There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz Read Free Book Online Page B

and wide; his closely cropped hair made him look that much heavier. The information under the photo identified him as weighing 210 pounds.
    The rest of the text warned: “They are known to be involved in drug traffic, home invasions of dope flats, extortion (especially of narcotics operations), and other crimes. They have been known to employ fully automatic weapons, travel in car caravans, usually with tail cars for protection.”
    But Lee ruled by more than fear. To neighborhood residents, he could sometimes be a positive force. He reportedly didn’t take drugs himself and, if he drank, did so in moderation. He occasionally bought food for families who needed it. Because of his love for children, he refused to let “peewees,” those around thirteen or fourteen, gangbang for the Conservative Vice Lords. In fact, young boys periodically received lectures from Lee to stay away from drugs and the gangs. On occasion, Lee gave children dollar bills or, if their shoes were torn, bought them new ones.
    Lee’s efforts paid off. To the residents of Horner, he became a figure of contradictions. To some, he was a model. In a neighborhood of runaway fathers, Lee had been married to the same woman for nearly twenty years. And adults and children alike pointed to his generosity.
    “The thing I liked about him was that he gave kids andwomen respect. He really wasn’t a bad person,” said one resident. “I have a lot of respect for Jimmie Lee,” said another.
    Even Charlie Toussas, a plainclothes officer known for his tough manner, conceded, “He was a real gentleman.”
    Jimmie Lee might be considered by some the hero of a Horatio Alger story. As a child, he didn’t have much going for him. He grew up in Horner. His father was a construction worker, his mother an assembler at a plating company. He had a child by the time he was eighteen; he dropped out of school in the eleventh grade with only a sixth-grade reading level. Later, while in prison, he received his high school equivalency.
    The police speculate that Lee had been associated with the Vice Lords, which has over twenty factions, for possibly as long as twenty years. One of his first tussles with the authorities was when he was seventeen, charged with killing a fourteen-year-old boy who was found in the gangway of a building, shot through the heart. A jury found Lee not guilty. Two years later, Lee and some buddies robbed three men at gunpoint. A letter to the court from Lee’s counselor at the American Institute of Engineering and Technology, where he had received drafting instruction, noted: “While he was with us, Mr. Lee was quiet and passive. He lacked self-confidence and disparaged himself. He handled his conflicts by retreating.” But Lee went on to serve a little over four years in one of the Illinois prisons, which are notorious for their large and strong gang populations and where most gang leaders earn their rank.
    After his release, in July 1974, Lee was in and out of trouble with the law, including a conviction of unlawful use of a weapon. The preceding November, in 1986, the police caught Lee with fifty-six grams of heroin. He met the $50,000 bond and continued about his business. To the residents of Henry Horner, he seemed to operate with impunity.
    A taciturn man, Lee, who was sometimes known as General Lee or by his middle name, Oswald, came from a long Chicago tradition of smart, sophisticated gang leaders. He was no youngster; he was thirty-eight years old.
    The city’s black street gangs, of which there are three main ones—the Vice Lords, the Disciples, and the El Rukns (formerly known as the Blackstone Rangers)—originated in the early 1960s mostly as young kids duking it out over turf rights.At Henry Horner, the Vice Lords and Black Souls, a faction of the Disciples, fought fist to fist with white gangs whose turf lay just north of the complex. As the whites moved out, the Vice Lords and Black Souls fought among themselves. Eventually, the