During the pandemic, with gun violence spiking across NYC, young people gathered in a neutral space to answer a question: Why did they carry guns? The common theme: A fear of dying — from police, rival gangs, or just random assailants.
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2023.From the spring of 2020 to 2021, as gun violence was spiking across all five boroughs amid the COVID-19 pandemic, something unusual was happening in a covered backyard of a Crown Heights storefront.
“To be honest, I never liked guns but I always have it on me … I had to protect myself like I always had to be there,” said another.Over the course of about six months, the researchers interviewed 103 young people, mostly young men, who said they’d carried a gun within the previous year. Reasons ranged from concerns about police, protection from others and involvement in street hustles — but they mostly shared a common theme: the fear of dying.
Enter Basaime Spate and Javonte Alexander: two Crown Heights natives who had lived through their own encounters with gun violence and the justice system. They decided to try the project in their own community, where they had long-standing relationships with local street networks.There were serious challenges: COVID was spreading, and a local war between the Woo and Choo gangs was heating up.
For many of those participants, carrying guns – and being feared themselves – was the best way to ensure survival. While society perpetuates the idea that all gangs, and everything that occurs within them, is bad, the researchers emphasized this wasn’t always the case. One participant said fellow members of his gang had encouraged him to stay on the right path. “They used to give me advice. We used to just talk, bond. We was like family … They used to still tell me to go to school, get my money but I had to still chill with them.”
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