Dangers smother Whitman Park's kids

A 13-year-old boy brings his little brother to the lone playground in their Camden neighborhood almost every summer day, but only in the morning, before fights start on the basketball court.

Across the road, in a makeshift bicycle shop, a man teaches a few kids how to fix flats, a skill he hopes might save them from the neighborhood.

And a few blocks away, two mothers simply keep their sons inside. The only summer games they know are on Xbox 360.

This is summertime in Whitman Park, one of the most dangerous sections of Camden, where a 4-year-old boy playing around the corner from his home was gunned down during a late-afternoon shoot-out last week.

Few here choose between sending their children to basketball camp or a week at the Shore. Parents have two options: Let the kids do virtually nothing, or risk their safety.

Older boys and girls do venture out, but with little supervision, few economic opportunities and drug deals going down on block after block, some become prey.

"Kids around here, they need money. So what else is there to do?" asked Yolanda Bruton, who at 14 began selling drugs with her friends in Whitman Park.

Bruton made thousands of dollars every month, she said, but it all disappeared as her PCP and cocaine habits took hold. She served jail time for shoplifting before she began to turn her life around.

Now 24 and living in Pennsauken, Bruton takes classes at Rutgers University-Camden and works as a stripper to pay her debt. But she knows that many are gunned down before they can leave Whitman Park.

"It's terrible what's happening around here," she said. "The kids don't have parents watching them, and they feel like they don't have any hope."

Statistics back up neighbors' description of Whitman Park as one of Camden's roughest territories.

Last year, the neighborhood - less than a mile square - was the scene of seven of the city's 47 homicides. There have been three fatal and 14 nonfatal shootings this year.

Commonly known as Polacktown or simply Polack - from the derogatory name for the Polish immigrants who once lived here - Whitman Park is made up mostly of rowhouses, walk-up apartments and vacant lots.

"It's been, historically, a community that's been very hard for us to build inroads in," said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

The neighborhood is one of the most densely populated in the city, Laughlin said, filled with side streets that offer easy cover for drug dealers. As a result, he said, the narcotics trade flourishes.

The neighborhood park, Whitman Park, has attractive football and baseball fields, a basketball court, and a playground, but it lacks the sounds of children.

Fernando Garcia, 13, takes his 3-year-old brother, Marcus, there every day, but they never find anyone to play with. It's too dangerous, he said. Yet keeping Marcus inside doesn't seem fair.

"He's got a lot of energy," Garcia said. "It's summer."

While Marcus climbed the jungle gym and swing set, Garcia tracked his every giddy step. The instant Marcus ran toward the chain-link fence on the playground's perimeter, Garcia sharply called him back.

Beyond the park, options for activity are few.

"All I see is 4-year-olds walking around holding hands with 7-year-olds," said Deric Monroig, 14.

There are no basketball hoops in driveways. And the Boys and Girls Clubs are too far away.

The Camden school system has summer recreation programs, but parents complain they offer more TV-watching than play. And the programs end at 3 p.m. Then what?

Hanging out. Until about age 12, neighbors say, kids ride bikes and play in the streets.

That was what 4-year-old Brandon Thompson was doing about 5 p.m. Monday when, police say, Donald Benjamin Lindsey began shooting at an unknown attacker. Brandon was running toward his mother, Stephanie, when he became caught in the cross fire and took a bullet to the head.

Lindsey, 20, spent time in the neighborhood because his 18-year-old girlfriend and their infant daughter live here, and authorities believe he got into an argument with someone. He is in custody, with bail set at $1 million.

Two days after the killing, Ahmere Ellerbee, Brandon's 13-year-old uncle, stood by the boy's memorial on Norris Street, rearranging stuffed animals deposited there.

Ellerbee said that by the time kids were preteens, Camden drug dealers often came calling, on the hunt for look-outs and runners.

"There's nothing for me to do around here. Every corner is a drug corner," said Ellerbee, who lives in Browns Mills, but spends part of his vacation with relatives in Whitman Park. "Kids should try to stay away from that, do something positive. Sell bottles of water or something. Anything."

Then there are the girls, who get pregnant as young as 12.

"They walk around with their bellies, pushing a stroller, and they think it's cute," said Sherray Williams, 24, a Rutgers-Camden student who grew up in Whitman Park. "They don't have families. The streets are their families."

That's why Ava Polk buys video games for her two sons instead of letting them bike or play outside. Sometimes, she drives them to Cooper River Park in Pennsauken.

"We have to get in our cars so the kids can have everything their heart desires," she said.

City Councilman William Spearman, who represents Whitman Park, said the underlying problem was poverty.

"I believe drug traffickers find fertile ground for their trade where you have depressed areas because poor people are desperate," he said. "They're looking to put food on the table, and, unfortunately, I believe that's what's happened in the Whitman Park neighborhood."

More than anything, Spearman said, Whitman Park needs job-training programs, especially for teens in the summer.

Camden Community Connections, a group based near Whitman Park, offered jobs this summer to 125 city youths ages 14 to 20 at nonprofit organizations, hospitals and small businesses. With more funding, executive director Martha Chavis said, more young people could enroll.

"When young people are engaged, it makes a difference," Chavis said.

But that's easier said than done.

"City officials don't take advantage of positive organizations like ours," said Robert Dickerson, founder of Whitman Park's nonprofit Unity Community Center, which has renowned dance, music and martial-arts programs.

The center owns a larger building nearby, but it hasn't opened because of red tape.

"We operate out of a small storefront, and we make miracles work," Dickerson said. "You wonder why the children don't have anywhere to go? It's political people down there in City Hall who don't have vision."

Once in a while, however, children find something on the street that's worthwhile - even in Whitman Park.

On Browning Street, a 40-year-old man who would give his name only as Walt runs an unofficial summer enrichment program out of a standalone garage. Nearly every day, two boys and a girl from the neighborhood hang out, learning to fix bicycle tires for pocket money.

"I'm just trying to give them something so later in life they can do something," Walt said. "I just hope they find a right path."