Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992 TAG: 9201270229
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK and MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
FAMILY FINDS THERE'S NO WAY TO ESCAPE DRUG-TRADE VIOLENCE
GUNS AND DRUGS make the streets dangerous for young people. Two Roanoke brothers ended up being the victims in one case and the aggressors in another.It was close to midnight when a white Honda Civic cruised slowly past a crowd of 60 to 70 people that had spilled out of a Northwest Roanoke nightspot.
"It was a typical night on 11th Street," William "Munch" Dungee remembers.
What happened next that August night also is typical - not just on 11th Street but in other parts of Roanoke where teen-agers, drug deals and gunplay form a volatile mix.
Two teens - wearing sweatshirts with hoods pulled over their heads - stepped from the shadows into the street light. Each gripped a gun with both hands.
Inside the car, Dungee, 18, saw fire coming from the guns. Bystanders ducked and dived to the ground. A bullet splintered as it plunged through the car door and into Dungee's leg. Another shattered the back window and hit the driver in the neck.
Authorities say two brothers - 16-year-old Roland Muhammad and 17-year-old Raheem Muhammad - ambushed Dungee.
At the time, Roland Muhammad was wearing a cast on his right leg. An artery in his thigh had been severed three months earlier by a bullet from a 9mm handgun.
It was Dungee's gun.
Feuding over a $1,000 drug debt, Dungee shot Roland last April, only to become the victim of a pay-back shooting by the Muhammads three months later.
All three teens were convicted this month and are awaiting sentencing in Roanoke Circuit Court, where officials say cases such as theirs have become commonplace in recent years.
"This is not like the days of the Old West," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Alice Ekirch said. "It's worse."
Francine Muhammad doesn't want her sons to be remembered as gun-carrying hoodlums.
Lots of kids have grown up in a world where drug dealing and violence are as common as cartoons and pick-up basketball. "The community has more or less given up on them," Muhammad said. Most people "just feel like, `They're hoodlums - so what?' Nobody cares."
She had hoped to get her children away from the drug trade before something like this happened.
Raheem, Roland, their younger brother and four sisters had once lived in a middle-class neighborhood in Roanoke County. But in 1985, a divorce forced her to move her family into Hunt Manor, an inner-city public housing complex.
Francine Muhammad said she did her best to raise seven kids on her own despite her long work hours and constant bad health. Her oldest daughter, Larena, won a scholarship to study drama at Virginia Commonwealth University.
At first, the housing complex seemed safe. But Francine Muhammad noticed the increasing danger as the crack cocaine trade began to move into Hunt Avenue and Lincoln Terrace, a nearby housing complex.
She wanted to move her children out of "the projects." But it was almost impossible to find a home that was big enough - and affordable - for a family of eight.
In the meantime, her two older sons started having run-ins with the police.
In fall 1989, for instance, Raheem and Roland were playing basketball when officers pulled over a car and arrested the people inside on drug charges. Police say Roland Muhammad and other people who watched the arrest started yelling and taunting the officers.
Roland and Raheem say one of the cops looked at Roland and said, "Thanks for the tip. Come down to the station and we'll give you your reward tomorrow."
Roland picked up an apple core and threw it at the police cruiser. He was arrested for throwing "a missile" at an occupied vehicle, but the charge was later dropped.
Their mother went down to the Police Department to complain. She says she got a cold reception, but eventually police wrote her a letter admitting that an officer had made an improper remark.
The letter also said, however, that she should be concerned that Roland frequently was seen in the area of drug arrests.
"They're always saying: Why are you in a drug-related area?" Roland's brother Raheem said a few months later. "Shoot, we live in a drug-related neighborhood. They think like everybody over here is selling drugs."
Raheem was 16 in spring 1990 when he told a reporter that he knew many of the area's young drug dealers.
"A lot of 'em I went to school with," Raheem said. "I'll talk to 'em sometimes. I associate with them for a while. . . . But I don't hang around with them too much, because a lot of stuff has been happening, people shooting at each other and stuff."
Raheem said he heard gunshots every day. "I really want to get away from here, because I think it's going to get worse with the drugs and violence this summer."
In the weeks before he spoke, there had been a surge of violence on Hunt Avenue: shots fired at cars on Interstate 581, a man stabbed in the neck, another man pulled from his car and beaten by four others, a woman smashed in the head with a bottle and robbed of her necklace.
Raheem's older sister, Larena, said she hardly ever went outside.
"Hardly ever?" Raheem said. "You never go outside."
"Sometimes I don't wanna be near the windows," Larena said.
Raheem slumped down on the couch, below the window line, and said: "Like this."
Larena and a younger sister laughed.
In June 1990, the family moved to a big brick house off Cove Road in Northwest Roanoke. Raheem, a gifted artist, was excited. He painted and decorated every room in the house.
But their mother says the move was too late - and probably not far enough away. "I wish it had been a few years sooner," she said. "They just stayed kinda caught up in that same old crowd."
Both Raheem and Roland have manic depression and haven't always taken their medicine. On top of that, their mother said, Roanoke is a "sad and depressing" place for kids. It makes it easy for older men to flash a few dollars in their faces and lure them into trouble, she said.
Starting in the fall of 1990, Raheem was convicted of a long list of offenses: trespassing, burglary, assault, carrying a concealed weapon, cocaine possession. He was put on probation three times for his crimes.
At the same time, Roland was compiling a similar record in juvenile court: petty larceny, trespassing, assault, disturbing school exercises, disorderly conduct, carrying a concealed weapon. The first charges were dismissed; then he was placed on probation.
Last summer, Raheem was charged with more serious crimes - abduction and malicious wounding of a man who was held captive for several hours, pistol-whipped and cut across the face. Raheem was shot in the leg, when the victim managed to briefly grab a gun.
Raheem was charged along with three other youths, including Tony Kasey, who was shot dead a few weeks later in a showdown involving high-powered weapons.
In court testimony, Roland adopted a street-tough nonchalance when he explained how Dungee shot him with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. The bullet hit an artery in his right thigh and caused permanent nerve damage.
"What did you do" when Dungee pulled a gun? the prosecutor asked.
"I just stood there," Roland replied.
"Were you scared?" she asked.
"Yeah . . . a little bit."