“Partnering to fight crime for a safer Greensboro”CITY OF GREENSBOROContact: CID FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEPhone: 336.373.2255 Discharge of FirearmGreensboro, NC (26 July 2013)On July 25, 2013 at approximately 11:30 pm, Officers were dispatched to a discharge of firearm at the Saint John’s Lodge located at 1107 East Market Street.Upon arrival, Officers observed about 200 teens exit the building. Several groups began to engage in a disorder. A few moments later, one or more subjects began discharging a firearm into the air. Additional Officers responded to assist with crowd control, locate potential victims, and locate suspects.No victims were located and no one was found injured at the scene.As a result of the Officers’ investigation on the scene, three subjects were detained in reference to the discharging of the firearm. One of those detained was charged in the incident. Several fights and disorders continued to break out as the crowd moved along East Market Street. The officers continued to manage the crowd until it was dispersed at about 1:00 am.The following charges resulted form the incident:Kenyon C. Jordan, black male, 20 years old, was arrested and charged with Carrying a Concealed Gun and Discharging a Firearm inside the City Limits.George McCoy, black male, 16 years old, was arrested and charged with Affray.Steven Lloyd, black male, 16 years old, was cited and released for Disorderly Conduct.Shyquan Chavis, black male, 16 years old, was cited and released for Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer and Resist, Delay, and Obstruct a Law Enforcement Officer.Two juveniles were charged on juvenile referrals for Disorderly Conduct.One firearm was seized by the Officers.Central District Officers, Eastern District Officers, and CID personnel responded to the scene.Anyone with any information is asked to call Crime stoppers at 336.373.1000.Sent Authority: Lieutenant JL Raines, Watch Commander
The City works with the community to improve the quality of life for residents through inclusion, diversity, and trust. As the seventh largest employer in Greensboro, the City has a professional staff of 2,800 employees who maintain the values of honesty, integrity, stewardship, and respect. The City is governed by a council-manager form of government with a mayor and eight council members. For more information on the City, visit www.greensboro-nc.gov or call 336-373-CITY (2489).VT Starborn, Watch OperationsGreensboro Police Department
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When I was young stories of the Bessemer Boys, the Pomona Gang, the gang from McAdoo Heights, the Spoons Gang and gangs from every working class neighborhood in Greensboro were legendary. Those gangs lasted from the late 1940s until the early 1970s.
I remember a neighbor named Barry, a member of the Bessemer Gang, coming to my house cut up from head to toe, bleeding everywhere and looking for Patsy, our babysitter that night. I watched in amazement as Patsy bandaged his wounds and stitched him up using needle and thread from my mother's sewing box, scolding him all the while for being involved in such things. With nothing to ease the pain, Barry, still a teenager himself, only laughed and blew her off.
She tried to get him to go to the hospital but he refused saying the hospital would call the cops. If memory serves me right they had gone up against the Pomona Gang that night.
When I was a 16 year old school bus driver with a high school route through the edge of MacAdoo Heights the girls on the bus learned I was from Bessemer and assumed me to be one of the Bessemer Gang. They thought it sexy. I hated telling them I wasn't and that the Bessemer Boys were gone. But I remembered watching them in action one night as they went up against a cross town rival on the athletic field behind Bessemer High School. Both sides went at it like there was no tomorrow and when it was over each gathered up their wounded and left.
What was it all about? With the exception of the Spoons which was solely a criminal enterprise, best I can tell it was all about neighborhood pride, testosterone filled teenage boys out to prove they were better than someone, anyone they could find to be better than. It began with the school athletics teams that pitched one neighborhood against another but when the ballgame ended the boys weren't ready to stop competing. At least, that's my best guess.
Shootings were few and far between not because guns weren't available but because anyone who resorted to unnecessary gun violence was considered a coward. Like the others, Barry, considered loosing a fight and wearing the scars to be like medals of honor-- a sign that he wouldn't run from a fight even if it meant loosing.
All the gangs I mentioned and many more from back then were 100% white. There were black gangs too. While white gangs fought white gangs and black gangs fought black gangs I never heard of black and white gangs fighting one another.
Up until the 1980s there were places white folks in Greensboro couldn't go. Yes, we hear all the time of blacks being excluded and it's true but there were places whites were excluded as well. Julian Street was the most famous of them in Greensboro. No white boy in his right mind ever ventured into the small business district that existed on Julian Street in those days. To do so would have been suicide. Even Greensboro Police officers only went in after gathering dozens of offers.
Of course, the difference was, black folks were excluded by law just as Greensboro is again trying to use the law to exclude black folks and teenagers from downtown. It's one thing when criminals break the law-- they're criminals, we expect them to break the law. But when police and elected leaders break the law by writing and enforcing bad laws... Well as you can see from the GPD press release above, it doesn't fix a damned thing.
Greensboro's gang problems have always been with us. The colors of our gangs have changed somewhat but none of this is new, none of it is different. The difference is: today we have television, radio and the internet, blogs and social media pushing the news around the world and destroying the City of Greensboro's long held ability to cover up the truth and hide the facts from the public at large. So the question remains, “Why did it take a ‘riot’ in downtown Greensboro to get to this point?” Why? Why? Is it just because there’s an election coming in November? Is that the only reason we’re here? Or are we going to finally do something about it this time?"
You see, history has proven a corrupt city government and corrupt city leaders are incapable of dealing with crime in our streets and problems in our communities as they are too caught up in their own sordid issues to take notice. Remember the meeting on the Downtown curfew at the public library Wednesday night? Mayor Robbie Perkins and Councilman Zack Matheny left in the middle of the meeting. Neither really cares.
