Tension teems after classes
When school lets out at Middleton High, police - and the community - get ready for whatever happens.
By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published September 26, 2005
The usual afternoon precautions were in place. A Tampa police chopper hovered overhead, while marked and unmarked patrol cars staked out the streets around Middleton High School.
Inside, students waited for the bell. Outside, the neighborhood stirred to greet them. People came on foot or pedaled bicycles, some riding handlebars.
Officers didn't need a bell to know school was out. At 2:45 p.m., the floodgates opened.
Two blocks from school, rival teen cliques planned to duke it out. But that was just today's action. Last week, the big draw was a screaming match between several neighborhood women while kids streamed past. Last month, a 15-year-old girl went to the hospital after a fight.
More often, there's just huffing and puffing. No punches are thrown, because police wait to intervene.
The problems hardly ever start at Middleton, says principal James Gatlin. But they seem drawn to its perimeter. Since Middleton opened three years ago, the daily dismissal ritual has preceded face-offs in the surrounding Belmont Heights neighborhood.
"You get these guys coming out of the community, and they mix in with our kids," said former Middleton principal Henry Washington, now an area director for the Hillsborough County school district.
"The thugs will come out of the neighborhood, because they like to look at the girls. Many a time, a guy will be walking with his girl and a hoodlum will say something fresh to the girl, and there will be an altercation. It's not anything new."
About 900 teens leave Middleton on foot each day, hitting streets already flush with kids from nearby middle schools, which let out 15 minutes earlier. They pass familiar faces: people who used to go to school with them, people they see at weekend parties, people they don't want to see at all.
They aren't eager to discuss the fights with outsiders.
"There's no fighting," said one teen, smiling defiantly Wednesday, as students and neighbors flocked down 24th Avenue to the day's main event. They walked past police, the afternoon air made light by the tinkle of an ice cream truck.
The day's attraction: The GOYAMS were supposed to fight another clique, L-Block, on 24th Street and Emma Avenue.
The GOYAMS: a name once born of "Get Off Your A-- and Move/Make Something," inherited from a College Hill crew that grew up and moved on. The successors are a clique of teens who grew up in College Hill but were uprooted to Sulphur Springs when public housing complexes crumbled.
A rapper on a local recording studio Web site who calls himself Samuel James boasts of GOYAMS ties.
"It ain't over. I thought I told ya. We back in the area. No, we ain't scared of ya . . .
"They say gangstas move in silence, right. My clique quiet, right. And we'll start riots, right."
Some kids spray graffiti around their old stomping grounds, now Belmont Heights Estates, half a mile from Middleton. They drive around and yell that they're "harder" than the 34th Street boys, a local rival clique.
This time, their beef was with L-Block, kids from Louisiana Avenue who wear black tee shirts.
By the time police arrived, it was over, with no sign anyone got hurt.
Still, police heard an L-Block member yell, "We got our respect today."
Just another chapter for the east side story.
District 5 City Council member Kevin White knows all about it.
"It seems like it's always the few that impact the masses," he said. "We have a few rabble rousers in the neighborhood that don't mean any good and want to make sure everyone else is involved in mayhem. Those are the few that we need to get under control to properly keep our community safe."
Street cliques don't cause all the chaos. Sometimes, dropouts and drug dealers start the drama, and sometimes, students get involved. And the lines between those factions blur.
Fighting isn't new to Hillsborough schools. But Middleton's dynamic is different.
Kids uprooted from old College Hill and Ponce de Leon public housing complexes return with scores to settle. Dropouts within walking distance make dismissal the highlight of their day.
Starting this spring, police noticed groups of young people who don't go to Middleton congregating outside it. Suspicious of drug activity, they began to break up the crowds.
The first two weeks of school were quiet. Then, on Aug. 19, former College Hill kids clashed with another neighborhood clique near Middleton. Principal Gatlin heard some of his students were involved. The next day, the 15-year-old girl got injured in a fight, and Gatlin heard about that, too, even though she didn't attend his school.
That's when Middleton High requested that the area immediately surrounding the school be declared a safety zone, giving school officials jurisdiction over the school's perimeter streets.
Now, anyone within 500 feet of the school has to show reason to be there or face a trespassing charge.
Congregating near the campus at dismissal time is considered loitering - both for students and nonstudents - to discourage the area across the street from Middleton from becoming a hangout, said police, who have made a few arrests.
"I think more police presence is equating to fewer problems. The days we do have a problem are the days police presence is minimal," said Sgt. David Goodman.
Sept. 14 was one of those days.
Some teens peeled away from a crowd at 24th Street and Osborne Avenue, while others swarmed toward the action.
Murmurs of "fight" reached Cpl. Scott Buchanan half a block away.
At the center of it all, he found a car, some women and a whole lot of yelling. It wasn't clear what the face-off was about. It almost never is.
"Calm down and leave the area," Buchanan said as police broke up the crowd.
"This is my house!" yelled Laneishia Brown, 21, who refused to leave the front yard of the small, mint green home. Her cousin Dwayshia Gibbons, 22, held her baby boy in her arms, yelling that she lived there, too.
Others from inside came out and argued with police. One officer pulled out a Taser and coaxed everyone back in.
The following afternoon, just before dismissal time, Brown was in the front yard with her cousins when the topic of police came up.
"They always be here harassing, telling us we can't sit outside," she said. "I'll sue them for harassment."
Her friend, Thomas James, 18, got ready to leave. He had only minutes before Middleton would let out. He knew police were particular about where he rode his bike during dismissal time.
He wasn't pleased.
"This is supposed to be a free country," he said.
Regainer Gibbons, 65, who lives in the house, understands why police come. She's fed up with the fighting.
"I'm not against police being here, but I'm against all these kids ganging around my house. I told these kids, "When school's out, get somewhere else,"' Gibbons said. "I don't know what they're fighting about. Just a bunch of kids fighting."
Police want students to tell them if they know a fight is coming.
Gatlin says they sometimes do. Meanwhile, he says, the school is trying to fortify its antiviolence program in response to the recent tension.
"It's amazing when kids become successful in school what they avoid," he said, noting that those who don't succeed look for other ways to feel important.
"And sometimes, unfortunately, it's "I'm tougher than you."'
--Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com