Caught In The Wave North Side’s Children Are Falling Prey To The Increased Juvenile Violence

When Andrea Parker closes her eyes she can see her classmates’ fists pummeling her face.

Since September, the 9-year-old Holmes Elementary third grader has been beaten up more times than she can count.

She knows the names of her assailants. They’re girls she’s had over for slumber parties.

But the last time they played, one of the girls smashed Parker’s face into a marble wall. She still has a scab on her cheek.

For children and teenagers, violence is becoming a way of life on the streets and in the school hallways across Spokane.

Spokane police say youth crimes are on the rise. In 1994, 5,148 juveniles between the ages of 8 and 17 were arrested - an increase of 11 percent from the previous year.

But most of the scuffles kids get in don’t end in arrests, so they aren’t counted by police.

In the last month, police have reported about six incidents of teenagers being beaten and robbed. One North Side 15-year-old boy was beaten unconscious in the 4900 block of North Greenwood by two boys who stole his sports team jacket.

Another teenager was shot in the arm after handing over his jacket near College and Nettleton. A teenage girl was jumped by five other girls in a grocery store parking lot at Francis and Addison. Another girl was robbed by older teenagers carrying a screw driver while she waited for a bus on North Nevada.

In the case of kids such as Parker, the incidents are parts of ongoing harassment from a group of kids. North Spokane elementary and middle school principals have noticed in the last three years groups of two, three and four kids ganging up to attack a single kid.

“When I was a kid, if two kids had a problem with each other, they would just fight it out,” said Brad Lundstrom, principal of Holmes Elementary. “It was embarrassing to have someone else jump in on your behalf.

“Now the kids get older kids and sometimes groups of older kids to jump in.”

Like Lundstrom, Pauline Posey - mother of a 14-year-old girl - shakes her head.

“My teenage daughter, Jodi, lives in a different world than we lived in,” said Posey, who lives in the West Central neighborhood.

Jodi Posey’s best friend since first grade joined a gang. And now Jodi lives in fear because that friend and her friends are threatening to kill her.

“I can’t even go next door to play basketball without being threatened,” Jodi said. “I can’t go to the mall. I can’t go downtown.

“It’s like if they beat up someone, they feel tough. If they scare someone, they feel secure.”

Last summer, Nancy McLaughlin, a mother of three, watched her quiet North Hill neighborhood change overnight.

Teenagers - some of whom called themselves the Player Crips Gang - were invited into the neighborhood by teenagers who lived there. Suddenly there were late-night parties, kids cruising through in cars and fistfights in the streets.

“It was like we were living in a movie,” she said.

At the same time, she said, adults living in the neighborhood started staying in their houses to avoid the youths. But she and her husband - whose home is on a corner lot that the teenagers were cutting across - decided they and their neighbors would have to find ways to make their neighborhood feel safe and livable again.

They got 150 residents involved in Block Watch and organized citizen patrols of the neighborhood street.

McLaughlin also found that the teenagers would talk to her. She began spending long hours counseling them on her front lawn. Now she knows most of the teenagers by name. Though they haven’t left the neighborhood, she is able to track their movement through it and occasionally help them make the right decisions.

“We’ve got control of the neighborhood now,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve got to maintain control.”

Posey - like McLaughlin - has drawn a line of respect with the teenagers who live in her West Central neighborhood and threaten her daughter.

“Basically, I’ve got respect,” Posey said. “I’ve had to go nose to nose with some gang members at times to earn it. I tell the kids, ‘I don’t force you or expect you to live like I live; you shouldn’t force me to live like you live.”’

Posey’s daughter had to find her own way to resist the pressures of gang violence. After spending lots of time talking with her parents, Jodi decided to severe all connections that she had with kids in gangs. And she decided to not be paralyzed by the threats.

Then Jodi immersed herself in a dance troupe called Hyperformance. Now she spends her free time practicing. One afternoon a week she teaches dance to younger children at the West Central Community Center.

“I know if I were in a gang, I wouldn’t be able to dance,” Jodi said. “If I did drugs, I wouldn’t be able to dance either.”

Volunteers at COPS West spend long parts of the day monitoring children from nearby Holmes Elementary.

Adult volunteers at COPS West are often the first adults to respond to the before- and after-school fights between kids.

Recently when fourth grader Florence Leberman was being beaten up by a group of bigger kids, her friends ran into the nearby COPS substation looking for help. Three adult volunteers ran out to help break up the fight.

As they approached, they saw Florence lying on the street as an older girl kicked her in the face.

“You could see the footprint across Florence’s face,” one of the volunteers said.

After that, COPS West volunteer Don Gerling organized School Patrol, a group of adult volunteers who walk the streets around Holmes Elementary and break up fights between kids.

“We’ve calmed things down a lot around Holmes,” Gerling said.

In only two months, the program has spread to Audubon, Sherman, Browne and Garfield elementary schools.

Florence Leberman and Andrea Parker say they’re feeling safer since School Patrol began. But the girls don’t feel totally secure yet.

“I’m not really afraid anymore,” Florence said. “But I’m used to getting beat up.”