Gang Leader For a Day

Venkatesh tells us that the strongest relationship he formed during his time in the projects was the one with J.T—a relationship that grew more intimate when Venkatesh helped to save the life of one of J.T.’s friends. One afternoon, Venkatesh is hanging out outside J.T.’s building when there’s a drive-by shooting. Price, J.T.’s head of security is hit and falls to the ground. Despite the danger, Venkatesh and some other men help to drag him inside. In the lobby, J.T. tells him to go upstairs but instead he asks about Price; J.T. confides that he needs to go to the hospital. Venkatesh immediately suggests calling an ambulance that J.T. reminds him won’t come. Instead, he asks to borrow Venkatesh’s car; Venkatesh agrees and Price makes it to the ER. J.T. is worried about Price and thanks Venkatesh for his help. Price eventually makes a full recovery. The shooting appears to be a collaboration by two rival gangs. J.T. is now preparing for war.

A few days later, T-Bone calls and tells him that J.T. has been promoted. He invites Venkatesh to the next regional meeting of the Black Kings. T-Bone tells Venkatesh that he plans to stay in the gang for another two years—so he can save for college and buy a house—and then get out.

Venkatesh still feels guilty for betraying the tenants’ trust, for “being as much of a hustler, in my own way, as the other hustlers in the neighborhood” (136) and is looking for a way to give back. So when the public school teachers go on strike, he agrees to run a school program for Black Kings out of J.T.’s building. On the first day, the young gang members talked over him until J.T. came in and disciplined them. Venkatesh asks him not to it again—which is a mistake. His class room becomes chaotic and he is “downgraded from teacher to babysitter” (137). Luckily, the strike ends soon afterwards. 

Autry asks Venkatesh for his help writing a grant proposal for youth program funding from the Department of Justice. The application requires detailed crime statistics and gives Venkatesh an opportunity to talk to Officer Reggie Marcus, a cop who grew up in Robert Taylor and regularly works with gang leaders and hustlers there. Venkatesh is interested in police corruption and relates a story that J.T. has told him about a police raid on a Black Kings party: no one was arrested but the police took all of the gangsters’ money and jewelry. Reggie tells him that this kind of behavior is motivated by the cops’ frustration.

A few weeks later, Reggie invites Venkatesh to a cop bar; he wants to give him a more balanced view of the police’s work in the projects. There, he introduces him to three of his colleagues, including a cop named Jerry, who is very aggressive towards Venkatesh and calls him “professor”. Venkatesh remembers seeing Jerry beating a man in J.T.’s building; he later learned that the man was a car thief who had failed to pay Jerry his protection money. Realizing that Jerry is a corrupt cop, Venkatesh becomes very nervous and Reggie decides they should leave. In the car, Reggie asks him whether he’s going to write about cops and Venkatesh asks whether he should be worried if he does. Reggie replies by asking him if it’s worth any possible hassle.

Venkatesh is not sure what to do and asks Autry for advice. Autry tells him not to write about the police: “The police are also a gang, but they really have the power” (143). Two weeks later, Venkatesh’s car is broken into while it’s parked across from the Boys and Girls Club. Nothing is missing but his stuff has been searched. Autry advises him not to touch anything and to call Officer Reggie. Reggie is worried and asks Venkatesh to let him know when he’ll be at Robert Taylor in future. Around this time there are a number of gang busts made by the FBI. Officer Reggie reveals that the federal involvement is making local cops nervous because the FBI would sometimes use allegations of police corruption as leverage. Some of Reggie’s colleagues are afraid that Venkatesh is going make allegations against them and he confirms Venkatesh’s suspicion that the cops broke into his car to look for his notebooks. Venkatesh is now more scared of the cops than of J.T., although he knows not all cops are bad. In hindsight, it would have been better to learn more about what was happening at Robert Taylor from a law enforcement perspective.

In early 1995, rumors circulate that Robert Taylor Homes is going to be knocked down. The tenants are shocked and disbelieving. Around this time, J.T. calls with details about the next regional BK meeting; his bosses are interested in meeting Venkatesh and having someone hear their stories. Although this is what Venkatesh has wanted from the beginning, he is strangely uninterested in the meeting. His fieldwork is coming to an end and he’s not sure how useful attending the meeting will be to his research. He is also becoming less and less comfortable in the projects. He still feels guilty for having misled J.T. into thinking he was writing his biography and agrees to attend. He is very aware that unlike the tenants he has worked with over the past six years, he can leave the projects; they can’t.