THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 30, 1994 TAG: 9408300426
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN E. QUINONES MILLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Kim Fields went to great lengths to keep her five young sons safe. She put up a volleyball net and set out lawn chairs so the boys and the neighborhood kids would gather at her house and stay out of trouble.
Fields always wanted to know where her boys were. She chauffeured them around to parties so they didn't have to bum rides from people they didn't know, or become a drunken-driving statistic.
``I just try to do what I can to help out,'' she said Monday at her home in the Bromley section.
Early Sunday, everything that the 35-year-old mother had done seemed to shatter when a bullet fired from a car struck her first-born - 17-year-old Jerrell Stokes. The boy lay dying in her arms.
``I was knelt down beside him and gave him CPR, the whole time praying,'' said a sorrow-stricken Fields. ``But it wasn't enough.''
The police said it was a gang-related shooting. Fields would not accept that. She said it was a group of kids from one neighborhood preying upon another.
``My son was not in a gang, none of these kids are. They are a bunch of teenagers who grew up together in the same neighborhood and like each other's company,'' Fields said.
``But I don't think because these kids like hanging out with other kids their age and in their neighborhood they should be considered a gang. They're a group of teenagers, that's all. Teenagers, not gang members.
``The shooting . . . it wasn't over drugs, it wasn't over guns and it wasn't over territory. It was over a girl.''
The girl, she said, had been rejected by Jason Stokes, 16, Jerrell's younger brother. A resident of the Fairlawn section, the girl encouraged her neighborhood friends to cause trouble, Fields said.
On Monday afternoon, Detective Randy Crank from the Norfolk Police Department's Gang Unit called Jason and warned him that the boys in Fairlawn were still after him. Jason quoted Crank as saying: ``Better watch your back.''
One death, it seems, is not enough.
Crank had no comment because the case still was being investigated. Police spokesman Larry Hill said officers were searching for a 16-year-old boy in the drive-by shooting.
On Monday, about 10 teenagers crowded into the home Fields shares with her parents in the 1800 block of McDowell Road. They hugged and tried to comfort the woman who they say had done her best to keep all of them safe.
``It's so sad, because really Jerrell was shot simply because of someone's ego,'' said a family friend, Valarie MacPherson, 15. ``A life taken over basically nothing.''
The memory of Jerrell Stokes hung heavy. A 7-pound, 9-inch largemouth bass he caught was mounted on the wall. His baseball and basketball trophies were lined up on an entertainment center next to those of his brothers.
``Hey, there's a car just pulled up, I wonder if they're looking for the house,'' Jason said as he stood near the front door.
``Jason, don't you go walking out to no strange cars,'' Fields said sharply through her grief.
It was about 1:30 a.m. Sunday when Jerrell and Jason called and asked their mother to pick them upfrom a party in the 5100 block of E. Princess Anne Road.
She drove over and found the boys standing outside the house with friends. A small wooden sign on the door read: ``Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.''
``I got out of the car, and we all started talking about stuff, reminiscing about things and just being friendly,'' said Fields, whose youngest son is 15 months old. ``All of a sudden a small green car came speeding by and we heard four or five shots ring out.''
One of the girls who was standing in front of the house, a 15-year-old, cried out that she was shot, and everyone ran into the house, Fields said. The girl, who was at Fields' home Monday, was not badly wounded.
``When I realized that Jerrell hadn't come in I ran back out and I found him slumped on the ground,'' Fields said. ``He said, `Oh, my God, Oh, my God,' and then he started kind of gurgling.''
Fields said she lay Jerrell down and began to administer CPR while one of the teenagers ran and called police.
``When the paramedics arrived, I told them he needed oxygen, because he wasn't able to breathe on his own,'' Fields said. ``And then I kept giving him the CPR because I knew he was going on me.''
Jerrell was taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where he died two hours later.
Fields said that almost as painful as her son's death was the fact that police labeled the shooting an act of gang retaliation.
Members of the Bromley Civic League, however, said there is a gang in their community. They know because the police told them so.
``The Norfolk Gang Unit, they flat out told us there's one here,'' said Nelson Smith, vice-president of the group. ``I can't say for sure that they've done anything, but we know they're here.''
But Fields rejects the notion. ``They don't go around wearing colors or calling themselves the Bromley Badasses, or nothing like that,'' she said. ``They are not gang members. They're friends.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
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KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING DRIVE-BY SHOOTING by CNB