Jump-Shot Time : Late Night Basketball Tries to Fill Hours That Are Prime Time for Violence in Streets

Three nights a week, in a South-Central Los Angeles park gymnasium 11 blocks from the L.A. riots’ flashpoint at Florence and Normandie, Crips still shoot and Bloods shoot back.

Except that at night’s conclusion there are no toes to tag or funeral arrangements pending.

Some said it was foolhardy to bring elements of the city’s most notorious street gangs together for organized games of basketball from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m.

The Six Deuce Brims thought so.

“Ain’t no way we want Crips over here,” they told Andrew Williams, senior director at Harvard Recreational Park, which is Blood turf.

But beginning in 1989, a few Crips dropped their grudges, laced up their shoes and ventured into enemy territory for the purposes of a different sport.

A few Bloods did the same, allowing themselves to be exposed--in shorts and T-shirts no less--deep inside Crip neighborhoods.

They came as participants in the community-sponsored Late Night Basketball League, which sought not only to get gangbangers off the street in peak crime hours, but also to bring bitter rivals face-to-face.

No AK 47s. No gang colors.

No Old English 800.

Just hoops.

Leave your rags at the door.

At Late Night they call it “exchanging bullets for baskets.”

Except that it has not been that simple.

During a game last year, rounds of gunfire rattled the Harvard Park gym.

Samuel (Stretch) Reece, captain of Watts’ Willowbrook Park, a Crips neighborhood team, almost jumped out of his high-tops.

“First thing we did was run behind the brick wall,” he said. “I thought they were trying to shoot right up in the door.”

Thankfully, the drive-by shooters left their bullets only in the body of a Camaro.

“It had to be someone from this (Blood) neighborhood,” Reece said. “They wanted to make the league close down.”

Gunshots outside did not stop the jump shots inside. The game resumed to the drone of an LAPD police helicopter, which hovered over the park in search of the gunmen.

Two weeks ago, a game matching a Crip neighborhood team against a Blood teams at Harvard Park erupted into violence. Chairs were hurled and jaws were broken.

Not exactly your average youth league.

On game nights, Harvard Park becomes a fortress. All doors remain locked except for the main entrance into the gym, dangerously exposed only 20 yards or so from 62nd Street in a residential district.

On a recent Thursday night, six L.A. Police Department officers, occupying five squad cars, kept watch outside.

Late Night does not allow players to drive their own vehicles to the game because in the gangbangers’ life, cars can double as a munitions warehouse.

Instead, players are transported to and from games in vans leased by Community Youth Gang Services.

Teams await pickup at their respective neighborhood parks. Drivers of Community Youth Gang Services vehicles use walkie-talkies to keep in contact with superiors.

An LAPD vehicle is never far behind.

But for a few exceptions, the games have proceeded relatively without incident.

The vast majority of players, some hardened criminals, come in peace.

Johnny McKnight, a 32-year-old guard for the Watts team from 109th Street, a neighborhood of Bloods known as “Bounty Hunters,” wants to leave a different legacy.

“When my son says ‘Blood,’ he’d better be talking about somebody bleeding,” he says.

Organizing three nights of basketball per week does not pretend to untangle a complicated web of gang history and alliances.

There are an estimated 90,000 gang members in Los Angeles County. There are about 300 players in the Late Night league.

“It’s a good event,” said Art Lopez, commander at the L.A. Police Department’s South Bureau. “But I’m really not quite certain we’re reaching out to some of the individuals who would best benefit by it.”

For those who do play, basketball occupies important ticks on a dangerous daily clock.

“This league goes until two in the morning, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” one Blood player said. “Those are three days out of the week we’d normally be doing something. That leaves Friday, Saturday and Sunday open. You can go and get your partying in. Monday is like a rest day.”

Boredom is the gangbangers’ best friend.

“They complained they had nothing to do,” said Charles Norman, assistant director of Late Night. “We intended to tie them up for three nights.”

Thirty-two teams compete in two divisions; one for players 6-feet and under, the other an open level called All Comers.

Late Night is sponsored by Community Youth Gang Services, the Department of Parks and Recreation and the L.A. Police Department.

The league is funded with a $66,000 grant from the Amateur Athletic Foundation, an organization that uses interest on profits from the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles to sponsor selected area programs.

There is no cost to the players.

It is naive to suggest that generations of rivalries and hatred somehow vanish the moment a few players step onto a 94-foot strip of hardwood.

Most players have been touched by gang violence. The stories are recounted so often they are passed on with a certain callousness.

“I’m not going to say there are no hard feelings,” said Monte Stevens, a 23-year-old guard for Harvard Park III. “But it (basketball) is something we all have in common.”

Stevens was released two months ago from Folsom Prison after serving three years for armed robbery. He said the Crips killed his cousin, a nephew and an uncle.

He said the cousin had been arrested for murder but was released for lack of evidence. He said the Crips thought he turned over evidence to police in exchange for his freedom.

“The day he got out of County Jail, they cornered him in an alley and shot him in the head,” Stevens said. “He died in his momma’s arms right next to his house.”

Stevens now faces rival Crip teams in the Late Night league, but insists he does not seek retribution.

“I know who did it,” Stevens said. “But he’s in the system (jail) now doing time for something else. He’s not doing time for murder. But if I saw him now, that would just be a chalked-up situation. I would have nothing to say to him. But I know he killed one of my relatives. Before I went to jail and found out really what life was all about, I would have tried to tear his head off. But I have done woke up.”

The fact that a few rivals have been willing to gather under one roof offers at least some hope that a greater peace might be realized.

“Every year the teams come back, we get more familiar with each other,” said Reece, of Watts Willowbrook. “It’s hard to fight someone you know well. It breaks down a lot of barriers.”

Some teams now prefer to take their vengeance inside, to the backboards.

McKnight tells the story of his 109th Watts team, which was practicing last summer at Algin Sutton Park as the team prepared for Late Night Basketball.

The league had been suspended for four months because of the April riots.

Algin Sutton Park is turf of the Hoover Crips.

“When we left, seven guys came up and put guns to our heads and took two of our cars,” he said. “They were calling out ‘Hoovers!’ ”

A few weeks later, McKnight’s team confronted the Algin Sutton Crips in a Late Night league game.

“We didn’t take it on the court,” McKnight said. “There was no hard fouling, nothing. We wanted to beat them by 20 points, but we only beat them by 18. It was a big deal, became they took two known gangbangers’ cars. Everyone tripped because we didn’t retaliate. But all we asked for was our cars back--ain’t no problem. But we don’t trust them.

“It felt good to go in there and beat them straight up with our athletic ability.”

It is difficult to witness games at Harvard Park and not wonder what might have been.

On any given night, in a musty corridor filled with echoes and weakened light, performing for the benefit of scorekeepers and a few beat cops, players with remarkable skills display their wares.

Some have games that outlive their names.

“We had a kid last year from Central Rec Center,” said Williams, the Harvard Park director. “That kid could play on any college team. Any team. He was about 5-11, real quick, a good ball handler. I haven’t seen him since.”

A few Late Night players have gone on to play at Compton College.

Stevens, of the All Comers Harvard team, a guard so quick he leaves defenders frozen like deer staring into headlights, said he played at Dorsey and Fairfax high schools before his problems with gangs.

“I screwed up my life,” he said. “But more than screwing up my life in gangs, I had a car accident in the 12th grade. A lady tore my knee up. I was supposed to go to New Mexico State (on a scholarship). Once I couldn’t play ball, I couldn’t do nothing but hang out.”

Norman, a Late Night supervisor, is surprised college recruiters do not scour the league for talent.

Admittedly, most of the league’s players are in their 20s. Late Night wishes it could attract younger kids.

“The young ones are really the trouble makers, ages 12 to 16,” Norman said. “They’re the shooters (of guns, not basketballs), the ones who know they can go to jail and get right out.”

Reece, of Watts Willowbrook, played three seasons at Cal State Los Angeles. He says the talent level is comparable to Division III in college.

“Some can play as well as some of the college players,” he said. “There are probably some guys who made it to the NBA who are not as good.”

So what happened?

“They got caught up in the stress box,” he said. “They just got to thinking they’d never be anything, that they never could come out of it.”

Reece says there should be a separate league for teen-agers, the age group mostvulnerable to becoming recruited into gangs.

Reece says teen-agers, many of whom are the product of single-parent households, might respect the league’s older players, helping to reverse an inner-city cycle in which role models are more often found on street corners.

A separate league for teen-agers, though, would take more money.

In South-Central, there is no more money.

Gym rules are commandments.

There is to be no recognition of gangs inside the building. No gang signs. No gang wardrobe. The colors red and blue are strictly prohibited. The teams wear jerseys of neutral colors, either black or green.

Teams are named after their local parks and recreation centers, even though it’s no secret the Algin Sutton Park team is the Hoover Street Crips, Harvard Park is Six Deuce Brims, 109th Watts Rec Center is Bounty Hunter Bloods, etc.

Supervisors never refer to gang members in the present tense because it would complicate their relationship with the LAPD, which has a responsibility to monitor active gang members.

All players with dubious backgrounds are “ex-gang members.”

Which, of course, is not necessarily true.

Lopez said he doubts gang members with current warrants would attend a game, particularly with a half-dozen officers from the division’s Crash Unit guarding the front entrance like it was Buckingham Palace.

The league allows spectators, so long as they dress and act accordingly. Anyone wearing an overcoat on a warm September night can expect to be frisked.

There was talk recently about purchasing an airport X-ray machine to screen all players and spectators.

“We don’t want to pat nobody down,” Williams said. “We’re trying to make it as pleasant as possible without hassling people.”

What about the police?

No question, relations between gangs and the LAPD have been further strained by the riots. Some extreme factions of Crips and Bloods put out the word they would unite and turn their violence toward the police.

The LAPD intercepted a gang flyer last spring that stated, in part, “Let’s unit (sic) and dont (sic) gangbang and let it be a black thing for the little black girl and the homie Rodney King. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If LAPD hurt a black we’ll kill two. Pow. Pow. Pow.”

Norman, of Late Night, said he doubts gang members ever had intentions of attacking the police, although tensions were real enough to suspend league play from April 29 until Sept. 15.

The dynamics of Late Night changed after the riots. While players are generally getting along better on the court than before, relations with the LAPD are more difficult.

“I’m still waiting for the police to give me a reason to show (them) respect,” one player said. “But I’m not going to disrespect them. They watching out. I guess they’re protecting us from guns or whatever. Ain’t nothing going to happen in here but a fistfight.”

Lopez of the LAPD wishes things were better.

“We have basically a culture that says we shouldn’t get involved with the other side--for lack of a better term, the criminal element,” he said. “It’s very difficult to come to grips with that as an organization, and I’m sure they (the gangs) are not real anxious to get involved in that type of relationship, either.”

Without the LAPD, however, Late Night Basketball would not exist.

“We don’t want anybody running in from outside into a gym with half-naked people playing in their shorts and T-shirts,” Norman said. “That was our biggest fear, initially. They know they’re playing basketball. You know they like to shoot on a crowd because they’ll hit somebody. No way the teams would play without the police.”

LAPD is not supposed to become involved inside the gym unless officers receive a visual signal from either Norman at Algin Sutton Park or Ed Turley, Community Youth Gang Services director, at Harvard Park.

Restraint is the operative word. The league’s existence demands this delicate understanding.

So far, Community Youth Gang Services has been able to police its own.

Two players have been kicked out this season for fighting, although disqualifications are not automatic.

“There’s fighting in college games,” Williams said.

Players who fight are brought before a three-man panel, which determines a suitable punishment.

The league hires local high school and collegiate referees and pays them $21 per game.

Michael Greenspan, one of two white officials who work the league, says he enjoys the challenge.

“It’s really no rougher than city leagues in general,” he said. “I’ve worked church leagues where there’s a lot of fouls and elbowing.”

Some players call Greenspan “Beverly Hills.” Once, a player who contested a foul call threatened to “get” Greenspan after the game. Instead, the player later sought out Greenspan to apologize.

Security was put to a severe test on Oct. 1, when park teams from Pueblo (Bloods) and Will Rogers (Crips) were matched on the schedule.

A fight between players on the court spilled into the stands when a spectator from Will Rogers charged the floor, igniting a brawl that left several injured, none seriously.

Some witnesses complained that LAPD was not doing enough to stop the melee.

“The police kind of stood back,” Williams acknowledged. “But they can’t just jump in. If somebody pulls a knife, they’ve got to pull their guns. You know that. And we don’t want that.”

The gym was cleared and both teams were expelled from the league.

Charles Norman, 53, had a secure job with an El Segundo industrial company and could have retired last year after 30 years with a nice pension and benefits.

But the pull of what he calls “the struggle” was too powerful. Norman took a leave of absence from his job in 1974 and never returned.

He lived in Watts when the 1965 riots erupted. He will never forget the day his boss ordered him home to tend to his family and property, or that no one at the plant offered to go with him.

By the early 1970s local street gangs were terrorizing Norman’s community. His 7-year-old daughter asked her daddy why he wasn’t doing anything about it.

Norman answered his daughter’s challenge in 1973 after a 14-year old girl was raped in his neighborhood.

“She was from Washington High, a very attractive girl, minding her own business,” he said. “Guys were picking on her for months. Finally, they took her in a garage and kept her the whole weekend, and they had her over and over. We hunted through the neighborhood and found her staggering out on the sidewalk out on Normandie on Monday morning. Her belly was swelled up like she was nine months pregnant. All I could think about was that being my baby. That triggered it.”

On April 25, 1974, setting up shop in his brother’s vacant real estate office, Norman founded People Who Care Youth Center.

Norman ran the center for inner city youths until 1987, when he joined Community Youth Gang Services. The organization, founded in 1981, claims to be the largest non-law enforcement entity in the country dealing with the gang problem. It is funded with donations and grants from city and county agencies.

Norman was sickened that street gangs had made prisoners of decent citizens, who had to lock themselves in their homes after sundown.

“From 1988 to April 29th, it was paralyzing,” he said. “It was a form of recreation for youngsters to get high and put some hurt on the community. They didn’t seem to care. The same youngsters that would say ‘Hi, Mr. Norman’ in the morning would snap your head off when they got full of whatever they were taking.”

Late Night Basketball was born in Baltimore in the mid 1980s. Mayor Tom Bradley heard about it and wondered if it could work in South-Central.

In four years, Norman claims more than 300 participants have found at least part-time employment because of contacts made.

But Norman said the league is woefully underfunded. Budget cuts have reduced the staff at Community Youth Gang Services from 160 in 1981 to 100.

Norman estimates it would take $200,000 annually to properly run the basketball program. He says he lacks manpower and sleep.

More important, he had to turn away 12 teams this year because of financial restraints.

Late Night pays for team jerseys, vehicle rental and gas, game officials and timekeepers.

At the conclusion of each season, players are honored with an awards banquet at a plush area hotel. Last year, some players arrived in limousines.

Others are chosen for a post-season cultural tour. Last year, the championship team from Jim Gilliam Park and the runner-up from Imperial Courts were bused to Sacramento, where they toured the State Capitol and visited historical sites and state legislators.

“Most of these kids had never been out of the city,” Norman said.

The bus trip alone was a cultural experience. The Gilliam team hailed from a Blood neighborhood near Baldwin Hills known as “The Jungle.” Imperial Courts is a notoriously tough Crips area in Watts.

When the trip began, players segregated themselves accordingly: Crips sat with Crips and Bloods with Bloods. By the time they reached Sacramento, though, Crips were playing dominoes with Bloods.

“By the time they returned they vowed they would be friends for life,” said Ed Turley, the Community Youth Gang Services director.

This year, Community Youth Gang Service is hoping to arrange a trip to Baltimore for a game against that city’s Midnight League champion.

League sponsors wonder how much more good they could do with more leagues and more money. “It’s not the answer to all our problems,” said Matt Hunt, deputy chief at the LAPD’s South Bureau. “But you have to take successes where you find them.”

The future is not bright.

Late Night organizers don’t know where the funding will come from next season.

In spite of the national media attention afforded Los Angeles after the riots, Norman said not much has changed in South Central.

He said the government assistance that was promised has not materialized.

He said inner-city youths are more desperate than ever.

He said no basketball league can change that.

“These are not animals, now,” Norman said of the inner-city male. “Just people who have been neglected, people who have not had the opportunity. You can shape people any way you want. Don’t give them a suitable way to provide for themselves, and they’ll find unsuitable ways.”