And they still call me Mr. Ken. They still look at me as Mr. Ken. You never know the impact you’re going to have on someone. I didn’t know it then. I was just doing it because I was concerned about them. I didn’t want them to get in trouble. But it stays with them. I see them today and know how important that is. That’s what I learned: the importance of that. I didn’t know it then. You wouldn’t know it. There were people who were mentors of mine growing up and they probably don’t even realize the impact they had on my life.
KEYON NEELY: “You’re not an official set if you didn’t get someone from The Land to come here.”
I think about the things they instilled in me. When you make those kinds of connections, they become your extended family. They’re not numbers. They’re family. They stay with you for the rest of your life, in your mind and your heart.
Thirteenth and Elm. Right there where it all started at. That’s why our ’hood is 14th and Elm. West Side Piru. We actually had a guy that come down from California. You’re not really an official set if you didn’t get someone from The Land to come here. Cali. Someone to actually put their feet down here and be like, “Yeah, this gonna be my new stomping ground. Right here.” He was West Side Piru.
KEYON NEELY A member of the West Side Pirus, a Blood set centered near 14th and Elm streets, Keyon Neely might be the oldest 37-year-old you’ll ever meet. He’s been shot multiple times, once severely enough to leave him paralyzed for months while nerve damage healed. His eyes are the eyes of a man who has
8/2/1994
COURTESY HBO
I was coming down here in the summer from Georgia. My mom was married to a guy in the military, Fort Benning. But I was coming down here for the summer and staying with my grandparents. There weren’t any gangs then. Maybe a year or two later was when the guy came from Cali and it began. We went way back before all of that, our brotherhood. We were like family. Everybody stayed across the street from each other. We weren’t a gang then. You just couldn’t come in this neighborhood. Wasn’t no breaking into Mrs. Parker’s house. Ain’t no stealing Mrs. Jones’ car. I mean, you had friends back then. But more or less, we just went out to the
10/1/1994
1/9/1995
Seventeen members of the Oak Street Posse are federally indicted on charges of sale and distribution of crack cocaine. Eventually, the majority of the gang's leadership was put behind bars, effectively gutting its street operations.
A Little Rock School District bus was stopped at gunpoint at 17th and Boyce streets by armed masked men who stepped into the street, pointed a handgun at the bus driver and threatened to shoot if he drove away. Three men boarded the bus in search of a student. Their intended target wasn’t on the bus, so they robbed the bus passengers, taking gold chain necklaces and some cash.
Oak Street Posse members indicted
HBO’s “Gang War: Bangin’ in Little Rock” premieres COURTESY LITTLE ROCK POLICE DEPARTMENT
seen things he shouldn’t. Along with plentiful tattoos representing his love for West Side and his neighborhood, his arms are covered in the tattooed names of the dead.
School bus hijacking and robbery
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JULY 16, 2015
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