![]() ![]() KDawg said that if he is going to sell it, it is going to be the good stuff. Today, KDawg said, the Bloods deal in black tar, heroin that is not cut, not diluted. His only request was: ‘Don’t ever run from me.’ ” If he caught us with drugs, he would order us to throw it on the ground and crush it, but he would not take us in. KDawg tells of one police officer he will never forget, one who retired a few years ago. I’ve lived in Cavile all my life, and they still pull up beside me and ask me what I’m doing here.” A Fort Worth police officer said the old gang members have mostly lost their beef with each other, but “the younger guys still spark animosity among the various groups.” They come and park their patrol cars here in Stop Six. I asked KDawg if anyone called the police when he was shot. Still don’t know who put the bullet in me.” One of the guys took me to, but the cop on duty came in and kept asking me about my gang activity. I didn’t even know I was shot until I looked down. “A group of us was standing around, drinking and having fun. “I was shot this past New Year’s Eve over by the park on Liberty Street,” he said. Upon his release from prison, KDawg returned to his grandmother, the one stable adult in his life, but she died shortly after his homecoming. My heart turned to stone a long time ago.” Two were spent in Tarrant County Jail and the rest in the Ferguson unit in Midway, a maximum-security facility. That’s when they spotted my gun in the car, and then they found the trapdoor where the cash was hid.”Ī district attorney wanted to give KDawg 45 years for aggravated assault against a police officer, but his grandmother hired a Dallas lawyer who was successful in lowering the time to 10 years. He hit his panic button, and then all hell broke loose with cop cars surrounding us. Then I got mad and turned and started beating him. It was summertime, and that hood was hot. He got mad, got me out of the car, and forced my face into the hood. ![]() “I was pushing heroin back then, and he knew I had a stashbox filled with cash in the car, but he couldn’t find it. “A cop pulled me over right here in Stop Six,” he said. KDawg has been to prison three times, most recently in 2010. I’m still the only OG whose hair hasn’t turned gray.” They come to me for advice on what to do - should they retaliate against another gang member, or do this or that. … I’m not really an active member now, but I still carry rank with the young guys. We did things old school, face-to-face back then. “We was organized in my day, about the time crack cocaine hit the area. KDawg is a founder of the Truman Street Bloods, a gang that formed on the East Side in the late 1980s. ![]() “These streets will eat you up,” he said, “turn good kids from worse to worst.” Growing up, he lived with his grandmother, graduated from Dunbar High School, and attended Tarleton State College, where he played baseball for a short time. Social media and online communication have replaced personal contact, perhaps providing an even more dangerous avenue for underground crime - one that is harder to track.Ĭavile Place, a series of low-income housing apartments in Stop Six, has been home to KDawg, 43, his entire life. Neither COVID-19 nor the more recent racial unrest was mentioned as causing the change in gang crime. Instead, both spoke about the lack of a positive male figure in their youth, early-on violence within their family unit, who they hung with, and drugs - always drugs. Neither placed blamed on outsiders for the life he chose early on, and by “outsiders,” I mean wealthier Fort Worth residents. Gracious but cautious, they spoke about their gang years. I have forgiven her for that, but I can’t forget how hard it was.” Zay: My grandmother “let us park on her property but wouldn’t let us come in. Was this true? I wondered, and if so, why? With help from some locals, I met with two members of the Bloods, one older, one younger, both of whom consider themselves ex-gang members. According to him, gang activity still existed, but it was subtle now, not so easy to recognize. Recently, while attending a housing meeting on the East Side, I overheard a conversation between two residents, one of whom appeared to be a minister. ![]()
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