Former Vice Lords Chiefs Now Going a Round for the Kids

In an area where one of the city’s most notorious street gangs was born, these two men had been chiefs. For years, they had controlled the drug business in what’s known in gang circles as the Holy City of Vice Lords. Moore-Ollie realized that these chiefs of the Holy City had taken their power and influence and used it in a way they never had before. They had brought the chaos in and around her school nearly to a halt. They had become unlikely — and certainly unorthodox — allies.   She couldn’t help feeling the two had somehow been sent from God.
A few things worth noting about Brown and Fitzpatrick:
 
•Both have served repeated stints in prison on charges ranging from drug distribution to unlawful possession of a weapon.
•Both freely acknowledge their history as Vice Lords and matter-of-factly discuss the details of their rise from street-corner hustlers to high-ranking bosses.
•Both say they started removing themselves from lives of crime four years ago, after seeing too many friends killed or incarcerated and recognizing that their actions helped destroy the neighborhood they grew up in. There are bullet holes in the outside walls of Penn Elementary that came from gunfights Brown was involved in.
•Both are in their mid-30s, an age range at which experts agree many gang members — often surprised to be either alive or not in prison — turn their lives around.
And here is one important fact to know about Penn Elementary:
Since Brown and Fitzpatrick began working with kids at the school and intervening in disputes late last spring, suspensions have dropped from 46 in the 2008-09 school year to 13 thus far in 2009-10. “They changed the whole culture around the school,” said the principal. “I don’t have boys in here getting handcuffed and dragged out. That was happening before. Now it’s not.”

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