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Stopping East Lake Courts violence

By: Yolanda Putman
(Contact)

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For 18 years, Patricia McCray thought about starting a Stop the Violence project in the East Lake Courts housing development where she lives.

When her oldest son was fatally shot this year, she knew she could not wait any longer.

“I’ve been out here 18 years. It’s time for me to step in because this is my village,” said Ms. McCray, mother of 14-year-old Tyler McCray and the late Tyrone Stewart.

Mr. Stewart, 18, was fatally shot in the chest in March while attending a pajama party on Dodds Avenue. Dominic Antonio Pointer, 20, has been charged with first-degree murder in the case.

Since her son’s death, Ms. McCray has teamed up with Chattanooga Housing Authority Community Service Representative Dammon Dunn and started a Stop the Violence project for teens. The group of about a dozen people meets at 5 p.m. every Thursday and Friday at the East Lake Courts recreation center to discuss problems and possible activities. Teens from all public housing sites are welcome to attend.

“This darkness has got to come to the light,” she said. “There has got to be a light at the end of the road.”

Thirty-two year-old Terrace McClarty said Mr. Stewart was someone that he saw regularly, “then you go to his funeral.”

“We can’t lose any more close friends and family,” Mr. McClarty said. “At this point, I don’t even want to lose any more enemies right now.”

At East Lake Courts, a public housing site with 400 households, Stop the Violence’s goal is to provide wholesome activities that distract youths from the violent incidents that have invaded the community.

The group usually participates in an activity every Saturday. Their latest outing was a visit to the Hamilton County Jail. Fifteen-year-old Guy Johnson said it’s not a place he wants to return.

“You’re in a cell with a bunch of boys, locked down like dogs and you can’t get freedom,” said Guy, who attends Howard School of Academics and Technology and has plans of becoming a professional basketball player or a mechanic.

Ms. McCray said she intentionally missed the trip to avoid being in the same area with the person who is in custody for shooting her son.

Her goal is to not only see her son Tyler grow up, she said, but also the hundreds of children she chaperones while volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club.

“That’s how you get your blessings, by watching over kids,” she said. “As you’re in the community, you ask yourself, ‘What can I do to be a role model for someone else?’”

Three months after Mr. Stewart’s burial at Shepherd Hills Cemetery, 22-year-old East Lake Courts resident LaTony Johnson was fatally stabbed in the chest. Police are searching for Courrie Long, 28, in connection with the death.

After the stabbing, which took place in late June, another East Lake Courts resident was firebombed, records show. There also have been several shootings and fights that were not reported in the news, residents said.

Despite the violence, the neighborhood is made mostly of single mothers and children, officials said. But crime isn’t unique to East Lake Courts, said CHA’s Chief of Police Felix Vess.

“Violence is a citywide issue,” he said. “When summer comes violence rises because more kids are out of school with nothing to do. Trouble is going to find you if you have nothing to do.”

However, Ms. McCray and Mr. Dunn are helping to combat crime by filling idleness and providing positive role models, Chief Vess said.

“Kids need good strong influences and that sounds like what they want this program to be,” Chief Vess said.

There is no public funding for the Stop the Violence project. Ms. McCray, Mr. Dunn and the teenagers involved have hosted car washes to purchase their own Stop the Violence T-shirts. They’ve partnered with churches to provide free haircuts and block parties for youths throughout the summer.

Ms. McCray’s latest goal is to generate enough money through raffle ticket sales to purchase school uniforms for students in need and to fund a $100 shopping spree as a raffle prize.

The raffle will be hosted with a dance on Aug. 2, a week before her late son’s birthday on Aug. 9. She said helping other teenagers be better prepared for school is the way she wants to celebrate her son’s life.

Her son graduated from Howard in 2007. His favorite class was TV broadcasting, she said. He had dreams of becoming a TV broadcaster or a welder and bricklayer. Ms. McCray said she thought he might be a rapper.

“He would spend all hours of the night on the porch with his friends, rapping and talking about things happening in the community,” she said.

East Lake Courts resident 17-year-old Danielle Bennett encourages her peers to settle problems without violence.

“The violence needs to stop,” she said.

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