Krieger: Athletes' gang silence not helping problem

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 18, 2007 at midnight

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It has been 17 days since Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was murdered on a downtown Denver street. The spiritual leader of the metro anti-gang effort, the Rev. Leon Kelly, called his peeps together Wednesday to take inventory.

Except for the media wretches on hand, a motley crew, The Rev called mostly people with a long- standing commitment to the issue. There was a former pro athlete - Claudie Minor - but no current pro athletes. There was a former politician - Norm Early - but no current politicians.

The police chiefs of Denver and Aurora were there. So were several officers from the Denver police gang unit. These are the people on the front lines of our domestic terrorism problem.

Turns out, it's not so much about al-Qaida or some nut trying to make his shoe go off. It's more about urban street gangs using terror to get away with murder, scaring potential witnesses silent by killing a few.

Never mind Baghdad, what sort of offensive would it take to secure the streets of Denver and Aurora at night?

Denver's manager of safety was there, which makes sense because that's the one place the city spends money on this problem. The police gang unit has 42 officers and an annual budget of $3.6 million. Not exactly overpowering force against hundreds, maybe thousands of gangbangers, but something.

What about prevention, you ask? What about the Rev. Kelly's work with kids after school, trying to steer them another way?

Didn't make the cut at City Hall.

The Kiwanis Club sees an urgent need for The Rev's Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives program and supports it every year. The city does not.

Open Door's annual budget is less than the minimum salary for a single pro ballplayer. The program can't be scaled up because there's barely enough money for what it does now. Street gangs are getting a lot of urban kids by default.

Wednesday's meeting was off the record, except for Denver police chief Gerry Whitman's update on the Darrent Williams investigation: "We're making progress and I'm confident it's going to be solved."

The world of sports is involved only incidentally, because of what Williams did for a living, but it used to be involved in another way. The Rev remembers any number of former Nuggets and Broncos who joined him in Northeast Denver to offer kids a different sort of role model.

Minor, the Broncos offensive tackle who retired in 1982 - put the Broncos on waivers, he says with a smile - was one.

"When I played, we were sequestered to that team," he told me. "We didn't have free agency. And so we stayed in the community, we moved our families here and we knew that this was where our heavy lifting would be, so we got involved with the community. My wife and I decided to stay here and raise our children here.

"Now, football players are vagabonds. They go wherethey're paying. And perhaps in their hometowns, they have an interest. Don't know. But I'm often asked about the current athletes and I'm not certain as to what their involvement is in the community. I see some out and about."

In fairness, today's players support or maintain charitable programs for a wide variety of causes. Many have their own charitable foundations. But when it comes to speaking out against gangs, the silence is deafening.

Some of that is a conflict between past and present. Players who grew up in tough urban neighborhoods couldn't help but have friends in gangs. Turning their backs when they make it is considered selling out.

Minor, who grew up amid gangs in Southern California, doesn't have a lot of empathy for this conflict.

"It's about being pro-church, pro-Bible, pro-education, pro-family, pro-health, pro-good lifestyle," he said. "That's just how I look at that. Those people that I knew that were in the gangs, they'd still be my friends, I just can't hang with them. I can't bring my kids around."

Various athletes and organizations have pledged to raise money for Williams' children. It makes you wonder if they could be brought together in a larger expression of Williams' legacy - a Darrent Williams Community Center, a bigger budget for Open Door, something.

Because Williams' death struck Denver's community of pro athletes in the gut.

"My kids are young adults and they knew Darrent, and it devastated my son and his friends," Minor said.

I wondered what he told them.

"It had a lot to do with celebrating his life as opposed to the way that he died. He brought all that he had to the table, whatever he did. He was a spark plug. He was filled with life.

"Which is why we all have to manage ourselves about where we go, what we do, what we say, how we behave. And sometimes that still doesn't make any difference.

"So you have to be able to make peace with where you are all the time because you never know when you're going to be gone."

A little grim, don't you think? Almost enough to make you want to do something about it.

kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com

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