Restless friends of a slain New Haven man had a choice presented to them: Keep the killing going. Or raise the money for a funeral.
A former gangbanger turned peacemaker named Darrell “D‑Russ” Allick delivered that message to people mourning the killing Tuesday afternoon of 20-year-old Tyrell “Grip” Trimble outside a “hot spot” Stop & Shop Plaza laundromat at Elm and Kensington streets.
Allick delivered that message to some 100 people, some of them steadily drinking, gathered Wednesday night outside Trimble’s family home on Davenport Avenue.
He delivered it again Thursday afternoon to young people gathered at a memorial to Trimble at the homicide scene. (Click on the play arrow to the video at the top of the story for a sample.)
“Last night everybody was drunk,” Allick remarked. “Today I’m trying to catch everybody when they’re sober.”
Trimble’s oldest brother asked Allick to come deliver the message. The brother worried that the crowd might carry out its mourning the way too many other mourners have in New Haven’s street wars: through a revenge killing. Trimble’s father believes that Trimble’s own shooting death at the hands of a masked man grew out of years worth of tit-for-tat violence between the Crips and the Bloods.
Rather than keep the violence going, Allick suggested that people help Trimble’s family raise the $8,000 needed to bury Tyrell.
“Now you’re going to retaliate,” he said, “when you can’t afford to bury him?”
Standing in the Stop & Shop parking lot, Allick, who’s 29, held the young men, tattooed like him, products of “the life” like him, rapt. They laughed, nodded, and made eye contact in a way they rarely do with, say, reporters or social workers or preachers. Allick regaled “my Niggaz” with stories of his days heading a drug and gun-running crew in the Tribe (Dixwell area).
He described his horror learning from a judge that the charges he faced could typically earn 25 years in jail. “I was 15 years old!” The judge was putting a scare into him; adults, not juveniles, would have to serve up to 25 years.
He described a similar moment on another case, when his lawyer told him he could be looking at “180 months” in jail on a shooting conspiracy charge unless he pleaded guilty.
180 months! Just for allegedly “knowing” about somone else’s crime!
First Allick was scared of all that jail time, he said. Then he stopped and took out a mental calculator. 180 months. He wondered: How many years is that?
That cracked up one of his young listeners, who proceeded to start his own mental calculation.
“That sounds like 180 years!” he said. Then he did the math: 15 years. Still quite a while.
The charge in that 180-month case had come from a retaliation shooting, in fact. The kind of retaliation shooting that Tyrell’s family now feared his friends might commit. “We jumped out of a car, and one of my boys shot up” a truck at Farnam Courts that night, Allick said. Turned out a woman and her baby were in a car. “My boys did a lot of time over that.”
Allick told the young men in the parking lot about the challenge he faced last year when, struggling to straighten out his life, he lost his brother to a gunman on the street. He thought he knew the gunman’s identity. (Read about that here.)
“They killed my brother,” Allick said. “How do you think I felt? That was the hardest decision I had to make in my life .… I was on my way to go [with] like 20 guns.”
Then he decided: “What’s that gonna do? Jeopardize my little brothers, my little sister, my wife … You know how karma works. Nobody gets away with nothing.”
He sketched out the same choice facing the young men in the parking lot.
They could say: “You know what? They killed my man? You know what? I ain’t even a part of this no more. It’s getting real, ‘cause I’ve got something to live for.”
“Or you can say: You know what? I’m want to throw my life away. I’m willing to do 100 years. And I don’t care about my family. I’m gonna kill whoever did it and say ‘f’ my mother, my father, my brothers, sisters, and kids because there’s a possibility the they could go back and get them. You know the streets talk, man. Everybody know everything man.
The rest of the [Trimble] brothers got kids. Who’s gonna raise those kids [if the target of the next retaliation shot in turn seeks revenge]?”
Allick knew one of those Trimble brothers, years ago, he said. They ran with the same crew.
Ice Plea
He didn’t know Bobby Bloodworth, Tyrell Trimble’s 30-year-old half-brother, one of eight siblings and half-siblings. Bloodworth was the one who called Allick to the restive scene on Davenport Wednesday night.
Bloodworth was worried about blood lust in the crowd.
Bloodworth’s wife, Yvette Bell, had learned from a friend about Darell Allick. Instead of retaliating against his brother’s killer last year, Allick launched an effort called “Ice the Beef.” And he got busy.
He started speaking to kids in local schools about walking away from violence and getting street. Working with some 20 volunteers, he started an organization that’s developing an after-school program for young people. It’s also putting together — in conjunction with local schools — a parent “bridge” program to deputize staffers to check in regularly with kids and their teachers on behalf of parents who are busy working “two to three jobs,” Allick said. (On Aug. 17 the group will hold a fundraiser at LoRicco Towers.)
The group started this “Ice The Beef” Facebook page. It has over 7,300 “friends” worldwide, some of whom weigh in daily in discussions on stopping violence.
On Saturday, a community group will recognize Allick’s work at a “Kiyama” responsibility pledge event for black men in memory of Malcolm X and Trayvon Martin. (Click here for details on the event, here for a previous story explaining Kiyama.)
Paul Bass Photo
In addition to seeking some “ice” assistance, Bloodworth and Bell asked Allick to help the family bury Tyrell. They need $8,000 by next week. They don’t have it. They’ve printed up T‑shirts (donated by Jimmy’s Army Navy and Eblens Urban Clothing and Footwear) and memorial buttons to raise some of the money. (People can call 203 – 435-0212 or 203 – 361-1858 for info on making donations.) Bell is pictured displaying the shirt and button during a conversation Thursday.
“We’re letting [people] know we don’t want” retaliation, that “it takes their mind getting help over how we bury my brother,” Bloodworth said. “We’re already suffering.”
As Allick made his pitch in Stop & Shop Plaza Thursday, he got hand slaps and awestruck looks in return. Nobody promised to avoid fighting, at least not while a reporter was around. The discussion was punctuated by reports of friends arriving from the federal courthouse downtown. The feds had rounded up young people all over town after obtaining indictments for 61 alleged members of the Tre Bloods, the gang said to dominate New Haven’s crack and gun trade, and the group that hangs out where Tyrell Trimble hung out and was shot. This roundup was serious, the arrivals reported. Street names of those arrested began spreading, sparking looks and words of amazement.
It looked like some people would be going to jail for a long time. Lot of years. Lot of months — 180, even.
Allick kept the conversation going. The point wasn’t to have an illusions, to believe that a few words could put an immediate end to New Haven’s deadly cycle of retaliation and retribution, to believe that every young gun in town would do an immediate 180 in his life. The idea was to hope, to try, one gun at a time.
Thanks for sharing.