Manhole Cover Project: A Gun Legacy 1996

Testimonies: Youth 2

KARUD BROWN
It went far beyond just a fight. At first it was a physical fight and then it went beyond that stipulation where the person was like, oh, my gun, I know that could beat you. He looked at me, he looked at me funny and I looked at him funny and stuff like, ‘What, you know, and I went inside my aunt’s house. Then, you know, he just was like, he didn’t go anywhere, you know, he just hung around and stuff like that, but it didn’t click on me as to say, you know, something is going on, you know, he’s playing at something. It didn’t click on me at all. When it finally happened the first thing that happened in my head you know I was like, oh, ‘cause, boom, I was like, oh, man, I thought it was all a dream. When I woke up in the hospital I thought everything was a dream. I seen all these tubes and wires and I thought, ‘man, I’m dreaming. So I just wake up and I did one of these numbers, you know, I rubbed my eyes and stuff and I was like this ain’t no dream, this is real because I’m like man, you know and I’m pinching myself. I’m still pinching myself and I’m like this is real, this is reality.  I was like, ‘Oh man, how the heck am I going to get myself and I’m like this is real. I was like, ‘Oh man, how the heck am I going to deal with this and stuff like that, and over time, you know, I learned to deal with the situation of being in wheelchair and stuff like that

CLARENCE ROANE
Yeah but it wasn’t like a gang situation, y’know, I had tools before but I was never one to go out and use one, y’know what I’m sayin,’ I mean if I had the heat on me when the drama came, y’know, then it was like, y’know, then I was ready, I was always ready, y’know, but I never be the antagonist y’know. I mean, I’m not ready to kill nobody I knew that when I bought it.  I was never ready to kill nobody but self defense is a bitch, y’know. Because you get caught with out one, y’know, what I’m sayin,’ and you in the situation when you gotta hold down, hold it down and you don’t got, y’know what I’m sayin’. Sometime when the odds are against you there is no debatin’ and their is no time for, y’know, conversation, you got to be able to roll for yours, y’know. And sometimes you in a life or death situation where, you don’t know, y’know what I’m sayin’.

KARUD BROWN
I went to Gaylord Hospital after a while for therapy and which is one of, like, one of the best rehabilitation hospitals in Connecticut and I seen people that was worse off than me, see. I’m not walking right now. But I met a guy who got shot with a sawed off shotgun who had both arms shot off, you know I met another guy who had got shot, he was not walking at all he was just you know in a bed 24/7.  You know, and I’m thinking, ‘I’m bad, then I seen people that was far worse than I was and that made me, you know, I would say that helped with my therapy a little bit.

CLARENCE ROANE
Really there’s no such thing as an illegal gun sale, because, if you think about it, it’s the law and the government, who make em, who make em available, you know what I’m sayin’? We don’t got no bullets or nothin’, and we don’t got no factories or none of that makin’ them to bring over none of that, y’know.

JOHN THOMAS
Well in the Marine Corps your conditioned to become a part of your weapon and let the weapon become a part of you, an extension of yourself and bein’ from Hartford I was always proud that the weapon was manufactured in my home town.  I used to always point that out to everyone as we were cleaning our weapons which we did 90% of the day, you know, and I was proud to bear a firearm that was made and originated in my hometown.

KARUD BROWN

If I can’t handle it with my hands, I can always go pick this person up, this tool up, because this is me, you know what I’m saying, this is my buddy right here, you know what I’m saying. He won’t do me wrong. So like I said it made me feel power. You know, like, I could rule the world, so to speak, with this, you know. You know that’s like saying, you know the old saying goes, ‘walk softly and carry a big stick, I was like, ‘This gun is my big stick.’

JOHN THOMAS

I mean it is like buying a book or buying a magazine or something like that.  It’s very easy and if you don’t have the money to get one you know somebody who does or you know someone who has a gun. Well, the first time I held a gun on the street I was out of control. I mean, I was walking around showing people the gun, you know, lettin’ everybody know that I was packin’ and stuff like that and if you messed with me, you know, 9 times out of 10 I was drunk and people were thinkin’ I was trying to do somethin’ to them, you know. So, I mean, I was out of control in the street.

KARUD BROWN

I mean when he shot me you know, I wanted to shoot him, I wanted to kill him, you know, and I had so many opportunities. You know, and I mean, I even had a gun wantin’ to kill him myself but I mean somethin’ always happened. I’m still feelin’ it. It’s been four years and I’m still feelin’ this every day, every minute of my life. Even with the pain that I feel I know it’s never going to go away. I just have to know how to manage it and that’s what I ask God to do, just funnel that pain into somethin’ positive. I mean I just know God is stronger than me and I’m not strong enough to take all of this on myself. I didn’t see him or you know he was around a bunch of people and I was like, no I don’t want to do this, so you know what I’m saying even though he’s my boy, I shoot him somebody going to still say something, you know. When the cops come bustin’ heads, somebody going to say, ‘oh, such and such shot him. So after a while I’m sayin’ to myself, ‘Well maybe it’s not God’s will.’  God didn’t want me to kill him. You know if God wanted me to kill him he would have just let it happen.

JOHN THOMAS

I was at work at the Civic Center in Hartford and I was a cook at the time, at a gourmet specialty shop and my son’s mother came into the store and I thought she was talking about child support or something. She said, ‘ I gotta talk to you about somethin’, it is real important’ and she just looked at me, and I said, ‘Well, let’s walk out here, because I don’t want to get into an argument at my job’. She said, ‘No, Michael’s dead.’.  I just fell out crying, I just believed her too, you know. I didn’t think that I would believe somebody who would say something like that to me but I believed her.

We all have choices, but it’s unfortunate that some choices are a gun, you know, but they were made available to everybody.  I am aware of a purpose in my life and I was just throwing that purpose away, consciously, making a conscious decision. I just didn’t care.

KARUD BROWN
But I mean you gotta have that will to rent from others to people in different categories in society. One of the choices we had was to hustle, you know. My brother was a hustler, quote, unquote. I mean, that’s what he did, day in and day out.  I think he held a job maybe twice in his life. He was 24 years old and he was takin’ a man’s wallet. He was run down by a motorcycle cop who confronted him. My brother had done 12 years of his life in the system. He did a 5-6 year stretch in Somers when he was 16.  They really just destroyed him.

JOHN THOMAS

Michael was my only natural family in this world. I was adopted, we were both adopted together. We were treated as adopted kids, too, you know. My adopted mother she was hurt because, you know in her own way she did love us all and a different way but Michael was her little rough kid that was always into trouble and he was a lot like her, too, you know, he was hard and tough and I was always sensitive and the crybaby. I’m still feelin’ it. It’s been four years life away.  Because I had never had to live my life without him.

KARUD BROWN
I love to surround myself around positive people because if I surround myself around positive people it makes me look positive. It makes people look at me and say, oh, boom, you know he’s doing the best he can. Because I know this lady her name is Miss Franklin from the project, one day she said to me, “I never thought you would be going to schools, talking to kids, whatever. I thought you would never change, you know.” She was like look at you, you know I’m proud of you. So that mean that made me feel good for somebody to tell me that.

Just because you got that gun and you shootin’ you think it is not affecting your community.  It is affecting your community anytime a black man dies, or whoever dies, it is affecting your community. Especially in the city because people are always looking at those stereotypes, of like oh, man those people, you know, they’re bad. So you know what I’m saying it’s always affecting the community, because I mean that we got a lot of brothers that’s in jail, like I said, they in jail, they in the cemetery, I mean it happens every day.

You gotta want to get out. You gotta want to get out of the gang, you gotta want to get out of the ghetto. You gotta want to do that yourself. You know, ain’t nobody goin’ to force you to do it, you know, can’t nobody going to sit up there and hold your hand. You have to want to do it yourself.

JOHN THOMAS
Yeah, they accepted me readily because I was my brother’s brother. They liked him being around them a lot, you know because he would be always willing to step forward, I mean we’re biracial so on a block like that, we had to try extra hard to prove that we were black.  step forward, I mean we’re biracial so on a block like that we had to try extra hard to prove that we were black, you know and he would just stick his neck out. I was able to just get right into the swing of things, well I might get 25 years for this but, I mean I gave them advice on how to form perimeters, and keep themselves safe because they were warring with the gang right across the street from them. It’s not like it was across town, they were right across the street, you know.  People were trying to hit us with cars, they were shootin’ at us, they shot my friend in his back comin’ out of a store, the store right across the street.  So we’re all hanging around on this block in this back yard, you know I had them make posts and sentries and everything like that and question people when they were coming through and everything else.  I mean, we had it locked down like it was a military post you know and we didn’t carry weapons for the most part until one of them got shot and then it was time to arm up, you know. A lot of weapons were placed in areas that everybody knew where they were, not everybody had a gun, you know, but they were made available to everybody.

CLARENCE ROANE
I never got shot and I got pistol whipped’ a couple of times but I never been shot at because  I don’t think any kind of material thing is worth your life y’know, I mean, I got too much to live for and money gonna come and go, material things come and go, y’know, but when it come time to guns, y’know, they take something from you you can never get back. Oh yea, it changed me man because always when you dealin’ with guns or any kind of fire arms which you in possession of man with it comes a false sense of self security, y’know what I’m sayin’, I mean you feel like da’ man when you got a tool in your hand y’know what I’m sayin but, really the test comes when it really comes down to using it y’know, I mean y’know, I mean hate a nigga man but you don’t wanna’ take his lief you wanna’ hurt him like he hurt you y’know and that, that shit always come back to you and that something I wanna tell to talk and stress. To all my peoples y’know what I’m saying that, that’s thinking about or considering using a handgun or using anything man you just remember it’s gonna come back to you.

KARUD BROWN
Anger is like a kettle, you put in on a stove, as soon as the bottom warms up, you know what I’m saying, it starts to make noise and stuff.  That is how anger is, you know, and there is nothin’ wrong with saying, oh, I’m sorry, or whatever, you know to squash that.  I tell them everything that glitters is not gold, you know.  Just because you see Tom, you know, Mike, Gerald, whatever you want to call them, driving with the fancy car and everything like that, I’m like, hey I’ve done been here before. I done seen all of that but, I’m saying when it comes to pass you know this guy he got the fancy car and everything, he’s out there hustling, you know somebody is gong to take a crack shot at him, somebody is going at him, somebody is going to get this nigger what he wants man, you know I’m saying, give him the money, boom. You know what I’m saying after we left I was like well just catch him another time, we gonna catch this kid, but I mean I was like, I was that close because he could have just, I was like, I’m gonna shoot him, then I’m gonna shoot this other kid that’s with him.

CLARENCE ROANE
So one day I guess they had came through the projects for holmes I guess to get him or somthing you know he, he a little week kneed kid you know what I’m saying I guess holmes never really got no respect from nobody from his, his peeps, his family, none of that you know I guess he just was sick of getting put down so I guess they had came up to holmes youknow and tried to take holmes money or something and they rolled up. I’m in a care with my mother you know what I’m saying in the project, and we like, we gotta be like a hundred yards away but you know we are in clear sight you know what I’m saying and I see them roll up and I’m telling my mother to look, look you know so the kids roll up and before they can get out of the car I just seen holmes just put the tool in the window and just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and you know I just seen them trying to peel off and they, they all on the grass and everything swerving and the car just stop and he just run back in the projects you know. Now it’s on the news the next day and I’m eating breakfast early in the morning and I know holmes. Keep i mind he been in my class for like two years now on the news the next day I’m hearing that this kid shot...shot in the head with a guage now, know what I’m saying, he in critical condition, but he living know what I’m saying on life support everything now I’m thinking I was just with him and had my mother not come back to get me that night it probably could have been me, know what I’m saying. I just thank God for my blessing man because sometimes shit just be so ironic you know and I think I know everybody out there that, thats got a tale to tell about, about a gun or a incident with somebody thats close to them because it’s always like that. Man I was just with them sometimes the live sometimes they die but you just think it could have been you.

KARUD BROWN
Because I remember another situation where you know we was beefin’ against these kids and they was shootin’ and you know think about the harsh reality that these guns, you know, they don’t have eyes and stuff like that, just because, you know what I’m saying, somebody shoots it, it don’t care where it lands at.

CARMELO LEBRON
I bought me a twenty like that, because Hartford you can’t say that it’s always bad....but certain parts of Hartford you can’t go no where really.  I mean it’s not always like that but certain parts of Hartford ain’t what you think it is. I was walking up Park Street, this was like around six o’clock. I was walking with the same friend, Jerry, this is the one I always walk with. We was walking were the Gitano grocery is at, and then this car with these two guys they went by and they stood looking at us real hard. Then they came back around and he pulled the gun and he like pointed it at me and then je just like went slowly and took off. So I was like kinda scared already and when they came the third time they started shooting at us.

KARUD BROWN
I met one kid, you know I told him the story of my life, he was like, yeah, when I go out I want to go out like you did, you know. I was like, five. Well actually I didn’t buy it they gave it to me. I carried it around for awhile and it was like I wanted my revenge. In a way, I thought about it and I thought about if I was doing that it would be the same thing that there are doing, and then then it’s no point really.  It would just keep going and going, so I gave it away.  If they’re a family and they want to solve things then they should do it the old fashioned way with their fists, instead of with guns. Because it ain’t gonna solve anything, all it’s gonna solve is dead or jail.

Life is what you make it, you know what I’m saying, you gotta I’m saying you gotta choose. You could choose the wrong decision or you could choose the right decision. I’m not going to sit up there and you know just because you choose the wrong decision, oh my God, and turn my nose up. That’s your decision, you know. I’m just going to say, that’s good, you know.

CARMELO LEBRON
I lived, I was lucky to live. I said you might not be as lucky to live. I mean I was like, what do you want to teach your kids. You can’t teach your kids nothin’, if you got kids you can’t teach your kids nothin’ from a cemetery. Now when I walk down the street I’m always paying attention to little things like how slow a cars going if the lights are off at night time. How crowded, if it looks like violent type, if it’s gonna be a drive by. I think about those things.  I also think about when walk I make sure who is in back of me, I don’t keep my head from moving sideways of whatever so I can make sure what’s gonna happen, if anything is gonna happen at all. You have to be worrying not only about yourself, but about others that are out there, friends getting shot at, and you don’t want to see any of them die.

KARUD BROWN

I’m able to speak to kids, I know that some kids -- I sit up there, I come up and they’re not going to want to listen, they’re like, ah man,yeah, right and some of them goin’ listen, but they see that wheelchair it gives them somethin’ to think about, you know what I’m saying something that is gnawing on their brain but when it is all said and done you have to make the final decision on what you want to do in life.  If you want to grab this gun or you just goin’ to leave the situation alone. Because, I mean, it could be a whole lot worse than what it is.  You can grab that gun, shoot this person now, you in jail for 20 years, well hey man, you know that’s the wrong decision, man, I think you should think about it before you do this, you know. That’s all I’m going to say. If you make a good decision, hey man that’s good for you, man, pattin’ you on your shoulder and stuff.  One of my best friends, he was beefin’ with some guys, went home, went to pull off his coat and the gun clicked back, shot himself in the heart instantly, right there in the house. I mean he is gone and can’t come back. His brother was the first one to find him and that is hard situation to deal with, that was a hard situation to deal with for me. I was like yo, my best friend, man.

DAVID
I lost two close personal friends of mine due to gun violence. One of them was George Hall, you know as Cocoa, the other one was recently, Johnny Gilbert. Cocoa was shot because he was in the wrong place at the same time. He got caught in the middle of a drive by. He got shot in the head and died. Johnny got shot over a dispute. Johnny and Cocoa both were killed by people they knew. From what I heard out on the street I don’t know who. People say that the person who shot Cocoa also knew Cocoa. Even though he wasn’t aiming at him, he still got shot. Johnny Gilbert also got shot by a friend he knew, and a friend he was real close to.  They both grew up together, and were real close, and over a stupid argument. His friend pulled out a gun and shot him, so it’s basically boys killing boys.

KARUD BROWN
When they called my mother up they said I wanted a gun just to have the gun, just to look as if I was big time, but that was when I was younger. Now I don’t even want a gun because there ain’t no point to having one if I’m not gonna use it.  If you ignore violence it’s gonna happen.

CLARENCE ROANE
Once you die you can’t come back man, you can’t. You can’t get something back that you like, boom, we gotta operate right now, we can’t promise you anything, you know, if he’s gonna live or what is gonna happen to him. We can’t promise you that but we gotta operate right now. And then they found out, oh, we can’t remove this bullet.

DAVID
I guess they don’t really realize it because I guess, they themselves been hurtin’ so long but, they don’t recognize the hurt they be causing themselves other people you know, the drama that they bring man this, I don’t know yo. I think black people, and I don’t mean to be generalizing because as a habit that I got from my peers and my family you know they just: black people this, black people that, like I said I dropped them last year. But if you really want to say when I dropped them this year. If you really want to look at it from that perspective, because I was still hangin’ around chillin’ and everything. I’m talkin’ bout my generation man they lost man. We the lost generation man. They just brainwash black people so much y’know television, the law man cuz we don’t know what we s’posed to do and the war come we gonna be the only race that take. Learn from my mistakes. Beause each one teaches one, you know.

CLARENCE ROANE
They all dirty, they all dirty. Registered or not you know they all dirty, so its real easy man they real, available y’know.

KARUD BROWN

I’m in a wheelchair man, see I’m 26 now so when I first starting hangin’ out I was like 12, 14, and I’m like, I mean all those years I get respect because I’m in a wheelchair so to look at it and say it’s not really worth it if I got a chance to live my life over again, you know, I wouldn’t do this, I wouldn’t  hang out, you know, I would do a lot of the things that my parents told me to do.  I wouldn’t never held a gun in my hand before, you know I wouldn’t be nowhere near guns, you know and I wouldn’t be around nobody that has a gun.

JOHN THOMAS

He would always let me beat him, you know, I mean.  He looked up to me, you know and he genuinely respected everything that I told him. He trusted my word and I know I’m never going to find anybody like that again in my life. You know, and we we a team, and the biggest icon of American culture. Look at your streets now, I mean yeah, there are a lot of people carryin’ guns and they don’t care about the law. The law means nothin’ to them. And you can lock them down, you can kill them off you can do whatever you want.  I was the brains, he was the muscle. I still remember him as a little kid with an Afro and brown eyes, you know, and mischievous.

KARUD BROWN
Because you in the wheelchair, you not walking, you’re like, oh I don’t want my kids to see me, I don’t want my girlfriend to see me like this, I don’t want my parents to see me, you don’t want nobody to be around you, you know what I’m saying you try to do something to violence it’s gonna happen even worse because people like the attention. So violence is something that’s been in the human race since day one, and it’s gonna be something that’s gonna continue to the end.

JOHN THOMAS
I think she got shot, it was like buckshots from a sawed off and I think it hit her in the jaw. I was like aw man, because it wasn’t meant for her.  

KARUD BROWN

I want my kids to be like, hey dad, you know he was out there but boom, you know he tried to do the best, and I want others to learn from my mistakes, you know. You know don’t say, oh, he made a mistake, so I’m going to make a mistake.  If it meant facing his biggest fears of going back to jail or even being broke and hungry. I hold the officer responsible for his death, because he didn’t have to shoot him through his heart. I mean I know as a Marine, I know how to apprehend somebody, and well actually, through his back, through his heart. He knew exactly where he was aiming. He knew he wanted to take somebody out because there is no way in the world that you misfire a weapon if you are aiming low and you are holding that weapon steady. It’s not going to go up high especially when you go the range every day to know how to shoot. He could have aimed at any area that he wanted to except for his upper torso. He was going center mass, upper torso. And I know what that is like. I know the attitude you have when you aim for center mass and I hold him responsible.