Crime - Courier - Two mothers organize Plainfield anti-crime march

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Published in the Courier News, Monday, May 8, 2006

Two mothers organize Plainfield anti-crime march

By CHAD WEIHRAUCH
Staff Writer

PLAINFIELD -- They are two women who have seen more senseless violence and pain in the past few years than most mothers experience in a lifetime.

Stephanie Alexander's daughter, Aieshia Johnson, was partially paralyzed in 2001 when she was shot in the neck outside a Plainfield club. A year later, Alexander's brother, Gavin Smith, was shot and killed in Elizabeth by an alleged high-ranking member of the Bloods street gang.

Like Alexander and her family, Ruby White's son, Jameel Swint, lived in Plainfield. He died at 22 in 2003 after he was stabbed in Rahway while trying to stop an attack on two women. White's 19-year-old nephew, Robert Cody, was shot and killed about two months ago on Liberty Street.

On Saturday -- the day before Mother's Day -- White will lead a march in Plainfield in honor of mothers whose families have been torn by unnecessary violence. The women hope to raise interest in crime-reduction efforts such as block associations, which bring residents together to watch for illegal activity in their neighborhoods.

"It's been so much violence here that we really badly need something to support those who have lost," White said.

On Friday afternoon, Alexander joined White at a playground on East Sixth Street, wedged between Richmond Street and Franklin Place, to talk about crime. A plastic gym set with a sliding board stands at one end, beside two empty basketball courts.

Once the site of an elementary school, the area can, at times, be one of the most dangerous places in the city, Alexander said, as she hung large photos of her daughter and brother on a chain-link fence.

"These grounds are war grounds. You can't drive through here at night; they're drive-by shooting," she said.

Leslie Edwards, who lives across the street, was watching two young girls, keeping an eye out as they tottered through the playground. She said it has been quiet there lately, but she worries about the arrival of warmer weather, which allows people to stay out later and which has become notorious as the harbinger of increased violence -- particularly shootings.

"You just feel unsafe," she said.

Alexander was among those who attended a special City Council meeting called to discuss crime in Plainfield a few weeks ago. Dozens of residents came out to the session, which included a question-and-answer period with officials such as police Chief Edward Santiago and Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow.

Authorities pointed to what many residents already know -- that, as in many urban areas, drugs and gangs fuel a cycle of violence that is amplified by the abundance of guns brought to New Jersey from other states, where they are easier to obtain.

Last year, there were 15 homicides in Plainfield, which authorities have said was at least a 33-year record. Taking population growth into account since the last U.S. Census, that would mean roughly one murder for every 3,300 residents. It puts Plainfield's 2005 murder rate far above New York's about 1 in 15,000, and close to the number for Newark, roughly 1 in 2,900.

Alexander agreed that drugs and guns are the problem, as is the years-old squabble between young gang members from the city's east and west sides. She said authorities must start cracking down in known high-crime areas in order to stop the trends, but acknowledged the larger difficulties.

Weapons are too easy to come by, Alexander said.

"I don't know how they can stop that, unless they stop the guns and start running down on them," she said.

A few small children approached Alexander on Friday as she hung photos and newspaper clippings about slayings and violence on the fence surrounding the park. In one picture, her daughter Aieshia smiled up from a hospital bed. Now 30 years old, Alexander said her daughter can walk with the aid of leg braces but suffers from serious nerve pain.

Leaning down into one boy's small face, she warned him to stay away from drugs and gangs, pointing to the tale of her own family's pain outlined on the fence.

Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs stopped a short while later to lend her support to Alexander. Robinson-Briggs won the election last year largely on an anti-crime platform, pledging to reduce violence in Plainfield.

"This kind of march is just really good because it's another way of getting people involved," she said.

White, who lives in Rahway and will lead Saturday's march, has named her anti-violence group in honor of her son, Jameel -- "Just Another Mother's Endless Efforts to save Lives."

Chad Weihrauch can be reached at (908) 707-3137 or cweihrau@gannett.com

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