A shot in the dark

Since being gunned down last Sunday, Phillip has been described by various individuals, including two prominent Catholic priests, as a man of peace who had reformed and was trying to improve his community by brokering truces between the various gangs in the East-West corridor. But Phillip’s reform, and the truce he had supposedly brokered, are not without caveats.

For instance, Phillip didn’t change his ways until he had risen to prominence among the gangs, and his financial position suggests that he had been quite successful in those activities by which gang members get their income. Moreover, his reform didn’t happen without him ensuring that his revenue stream would continue flowing, for he was reportedly the recipient of several lucrative government contracts, presumably related to the URP and to construction projects.

Nonetheless, one might give credit, as Catholic priests Jason Gordon and Clyde Harvey have done, to a man who had stepped off the deadly path of the gang lifestyle — again, however, with the caveat that Phillip was 28 years old and, statistically for a man with his background, already living on borrowed time. His efforts to create a truce between the gangs of Morvant/Laventille, moreover, raise other questions.

For example, what incentive did the gang members have to stop killing one another? After all, young men do not join gangs just for the sake of being in a gang. Gangs would not attract recruits in the first place unless they offered very specific and concrete advantages. The first such advantage is protection. But the protection is not free — gang members have to earn their keep. And they do so through illegal activities: robberies, drug-running, and assassinations. Indeed, the main reason gang leaders do not like turf wars is because such conflicts disrupt their business. If, therefore, Phillip had indeed been able to broker a truce between the gangs, does this mean that their criminal activities were able to proceed more smoothly? And, if it doesn’t mean that, then what was the basis on which the gangs held their truce? And, if they weren’t continuing in their illegal activities, how were they getting the money without which gangs would surely collapse?

Fr Jason Gordon, who worked with Phillip in these communities, might be able to answer some of our queries. But, since making his astonishing allegation that Phillip was killed by professionals rather than other gang members, Fr Gordon has clammed up. He hasn’t explained how he knew the hit was professional nor why “higher ups” would want to disrupt the supposed truce — and we say “supposed” because a ten percent drop in gang-related murders doesn’t seem to constitute much of a truce.

The core rationale behind the eulogising of Phillip is that such persons must be encouraged if the country is to solve the problem of gangs. But such an argument ignores the fact that this issue has become so problematic only in the past five years. Moreover, it also appears that the URP has been a key factor in the exacerbation of violence and murders within the East-West corridor. So, while it is true that the issue of violent young men without marketable skills has to be treated with, using men like the late “Fresh” Phillip and negotiating with “community leaders” is not likely to solve the real problems in the long term.