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So I was riding through the Roseland area a few days ago listening to G.o.D Jewels "Heathens" and I got reminded of the story of RobertSandifer or Lil Yummy as everyone referred to him as in this area, and I honestly became depressed and began to wonder how and where we lose these kids. Hewould've been 26yrs old today, same age as myself,
Noone's There To Coach The Youngins...
~G.o.D. Jewels ~
Courtesy of www.pardonmeduke.com
When I was young my mom made sure I wasn't groomed by the television screen. She would take us to museums and make sure we read books over the summer. Iremember the tons of national geographic and time magazines in my room. I recall an issue in the fall of '94 about a young boy from the streets of Chicagonamed yummy. The article read of a young child who was raised in a situation that was a catalyst for disaster. In the end his life turned out tragic and hetook the life of another. The story touched Pac so much he dropped a shout to him on Makaveli's 7th Day Theory Album track "White Manz World".
The lines "Rest in peace to Latasha, Lil' Yummy, and Kato / Too much for this cold world to take - ended up bein'fatal" missed alot of people but caught a few. In this story you can see how poverty and violence go hand in hand in the cold streets of any ghettoUSA. After listening to The Cool, and Adrenaline Rush so much I had to make this post. Props to my dude Reason and Uno McFly for theinspiration. Shouts to my dude Andrew over at FSD, I know you're gonna dig this.
Addendum
Here's another track Pac shouted Yummy out
on before the Makaveli 7th Day Theory Album.
"Young $!@#%@" off that Me Against The World. Thanks QB!
Click on images to see full sized article.
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc228/pardonmeduke/yummy-time2.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc228/pardonmeduke/yummy-time3.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc228/pardonmeduke/yummy-time4.jpg
Weekend TV: Robert "Yummy" Sandifer Murder Clip
For the full50 minute video click here
Even took the time to re-type article for ya my Dukes!
Murder In Miniature
At the age of 11, "Yummy" Sandifer killed and was killed. His short, violent life is a haunting tale.
By Nancy R. Gibbs
On a bright September afternoon last week, the mothers of Chicago's South Side brought their children to a vigil for a dead boy they had never met. Theywanted their kids to see the scrawny corpse in the loose tan suit lying in a coffin, next to his stuffed animals, finally harmless. The big kids dragged thelittle kids up to look at the stitches in his face where the bullets fired into the back of his head had torn through. The only picture the family could findfor his funeral program was a mug shot. "Take a good look." said the Rev. Willie James Campbell. "Cry if you will, but make up your mind thatyou will never let your life end like this."
Parents hoped to haunt their children; maybe fear would keep them safe. Lynn Jeneta, 29, took her nine-year-old son Ron. If he got scared enough, shedecided, "maybe then he wouldn't be lying there himself one of these days." She pushed him right up to the coffin. Ron tried to stay calm."Some kids said Yummy looked like he was sleeping, but he didn't look like he was sleeping to me." What exactly then did he look like? "Kindof like he was gone, you know?" His composure melts. "When Mama pushed me forward, I thought I was going to fall right in the damn coffin. That givesme nightmares, you know? Can you imagine falling into a coffin?"
Many who knew Robert "Yummy" Sandifer better mourned him less. "Nobody didn't like that boy. Nobody gonna miss him," said MorrisAnderson, 13. Anderson used to get into fistfights with Yummy, who received the nickname because of his love of cookies and Snickers bars. "He was acrooked son of a $@!+!," said a local grocer, who had barred him from the store for stealing so much. "Always in trouble. He stood out there on thecorner and strong- armed other kids. No one is sorry to see him gone."
Nor, it seems, was anyone very surprised. The neighborhood was still grieving its other dead child, the girl Yummy allegedly killed two weeks ago, when hewas supposed to fire on some rival gang members but shot 14-year-old Shavon Dean instead. Police descended on the gang, and Yummy became a liability. So hebecame a victim too. When he was found dead in a bloody mud puddle under a railway viaduct three days later, an entire city shuddered and clutched its childrenand looked for lessons.
The mayor of Chicago admitted that Yummy had slipped through the cracks. Just what cracks were those? The sharp crevices that trap children and break theminto cruel little pieces. Chicago's authorities had known about Yummy for years. He was born to a teenage addict mother and a father now in jail. As a babyhe was burned and beaten. As a student he often missed more days of school than he attended. As a ripening thug he shuttled between homes and detention centersand the safe houses maintained by his gang. The police arrested him again and again and again; but the most they could do under Illinois law was put him onprobation. Thirteen local juvenile homes wouldn't take him because he was too young.
Before they grow up, these children can become walking weapons. One very mean little boy didn't grow up, so he became an icon instead. The crimes hecommitted and those he suffered shook the country's conscience in a way that violent acts with far larger body counts no longer do. "If ever there wasa case where the kid's future was predictable, it was this case," says Cook County public guardian Patrick Murphy. "What you've got here is akid who was made and turned into a sociopath by the time he was three years old." Yummy's mother Lorina called him, without irony, "an average11-year-old." The courts and cops and probation officers and psychologists who tracked his criminal career all agree. "I see a lot of Roberts,"says Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Sumner, who handled charges against Yummy for armed robbery and car theft. "We see this 100 times a week," saysMurphy.
The proof is in the paperwork worn folders inches thick, filed at the public guardian's office, the courts, the police headquarters and now the medicalexaminer's office. Yummy's files are indistinguishable from the records of thousands of other urban American kids. The evidence if more evidence isreally necessary is overwhelming: when a child's brain is flooded, the child eventually drowns.
That was the verdict of a psychiatric evaluation last November. "Robert is emotionally flooded," the confidential report reads. "His responseto the flooding is to back away from demanding situations and act out impulsively and unpredictably." The examiner asked him to complete the sentence"I am very…" "Sick," Yummy replied. The examiner saw a child full of self- hate, lonely, illiterate, wary. When he heard a walkie-talkiedown the hall, he jumped from his seat, afraid of police. "You tryin' to trick me," he accused the examiner. There was not much doubt about howhe came to be that way only about whether anyone or anything could save him.
Yummy's mother was the third of 10 children from four fathers she never knew her own. When she was 15 she had her first son Lorenzo, then Victor, thenYummy and eventually five more. She dropped out of 10th grade, found an apartment, went on welfare and nursed a crack habit. For a while she tried living withYummy's father Robert Akins, who was convicted of drug and weapons charges. They soon split because he had "a rather angry and hot temper," shetold a social worker.
So, apparently, did she. The first charge of child neglect was filed in 1984, when Lorina failed to follow doctors' orders for treating two-year-oldVictor's eye condition. He eventually went blind. The following year 22-month- old Yummy arrived at Jackson Park Hospital covered with scratches andbruises. A few months later it was his sister, this time with second- and third-degree burns on her genitals. Lorina explained that the toddler had fallen onthe radiator. An emergency-room nurse told the court that the injuries did not quite match the story. Someone probably held the child on the heater, the nursetestified.
The courts finally moved in a year later, when neighbors told police that the five children were routinely being left at home alone. By the time theyremoved the kids, Yummy was a bundle of anger and scars. He had long welts on his left leg; police suspected he was beaten with an electrical cord. There werecigarette burns on his shoulders and buttocks. "I never beat my kids," Lorina insists to this day. She says the scars were caused by chicken pox, notcigarettes. "I gave him all the attention I could," she says of Yummy, but admits there were distractions. Now 29, she has been arrested 41 times,mainly for prostitution.
"He shouldn't be dead," she says, sitting in her living room the day after his funeral. There is a white bucket in the corner with a live froghe caught a few weeks ago. "He liked to fish," she says. "People think he was a monster, but he was nice to me." She says she saw himregularly; he called her Reen instead of Mom, and, she admits, "he was always blaming me" for his problems. "They could have saved him andrehabilitated him," she insists. "When he started taking cars, they should have put him away then and given him therapy."
From early on, the child welfare workers had little hope for Lorina as a parent. "There is no reason to believe that Lorina Sandifer will ever be ableto adequately meet her own needs, let alone to meet the needs of her growing family," a psychiatrist reported to the juvenile court in 1986. And so Yummyand his brothers and sister were placed with his grandmother, Janie Fields, whom Yummy took to calling Mama. Her prognosis as a care giver was not much morepromising. The psychiatric report described Fields as "a very controlling, domineering, castrating woman with a rather severe borderline personalitydisorder."
Neighbors in the black working-class neighborhood called Roseland still remember the day Janie Fields moved into a two-story, three bedroom house with herbrood: nearly all her 10 children and 30 grandchildren lived with her at one time or another. "They are dirty and noisy, and they are ruining theneighborhood," complained a neighbor. Residents launched an unsuccessful petition drive to force Fields out. "All those kids are littletroublemakers," said Carl McClinton, 23, who lives down the street. "This is the kind of neighborhood where we all look after each others kids, butthey are a rougher breed."
The neighborhood kids describe two different Yummy Sandifers. There is the bully, the extortionist, the fierce fighter who would take on the big kids andbeat them. "Yummy would ask you for 50 cents," says Steve Nelson, 11, "and if he knew you were scared and you gave him the money, he'd askfor another 50 cents." Erica Williams, 20, a neighbor, says, "You really can't describe how bad he really was. He'd curse you completely out.He broke in school, took money, burned cars."
Others recall a sweeter side. Lulu Washington sells discount candy out of her house, just across from Yummy's. "He just wanted love," shesays. For that, he could be disarmingly kind. "He'd say thank you, excuse me, pardon me." He loved animals and basketball and had a way withbicycles. He once even merged two bikes into a single, working tandem. Those were the good times. "It always meant trouble when he was with a group,"says Ollie Jones-Edwards, 54. "If he was alone, he was sweet as jelly."
Yummy liked great big cars, Lincolns and Cadillacs, says Micaiah Peterson, 17. "He could drive real well. It was like a ****** driving a luxurycar." Sometimes he hung out at the local garage, learning about alternators and fuel injectors. When he wasn't stealing cars, he was throwing thingsat them or setting them on fire. "What could you do?" asks McClinton. "Tell his grandmother? She'd yell at him, and he'd be right backon the street. If the police picked him up, they'd just bring him back home because he was too young to lock up. He was untouchable, and he knewthat."
His odds of reaching the age of 12 dropped sharply when he fell in with the local Black Disciples gang. Several thousand or so gang members in Chicago arespread out across separate fiefdoms, led by "ministers" in their 30s and 40s who are always recruiting children. There is plenty of work foreveryone: car theft, drug running, prostitution, extortion, credit card fraud. Police suspect that gang leaders use the little ones as drug runners and hit menbecause they are too young to be seriously punished if they are caught.
On the other hand, they aren't likely to last long. "If you make it to 19 around here, you are a senior citizen," says Terrance Green, 19."If you live past that, you're doing real good." A Black Disciple named Keith, 17, describes the role the youngest members play: "He'sthis small little punk but wants a name, right? So you make him do the work. 'Hey, homey, get me a car. A red car. A red sports car. By tonight. I'mtaking my woman out. Or hey, homey, go find me $50. Or hey, little homey, you wanna be big? Go pop that +!%%#@ that's messing with our business."
Yummy averaged a felony a month for the last year and a half of his life; 23 felonies and five misdemeanors in all. Ann O'Callaghan, a lawyer andassistant public guardian, met Yummy once, last December in court. She was astounded by his size and demeanor. "Some of these kids we represent areominous characters. But I had to bend over, and I was like, 'Hi! My name is Ann, and I'm your lawyer.' I couldn't believe it." Yummywasn't the least bit intimidated by the courtroom. "It was like he was just sitting there waiting for a bus."
Last fall Yummy was placed with the Lawrence Hall Youth Services, which runs homes for troubled teenagers. He ran away in February and went back to hisgrandmother until June, when he spent two weeks in a detention facility. In July, Yummy and his cousin Darryl went on a church trip to Six Flags Great America,an hour north of the city. "Yummy couldn't get on most of the rides," Darryl says. "He was too small." On another day a neighbor, IdaFalls, took Yummy and 12 other kids to the local police station to see a film on crime. The cops asked her not to bring him back because he got into fightswith other children. On Aug. 15 he was charged in another burglary. By Aug. 28 he would be firing the fatal bullets and it would be too late.
Falls' niece Shavon Dean lived around the corner from Yummy and had known him growing up. One August Sunday night she was sitting in the kitchen eatingDoritos, while her mother Deborah was out back grilling ribs and chicken for a family barbecue. Shavon slipped out for a few minutes to walk a friend home. Shenever made it back.
George Knox, a gang researcher at Chicago State University, believes Yummy was sent on a specific mission of revenge sparked by a drug feud or a personalinsult. "If it was just an initiation ceremony, he'd do it from a car. But to go right up to the victims, that means he was trying to collect somepoints and get some rank or maybe a nice little cash bonus." Yummy opened fire with a 9mm semi-automatic into a crowd of kids playing football. SammySeay, 16, was struck in the hand. "I hit the ground," says Seay. "It was the second or third shot before I knew I had been shot. So I got up andI just ran, trying to save my life." Shavon was struck in the head and died within minutes. "Shavon never got a chance, never got a chance," hermother says.
Yummy spent the last three days of his life on the run. Gang members shuttled him between safe houses and abandoned buildings as police swooped down on theneighborhood, searching for the shooter, followed by a flock of reporters. Gang leaders felt the pressure. "He was like a trapped animal with everyoneafter him," says Knox. "He was the hunter, and then he was the prey."
Maybe Yummy figured out that the gang's protection was not worth much. Janie Fields last spoke to Yummy Wednesday afternoon before he died. "Hesaid, 'What is the police looking for me for?' I said, 'I'm coming to get you.' I had clothes with me 'cause I knew he was probablyfilthy and dirty. My heart was racing. I said, 'You ain't done nothing wrong, just let me come and get you.' " The phone went dead. She wentto 95th Street, where he said he would be. "He wasn't there."
But he appeared that night on a neighbor's porch, visibly frightened, asking that she call his grandmother so he could turn himself in. He asked if theycould say a prayer together. The neighbor went to make the call, and when she came back, he was gone. The police can only guess what happened next. DerrickHardaway, 14, and his brother Cragg, 16, both honor students and fellow gang members, found Yummy and promised that they could help him get out of town. Theydrove him to a railroad underpass, a dark tunnel marbled with gang graffiti. Yummy's body was found lying in the mud, with two bullet wounds in the back ofhis head.
Now it's the Hardaway brothers' turn. Authorities say gang leaders, who can easily order hits in any prison in the state, may have the Hardawaystargeted next. Both boys were arrested and are being held in protective custody. As for the other children in Yummy's neighborhood, when they are askedwhat would make them feel safer, most give the same answer: getting a gun. Among other things, it would protect them from the children who already havethem.
There were those who were missing Yummy last week, those who had seen the child and not the killer. "Everyone thinks he was a bad person, but herespected my mom, who's got cancer," says Kenyata Jones, 12. Yummy used to come over to Jones' house several times a month for sleepovers."We'd bake cookies and brownies and rent movies like the old Little Rascals in black and white," says Jones. "He was my friend, you know? Ijust cried and cried at school when I heard about what happened," he says, plowing both hands into his pants pockets for comfort before returning to hishouse to take care of his mother. "And I'm gonna cry some more today, and I'm gonna cry some more tomorrow too."
From The Goat
After re-reading this article and watching the full doc on Yummy Sandifer I'm at a loss. There is no simple answer to cure this ill that plagues cities allacross the country. I for one was raised in a two family home with caring parents. As much as I hid stuff growing up I turned out pretty good. I also haveassociates who had both parents but didn't turn out so lucky. I think one of the true answers has always been overlooked. As much as Rap does damage to thechildren today (yea it does) it wouldn't be so damaging if it was given in moderation. We allow the television and the world around us to provide thebuilding blocks for the youth today. Sure I listened to "Throw Ya Gunz" coming up. You better believe I had to sneak and bump that tape when I wasalone. We've lost sight of one of the greatest proverbs given to us. It takes a village to raise a child.
I have friends who teach in New York City schools. One of the key things you hear in and out of the classroom is the ever favorite "You're not myFather/Mother" line. We need to remember that we can't be everywhere at once and more realistically that we all aren't capable of teaching theyouth everything by ourselves. We all need help in this world. It pains me at times to see some mothers on the train with a little one no more than 3, anotherin the stroller and one in the belly. How can she raise the next Martin if she lives this way. How can we expect more from them if his father or father figuredoes not exist. We must stand up and take these roles and also allow others to do the same for us when were not there. Too many times as a child I've seenthe bad kid stay out extra late because he can. Maybe if he went inside when he was suppose to he would not be exposed to certain things.
Maybe if Yummy had that older brother to look up to he would be a college graduate today. Maybe if we swallowed our pride at times and got advice from afellow neighbor things would be different. I myself try to talk to the youths in my community and show them the difference and how much we lose by followingthis path. Our world glorifies Sex, Drugs & Violence so we cannot allow the world to be our children's teachers. We must mix the 50 Cent's with theArthur Ashe's. Because frankly most of them are great parents to there children. It is our responsibility to save the ones we can. I'll be damned if achild in my reach falls victim to the world little Yummy was no match for…
Now Youtube "G.o.D. Jewels Heathens"
Noone's There To Coach The Youngins...
~G.o.D. Jewels ~
Courtesy of www.pardonmeduke.com
When I was young my mom made sure I wasn't groomed by the television screen. She would take us to museums and make sure we read books over the summer. Iremember the tons of national geographic and time magazines in my room. I recall an issue in the fall of '94 about a young boy from the streets of Chicagonamed yummy. The article read of a young child who was raised in a situation that was a catalyst for disaster. In the end his life turned out tragic and hetook the life of another. The story touched Pac so much he dropped a shout to him on Makaveli's 7th Day Theory Album track "White Manz World".
The lines "Rest in peace to Latasha, Lil' Yummy, and Kato / Too much for this cold world to take - ended up bein'fatal" missed alot of people but caught a few. In this story you can see how poverty and violence go hand in hand in the cold streets of any ghettoUSA. After listening to The Cool, and Adrenaline Rush so much I had to make this post. Props to my dude Reason and Uno McFly for theinspiration. Shouts to my dude Andrew over at FSD, I know you're gonna dig this.
Addendum
Here's another track Pac shouted Yummy out
on before the Makaveli 7th Day Theory Album.
"Young $!@#%@" off that Me Against The World. Thanks QB!
Click on images to see full sized article.
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc228/pardonmeduke/yummy-time2.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc228/pardonmeduke/yummy-time3.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc228/pardonmeduke/yummy-time4.jpg
Weekend TV: Robert "Yummy" Sandifer Murder Clip
For the full50 minute video click here
Even took the time to re-type article for ya my Dukes!
Murder In Miniature
At the age of 11, "Yummy" Sandifer killed and was killed. His short, violent life is a haunting tale.
By Nancy R. Gibbs
On a bright September afternoon last week, the mothers of Chicago's South Side brought their children to a vigil for a dead boy they had never met. Theywanted their kids to see the scrawny corpse in the loose tan suit lying in a coffin, next to his stuffed animals, finally harmless. The big kids dragged thelittle kids up to look at the stitches in his face where the bullets fired into the back of his head had torn through. The only picture the family could findfor his funeral program was a mug shot. "Take a good look." said the Rev. Willie James Campbell. "Cry if you will, but make up your mind thatyou will never let your life end like this."
Parents hoped to haunt their children; maybe fear would keep them safe. Lynn Jeneta, 29, took her nine-year-old son Ron. If he got scared enough, shedecided, "maybe then he wouldn't be lying there himself one of these days." She pushed him right up to the coffin. Ron tried to stay calm."Some kids said Yummy looked like he was sleeping, but he didn't look like he was sleeping to me." What exactly then did he look like? "Kindof like he was gone, you know?" His composure melts. "When Mama pushed me forward, I thought I was going to fall right in the damn coffin. That givesme nightmares, you know? Can you imagine falling into a coffin?"
Many who knew Robert "Yummy" Sandifer better mourned him less. "Nobody didn't like that boy. Nobody gonna miss him," said MorrisAnderson, 13. Anderson used to get into fistfights with Yummy, who received the nickname because of his love of cookies and Snickers bars. "He was acrooked son of a $@!+!," said a local grocer, who had barred him from the store for stealing so much. "Always in trouble. He stood out there on thecorner and strong- armed other kids. No one is sorry to see him gone."
Nor, it seems, was anyone very surprised. The neighborhood was still grieving its other dead child, the girl Yummy allegedly killed two weeks ago, when hewas supposed to fire on some rival gang members but shot 14-year-old Shavon Dean instead. Police descended on the gang, and Yummy became a liability. So hebecame a victim too. When he was found dead in a bloody mud puddle under a railway viaduct three days later, an entire city shuddered and clutched its childrenand looked for lessons.
The mayor of Chicago admitted that Yummy had slipped through the cracks. Just what cracks were those? The sharp crevices that trap children and break theminto cruel little pieces. Chicago's authorities had known about Yummy for years. He was born to a teenage addict mother and a father now in jail. As a babyhe was burned and beaten. As a student he often missed more days of school than he attended. As a ripening thug he shuttled between homes and detention centersand the safe houses maintained by his gang. The police arrested him again and again and again; but the most they could do under Illinois law was put him onprobation. Thirteen local juvenile homes wouldn't take him because he was too young.
Before they grow up, these children can become walking weapons. One very mean little boy didn't grow up, so he became an icon instead. The crimes hecommitted and those he suffered shook the country's conscience in a way that violent acts with far larger body counts no longer do. "If ever there wasa case where the kid's future was predictable, it was this case," says Cook County public guardian Patrick Murphy. "What you've got here is akid who was made and turned into a sociopath by the time he was three years old." Yummy's mother Lorina called him, without irony, "an average11-year-old." The courts and cops and probation officers and psychologists who tracked his criminal career all agree. "I see a lot of Roberts,"says Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Sumner, who handled charges against Yummy for armed robbery and car theft. "We see this 100 times a week," saysMurphy.
The proof is in the paperwork worn folders inches thick, filed at the public guardian's office, the courts, the police headquarters and now the medicalexaminer's office. Yummy's files are indistinguishable from the records of thousands of other urban American kids. The evidence if more evidence isreally necessary is overwhelming: when a child's brain is flooded, the child eventually drowns.
That was the verdict of a psychiatric evaluation last November. "Robert is emotionally flooded," the confidential report reads. "His responseto the flooding is to back away from demanding situations and act out impulsively and unpredictably." The examiner asked him to complete the sentence"I am very…" "Sick," Yummy replied. The examiner saw a child full of self- hate, lonely, illiterate, wary. When he heard a walkie-talkiedown the hall, he jumped from his seat, afraid of police. "You tryin' to trick me," he accused the examiner. There was not much doubt about howhe came to be that way only about whether anyone or anything could save him.
Yummy's mother was the third of 10 children from four fathers she never knew her own. When she was 15 she had her first son Lorenzo, then Victor, thenYummy and eventually five more. She dropped out of 10th grade, found an apartment, went on welfare and nursed a crack habit. For a while she tried living withYummy's father Robert Akins, who was convicted of drug and weapons charges. They soon split because he had "a rather angry and hot temper," shetold a social worker.
So, apparently, did she. The first charge of child neglect was filed in 1984, when Lorina failed to follow doctors' orders for treating two-year-oldVictor's eye condition. He eventually went blind. The following year 22-month- old Yummy arrived at Jackson Park Hospital covered with scratches andbruises. A few months later it was his sister, this time with second- and third-degree burns on her genitals. Lorina explained that the toddler had fallen onthe radiator. An emergency-room nurse told the court that the injuries did not quite match the story. Someone probably held the child on the heater, the nursetestified.
The courts finally moved in a year later, when neighbors told police that the five children were routinely being left at home alone. By the time theyremoved the kids, Yummy was a bundle of anger and scars. He had long welts on his left leg; police suspected he was beaten with an electrical cord. There werecigarette burns on his shoulders and buttocks. "I never beat my kids," Lorina insists to this day. She says the scars were caused by chicken pox, notcigarettes. "I gave him all the attention I could," she says of Yummy, but admits there were distractions. Now 29, she has been arrested 41 times,mainly for prostitution.
"He shouldn't be dead," she says, sitting in her living room the day after his funeral. There is a white bucket in the corner with a live froghe caught a few weeks ago. "He liked to fish," she says. "People think he was a monster, but he was nice to me." She says she saw himregularly; he called her Reen instead of Mom, and, she admits, "he was always blaming me" for his problems. "They could have saved him andrehabilitated him," she insists. "When he started taking cars, they should have put him away then and given him therapy."
From early on, the child welfare workers had little hope for Lorina as a parent. "There is no reason to believe that Lorina Sandifer will ever be ableto adequately meet her own needs, let alone to meet the needs of her growing family," a psychiatrist reported to the juvenile court in 1986. And so Yummyand his brothers and sister were placed with his grandmother, Janie Fields, whom Yummy took to calling Mama. Her prognosis as a care giver was not much morepromising. The psychiatric report described Fields as "a very controlling, domineering, castrating woman with a rather severe borderline personalitydisorder."
Neighbors in the black working-class neighborhood called Roseland still remember the day Janie Fields moved into a two-story, three bedroom house with herbrood: nearly all her 10 children and 30 grandchildren lived with her at one time or another. "They are dirty and noisy, and they are ruining theneighborhood," complained a neighbor. Residents launched an unsuccessful petition drive to force Fields out. "All those kids are littletroublemakers," said Carl McClinton, 23, who lives down the street. "This is the kind of neighborhood where we all look after each others kids, butthey are a rougher breed."
The neighborhood kids describe two different Yummy Sandifers. There is the bully, the extortionist, the fierce fighter who would take on the big kids andbeat them. "Yummy would ask you for 50 cents," says Steve Nelson, 11, "and if he knew you were scared and you gave him the money, he'd askfor another 50 cents." Erica Williams, 20, a neighbor, says, "You really can't describe how bad he really was. He'd curse you completely out.He broke in school, took money, burned cars."
Others recall a sweeter side. Lulu Washington sells discount candy out of her house, just across from Yummy's. "He just wanted love," shesays. For that, he could be disarmingly kind. "He'd say thank you, excuse me, pardon me." He loved animals and basketball and had a way withbicycles. He once even merged two bikes into a single, working tandem. Those were the good times. "It always meant trouble when he was with a group,"says Ollie Jones-Edwards, 54. "If he was alone, he was sweet as jelly."
Yummy liked great big cars, Lincolns and Cadillacs, says Micaiah Peterson, 17. "He could drive real well. It was like a ****** driving a luxurycar." Sometimes he hung out at the local garage, learning about alternators and fuel injectors. When he wasn't stealing cars, he was throwing thingsat them or setting them on fire. "What could you do?" asks McClinton. "Tell his grandmother? She'd yell at him, and he'd be right backon the street. If the police picked him up, they'd just bring him back home because he was too young to lock up. He was untouchable, and he knewthat."
His odds of reaching the age of 12 dropped sharply when he fell in with the local Black Disciples gang. Several thousand or so gang members in Chicago arespread out across separate fiefdoms, led by "ministers" in their 30s and 40s who are always recruiting children. There is plenty of work foreveryone: car theft, drug running, prostitution, extortion, credit card fraud. Police suspect that gang leaders use the little ones as drug runners and hit menbecause they are too young to be seriously punished if they are caught.
On the other hand, they aren't likely to last long. "If you make it to 19 around here, you are a senior citizen," says Terrance Green, 19."If you live past that, you're doing real good." A Black Disciple named Keith, 17, describes the role the youngest members play: "He'sthis small little punk but wants a name, right? So you make him do the work. 'Hey, homey, get me a car. A red car. A red sports car. By tonight. I'mtaking my woman out. Or hey, homey, go find me $50. Or hey, little homey, you wanna be big? Go pop that +!%%#@ that's messing with our business."
Yummy averaged a felony a month for the last year and a half of his life; 23 felonies and five misdemeanors in all. Ann O'Callaghan, a lawyer andassistant public guardian, met Yummy once, last December in court. She was astounded by his size and demeanor. "Some of these kids we represent areominous characters. But I had to bend over, and I was like, 'Hi! My name is Ann, and I'm your lawyer.' I couldn't believe it." Yummywasn't the least bit intimidated by the courtroom. "It was like he was just sitting there waiting for a bus."
Last fall Yummy was placed with the Lawrence Hall Youth Services, which runs homes for troubled teenagers. He ran away in February and went back to hisgrandmother until June, when he spent two weeks in a detention facility. In July, Yummy and his cousin Darryl went on a church trip to Six Flags Great America,an hour north of the city. "Yummy couldn't get on most of the rides," Darryl says. "He was too small." On another day a neighbor, IdaFalls, took Yummy and 12 other kids to the local police station to see a film on crime. The cops asked her not to bring him back because he got into fightswith other children. On Aug. 15 he was charged in another burglary. By Aug. 28 he would be firing the fatal bullets and it would be too late.
Falls' niece Shavon Dean lived around the corner from Yummy and had known him growing up. One August Sunday night she was sitting in the kitchen eatingDoritos, while her mother Deborah was out back grilling ribs and chicken for a family barbecue. Shavon slipped out for a few minutes to walk a friend home. Shenever made it back.
George Knox, a gang researcher at Chicago State University, believes Yummy was sent on a specific mission of revenge sparked by a drug feud or a personalinsult. "If it was just an initiation ceremony, he'd do it from a car. But to go right up to the victims, that means he was trying to collect somepoints and get some rank or maybe a nice little cash bonus." Yummy opened fire with a 9mm semi-automatic into a crowd of kids playing football. SammySeay, 16, was struck in the hand. "I hit the ground," says Seay. "It was the second or third shot before I knew I had been shot. So I got up andI just ran, trying to save my life." Shavon was struck in the head and died within minutes. "Shavon never got a chance, never got a chance," hermother says.
Yummy spent the last three days of his life on the run. Gang members shuttled him between safe houses and abandoned buildings as police swooped down on theneighborhood, searching for the shooter, followed by a flock of reporters. Gang leaders felt the pressure. "He was like a trapped animal with everyoneafter him," says Knox. "He was the hunter, and then he was the prey."
Maybe Yummy figured out that the gang's protection was not worth much. Janie Fields last spoke to Yummy Wednesday afternoon before he died. "Hesaid, 'What is the police looking for me for?' I said, 'I'm coming to get you.' I had clothes with me 'cause I knew he was probablyfilthy and dirty. My heart was racing. I said, 'You ain't done nothing wrong, just let me come and get you.' " The phone went dead. She wentto 95th Street, where he said he would be. "He wasn't there."
But he appeared that night on a neighbor's porch, visibly frightened, asking that she call his grandmother so he could turn himself in. He asked if theycould say a prayer together. The neighbor went to make the call, and when she came back, he was gone. The police can only guess what happened next. DerrickHardaway, 14, and his brother Cragg, 16, both honor students and fellow gang members, found Yummy and promised that they could help him get out of town. Theydrove him to a railroad underpass, a dark tunnel marbled with gang graffiti. Yummy's body was found lying in the mud, with two bullet wounds in the back ofhis head.
Now it's the Hardaway brothers' turn. Authorities say gang leaders, who can easily order hits in any prison in the state, may have the Hardawaystargeted next. Both boys were arrested and are being held in protective custody. As for the other children in Yummy's neighborhood, when they are askedwhat would make them feel safer, most give the same answer: getting a gun. Among other things, it would protect them from the children who already havethem.
There were those who were missing Yummy last week, those who had seen the child and not the killer. "Everyone thinks he was a bad person, but herespected my mom, who's got cancer," says Kenyata Jones, 12. Yummy used to come over to Jones' house several times a month for sleepovers."We'd bake cookies and brownies and rent movies like the old Little Rascals in black and white," says Jones. "He was my friend, you know? Ijust cried and cried at school when I heard about what happened," he says, plowing both hands into his pants pockets for comfort before returning to hishouse to take care of his mother. "And I'm gonna cry some more today, and I'm gonna cry some more tomorrow too."
From The Goat
After re-reading this article and watching the full doc on Yummy Sandifer I'm at a loss. There is no simple answer to cure this ill that plagues cities allacross the country. I for one was raised in a two family home with caring parents. As much as I hid stuff growing up I turned out pretty good. I also haveassociates who had both parents but didn't turn out so lucky. I think one of the true answers has always been overlooked. As much as Rap does damage to thechildren today (yea it does) it wouldn't be so damaging if it was given in moderation. We allow the television and the world around us to provide thebuilding blocks for the youth today. Sure I listened to "Throw Ya Gunz" coming up. You better believe I had to sneak and bump that tape when I wasalone. We've lost sight of one of the greatest proverbs given to us. It takes a village to raise a child.
I have friends who teach in New York City schools. One of the key things you hear in and out of the classroom is the ever favorite "You're not myFather/Mother" line. We need to remember that we can't be everywhere at once and more realistically that we all aren't capable of teaching theyouth everything by ourselves. We all need help in this world. It pains me at times to see some mothers on the train with a little one no more than 3, anotherin the stroller and one in the belly. How can she raise the next Martin if she lives this way. How can we expect more from them if his father or father figuredoes not exist. We must stand up and take these roles and also allow others to do the same for us when were not there. Too many times as a child I've seenthe bad kid stay out extra late because he can. Maybe if he went inside when he was suppose to he would not be exposed to certain things.
Maybe if Yummy had that older brother to look up to he would be a college graduate today. Maybe if we swallowed our pride at times and got advice from afellow neighbor things would be different. I myself try to talk to the youths in my community and show them the difference and how much we lose by followingthis path. Our world glorifies Sex, Drugs & Violence so we cannot allow the world to be our children's teachers. We must mix the 50 Cent's with theArthur Ashe's. Because frankly most of them are great parents to there children. It is our responsibility to save the ones we can. I'll be damned if achild in my reach falls victim to the world little Yummy was no match for…
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