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When 16-year-old Eugene Lampkin of Avondale was shot and killed June 6, the media branded it a “turf war” and city officials began making speeches and holding hearings to figure out what to do. But things got awfully quiet in City Hall when some of the young men they were talking about actually showed up two days later. Candace Tubbs, director of the Society for the Advancement of Reforming Felons, brought four young African-American men to speak to Cincinnati City Council.
“All I gotta say is the reason y’all think it’s black-on-black crime — it’s none of that,” one man said. “Some of them don’t want to put it in the government’s hands.”
A small young man spoke haltingly of his brother, who died in his arms at age 16. When he started to cry, the others clapped him on the back and murmured encouragement.
Mayor Charlie Luken, so insouciant in chambers, chose his words carefully.
“We’re glad that you came to speak to us today,” he said. “We hope you know you’re always welcome.
Actually, all of us would rather you work with us to see what we can do about this and avoid taking matters into your own hands.”
At least six council members met the four visitors afterward in the hall outside council chambers. The politicians’ approaches had a gravity and guilelessness often lacking amid policy bickering and election-year grandstanding. Listening to them was the young man who’d held his dying brother, wearing the often-discussed uniform of white T-shirt and shorts down nearly to his ankles. He stood head bowed and stoop-shouldered, the very picture of grief and defeat.
This is Tubbs’ work, convincing unlikely parties to talk. She’s convinced a number of young suspects to surrender to police. She says she recently brought together the heads of Bond Hill and Avondale groups to say a few words to each other. She refuses to call those groups “gangs.”
“They are nothing more than a group of guys that live in the same neighborhood that congregate,” Tubbs says. “But the media perpetuated the thing to the point where they began to act like gangs. Where if you get into a fight now, it’s my fight.”
Sure, they might stick up for each other, but “they fight with each other as much as they fight with people from other communities,” she says.
Reasons to Be Proud
Volunteers with Give Back Cincinnati painted 25 houses June 11 in Madisonville, the fourth year the nonprofit community service organization has performed its “Paint the Town” project. This year 580 volunteers donated 4,640 hours to finish all the houses in one day, according to Chad Schenk, spokesman for Give Back Cincinnati. Founded in 2000, the organization has more than 2,000 members and provides opportunities for young professionals to have fun and give back to the community.
The Pride Alive festival filled Hoffner Park in Northside June 11 and 12. The mood was decidedly victorious, with participants toasting the repeal last year of Article 12 of the Cincinnati City Charter. That provision, which effectively codified discrimination based on sexual orientation, was memorialized by a casket marked “Article 12 Is Dead” and carried through Clifton and Northside in the annual Pride Parade.
Based on a CityBeat investigation, an episode of the Discovery Channel’s show Guilty or Innocent will examine the case of Jerome Campbell (see “Bloody Shoes and Snitches,” issue of April 9-15, 2003). Just before his scheduled execution, Campbell received clemency from Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, who commuted his sentence to life in prison without parole. Campbell still hopes to win a new trial, saying he was innocent of murder.
The episode is scheduled to run at 1 p.m. June 28, Aug. 10 and Sept. 22. We’re told one of the characters in the show is CityBeat contributing writer Leslie Blade, whose research led to the parole board’s recommendation that Campbell’s life be spared. Her story received investigative journalism awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the Society of Professional Journalists as well as the “Champion of Justice” award from the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
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This article appears in Jun 15-21, 2005.