Festival Honors 13-Year-Old Shooting Victim, Encourages Kids to Channel Anger
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Isaac Coulibary, 21, glowered at the teenager on the playground in Columbia Heights yesterday, and soon the fists started flying. Coulibary swung at the other man's head, then pounded his torso.
"Keep punching!" yelled one of the neighbors who had gathered to watch.
But for once, the frenzied fight at 14th and Girard streets NW produced no bloodshed. On a block scarred by two fatal shootings in recent months, a festival was under way, featuring a boxing ring and young men pummeling each other by the rules.
"Kids think aggression is the way. But that's negative. The positive way is to get it off inside the ring," said Kareem Salaam, 40, a small-business owner from the neighborhood watching the bouts.
The festival, which drew more than 150 spectators, including Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, was to commemorate Terry Cutchin, 13, the victim of a shooting in June. The event was organized by Keely Thompson, who runs a boxing center in the neighborhood.
"I'm tired of seeing candlelights," Thompson said in an interview, referring to makeshift memorials for the dead. "We've got to put a stop to this."
Thompson, a well-known D.C. boxer who fought professionally as a lightweight in the late 1980s and early '90s, said he was inspired to hold the festival while talking to the mayor after Cutchin's death. The boy had trained at Thompson's boxing center.
"We will not let him be forgotten," Thompson said.
Organizers said they hoped that by bringing neighbors together for a positive event, tensions in the area would decrease. Cutchin was killed during a feud between a group from the 1400 block of Girard Street and another gang. A 16-year-old was charged in the killing.
Last month, 29-year-old Tayon Glover was fatally shot on the same block. Police have stepped up patrols in the area, long plagued by drug activity and violence.
At the festival yesterday, Derrick Prince, 42, wore a T-shirt showing a picture of Glover, his brother-in-law. The mood around Prince was upbeat, with families feasting on free hot dogs and hamburgers, and swaying to hip-hop music before the boxing began.
Prince, though, was mourning Glover's Aug. 23 death. Police have made no arrests in the case.
The festival was "good for the community," Prince said, "but it's not going to solve anything going on in the neighborhood."
Change will come, he said, when "we get these guns off the street."
Nancy Jenkins, 39, a city worker, wore a T-shirt displaying a photo of Cutchin, her nephew. She said she was happy that the festival was honoring the boy.
"But I don't know how helpful it's going to be" in preventing violence, she said.
Many of those attending said they wished the government provided more programs for local African American youths, and more of a police presence.
But Gloria Dubissette, 54, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years, said residents have to be more active. She is trying to strengthen the presence of the Guardian Angels in the area.
"You cannot expect police to be everywhere," she said. "People have to take back their neighborhoods."
A number of parents yesterday said that boxing programs were keeping their kids from getting into trouble.
"This sport teaches discipline. It translates over to everyday life," said Cornell Chappell, 29, a legal assistant, who came to watch a fight featuring his 10-year-old nephew, DeWayne Harris, of Anacostia, who trains at Thompson's boxing center.
Thompson invited boxing clubs from as far away as Pittsburgh and Winston-Salem, N.C. to compete against local fighters.
Thomas "Peanut" McEachin, 16, said he had grown up poor and found direction through the Yes We Can boxing club in Winston-Salem.
"You can start from a little thing, and go to the top," he said. "Instead of fighting in the street, you can do it in the ring."
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