Police and gang members have been meeting to defuse gang violence in northeast Denver that is blamed for at least a dozen casualties, Police Chief Robert White said Wednesday.
In addition, a group called “The Council,” which is made up of leaders of rival black and Latino gangs, recently began meeting in hotel rooms to reach a cease-fire in an ongoing street-gang war, longtime gang activist the Rev. Leon Kelly said.
“It’s made up of several OGs (original gangsters) who have the respect of younger members,” said Kelly, who runs Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives. “They are guys of influence. We’re having conversations, telling them to stand down. Even though (the gang war) is bad, it would have been a lot worse.”
White said police have been working with Kelly, and he added that police are working with a score of other community groups and law enforcement agencies to quell a gang war.
“I think they have had a tremendous impact,” White said, referring to Kelly’s organization. Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said police have met with gang members, warning them that the ongoing gang war will not be tolerated.
White said ongoing violence involving as many as four Denver street gangs has its origin during a November confrontation at a west Denver bar during a rap concert in which three people were shot. Rapper Kevie Durham, 24, was killed.
“Then it’s just gotten to be retaliatory. You shoot me. I’ll shoot you,” White said in a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
“Enough is enough,” Mayor Michael Hancock said in an e-mail to The Denver Post. “We will not stand idly by while gang members retaliate against one another and put innocent lives at risk.
“I have DPD strengthening its presence and enforcement strategies while other city agencies will explore every resource available. We will also be working with families, churches, community groups and many others to end this spate of senseless violence.”
Kelly also spoke at a meeting at the District 2 police station Wednesday night in northeast Denver before a packed room of community members at Cmdr. Mike Calo’s monthly meeting, where attendance swelled in the wake of the violence. He stressed the need for residents to work together on all fronts, across racial lines, to address long-standing issues.
Earlier in the day, he said participants in the gang war are increasingly more brazen. So far this year, there have been 17 homicides, of which 12 are gang-related, White said.
“That 12 figure is a relatively high number,” he said.
On Saturday, 22-year-old Nolan Ware was fatally shot outside Denver Gospel Hall, the same day of a planned funeral for his great-uncle Abdul Rahim Muhammad, 61, who was killed two weeks earlier in his yard in the 1600 block of Bruce Randolph Avenue. Muhammad’s funeral was Wednesday.
On Tuesday night, one person was critically injured and a second person was fatally shot near East 35th Avenue and Williams Street, a few blocks from a neighborhood rally earlier in the evening against increasing violence and to mourn Ware’s killing. Another man was seriously injured the same night in a separate shooting in the 3300 block of Krameria Street.
Also on Wednesday, John Oliver, 27, Muhammad’s son, appeared in Denver District Court as the defendant in a jury trial. Oliver faces two counts of felony menacing with a weapon, as well as a weapons-possession charge stemming from a July incident in northeast Denver.
Oliver is accused of firing shots at at least two alleged victims, admitted members of the Eastside Oldies, according to court testimony, in the 3600 block of Lafayette Street. His father, Muhammad, was at the incident. The case went to the jury Wednesday afternoon.
In the Cole neighborhood, where the fatal shootings have happened, the police presence Wednesday was palpable. Patrol cruisers circled the home where the shots rang out, slowing as they passed a group of mourners outside whose loud sobs and wails echoed off nearby homes.
Cole Arts and Science Academy held indoor recess Wednesday, said Doug Schepman, a spokesman for Denver Public Schools.
“There was a funeral. And based on the proximity and the recent incidents, it was a decision they made as a precaution,” Schepman said.
The school was also on lockdown later in the afternoon for a few minutes when Denver police were investigating a report of shots fired in the area. In fact, several students said they weren’t even allowed to open classroom windows.
The gang war appears to pit a subset of the Latino gang, the Sureños, against the Crips, Kelly said. He said the man killed Tuesday night was an OG, killed in a crime of opportunity as rival gang members were staking out an alley. He has not been identified yet.
Members of The Council, which is made up of Kelly and gang leaders in their late 30s and their 40s, have had some admittedly contentious meetings to establish common ground, Kelly said.
“Our discussions got very heated, because that is a volatile mix,” he said. “We’ve done some things behind the scenes.”
The Wednesday evening meeting in District 2 attracted dozens of community members who normally assemble — in smaller numbers — to address neighborhood issues. But the nearby shootings compelled a standing-room-only crowd to listen as Calo introduced a succession of speakers who talked about issues ranging from 911 communications to broader concerns about citizen involvement in solutions to the spike in gang activity.
Councilman Albus Brooks told the gathering that “most of us (Tuesday) night got a punch in the gut” in the wake of the shootings. But he noted that the mayor’s office had earmarked $300,000 for gang prevention and outreach efforts that would work in tandem with police suppression of gang “hot spots.”
Communications experts explained the area’s 911 notification system and hotline that can keep the community informed in the events of reports of shots fired. Representatives from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told the meeting about a “crime gun intel center” that works with Denver police to pinpoint the relatively few individuals who commit the most gun violence.
Denver — like other cities around the country — is seeing some violence triggered even by exchanges on social media, said gang bureau Cmdr. Mark Fleecs.
“Once it happens, you’re into the back-and-forth” of retaliatory violence, he said.
But Kelly, singled out by Calo to address the crowd, vented his anger at the gang problem that persists three decades after he began his efforts. With evangelical fervor, he called on residents to present an interracial front to deal with root causes of the problem.
“We have an opportunity to make a statement, to show folks we’re working together,” he said. “When you cross racial barriers, you take it to a whole new level. Why do some people have to die before we’re motivated to get involved?”
Calo said he hoped residents would take two things from the meeting: If they see something suspicious, they should say something. And they should engage with community partners working on many fronts to provide alternatives to the gang life.
Staff writers Jesse Paul , Yesenia Robles and Kevin Simpson contributed to this report.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or denverpost.com/coldcases
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