Darrell was warned. If he didn’t stop dealing drugs at the corner of Karlov and Maypole, he was going to get shot.
“He just blowin’ smoke,” Darrell scoffed.
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Darrell’s boys started talking revenge. So on the Friday after the shooting, CeaseFire held its weekly midnight barbecue across the street from the scene of the attack.
On September 13 Kerr was standing catty-corner from the shooting scene, a vacant lot spread out under the Green Line tracks. A two-car train clattered atop the trestle. Behind Kerr, CeaseFire workers lashed a fluttering vinyl banner–“CeaseFire: Campaign to STOP the Shooting”–to the iron fence of a play lot. On the posts of a wooden trellis they taped up flyers that read “I want to grow up.” Frank Perez teased the coals inside his 55-gallon-drum grill to a gray smolder, and started rolling hot dogs across the grate. The smell of burning meat stopped a white Cadillac. The driver leaned out the window.
“A lot of kids out here,” volunteer Howard Langston said to Raggs.
“We need more of this,” Hard said, holding a Polish, “because it brings black minorities together. Everybody is in harmony. It’s not no violence.”
“Get your ass in the house!” she scolded.
