Christopher Zoukis's Blog - Posts Tagged "u-s"
Mac Baller Brims: Teaser from Forthcoming Book
This is a teaser, an excerpt, from the upcoming I wrote with John Lee Brook: United Blood Nation: The Untold Story of the East Coast Bloods, Headpress. I hope you enjoy it!
By Christopher Zoukis
The New York Post recently designated the Mac Baller Brims “New York City’s most dangerous gang.” In one of its articles, the newspaper equated the Mac Baller Brims with the Mafia. Naturally, almost immediately a number of other journalists took exception to the Post’s depiction of the gang, calling the writers at the Post “drama queens” and “hysterical pansies.” And admittedly, even though the Mac Baller Brims are nasty, vicious and brutal, they are not in the same league as the Mafia. The Brims lack organization, size and wealth.
That being said, there were some similarities: just like the Italian gangsters, the Mac Baller Brims had their own language and customs. And the Brims had a narrative history, too, just like the Italians. Of course, the Mafia traced its roots back hundreds of years, whereas the Brims could only trace theirs back to 1969, to a group in California called the L.A. Hat Gang. The Hat Gang changed their name to the 5-9 Brims in the 1970s. Their home turf focused around 59th Street in South L.A.’s Harvard Park area. So when they decided to change the name of their gang, they went with the 5 and the 9 of the street address. The name change provided them with a geographic identity rather than an abstract identity, a la the L.A. Hat Gang.[i]
When Omar Portee established the United Blood Nation in 1993, one of the original New York sets he established was called the 59 Brims. Portee knowingly borrowed the name from the West Coast Bloods. The 59 Brims had no affiliation with their California namesakes, just the same name. Over time, the New York 59 Brims grew so numerous that they divided the set into four subsets. Collectively, the four subsets called themselves the New York Blood Brim Army.[ii]
One of the four subsets was the Mac Baller Brims, which formed in 2001. The ‘Mac’ part of the name was a tribute to Omar Portee, while the ‘Baller’ part of the name was gang slang for gangster or drug dealer.
The “don” or “godfather” of the Mac Baller Brims (MBB) was Larry Calderon aka “O.” His nickname was the capital O of the alphabet, not the numerical 0 or zero. Calderon’s right-hand man was Eli Rios aka Blood Eli. Together, Calderon and Rios comprised what was called the “Board of Directors.” This Board of Directors functioned as a Mafia-like Commission. In fact, it was blatantly obvious that the entire command structure of the Mac Baller Brims mimicked the Italian Mafia. Like Marlon Brando in the Godfather, Calderon had the final say-so, but he never made a unilateral decision; he always discussed things with Rios. Then he made the call.
The New York Police Department identified 525 confirmed members of the Mac Baller Brims, but were the first to concede that the number was in reality much higher what with hundreds of “associates” and wannabe “YGs” or young gangsters, who, although technically prospective gang members, functioned as the real McCoy.
Both Calderon and Rios topped the tape measure at just below 6 feet. Calderon shaved his head and wore a neatly trimmed goatee, providing him with an appearance of ruthlessness which was by no means merely cosmetic. He really was a bad ass. On his part, Rios wore his hair cropped short and sported a wispy moustache, along with a patchy chin-beard. Although Rios didn’t project the malevolent menace of Calderon, he was a stone-cold killer who knew how to take care of business. Rios killed without feeling, deliberately and with forethought. Calderon, on the other hand, was a hot-head subject to temper tantrums and explosive emotions. He was most dangerous when angry or jealous.
Home base for the Mac Baller Brims was the Morrisania section of The Bronx. But the gang had a long reach, stretching into Brooklyn, Staten Island, upstate New York, as well as New Jersey. And they dominated Rikers Island, where at any given moment there were dozens of Mac Baller Brims being held for one crime or another.
One high-ranking law enforcement official called the Mac Baller Brims, “Top dogs in the city. There are more of them than any other Bloods, and they’re highly organized, extremely violent, very powerful. Other gangs fear them.”[iii]
The Mac Baller Brims were loosely organized into two groups or divisions: a money group and a murder or enforcement group. Don’t misunderstand. The money group was not a bunch of accountants keeping track of income and expenses, putting together profit and loss statements or auditing the books. Remember, these were gangbangers. The term money group referred only to the fact that the group’s primary job was to make money. They made money by means of criminal activity.
And business was good.
_____
[i] The name change provided them with a geographic identity rather than an abstract identity, a la the L.A. Hat Gang. http://www.rapdict.org/Brims
[ii] Collectively, the four subsets called themselves the New York Blood Brim Army. http://blood-knowledge.com/
[iii] “Top dogs in the city. There are more of them than any other Bloods, and they’re highly organized, extremely violent, very powerful. Other gangs fear them.” http://nypost.com/2014/09/07/the-mac-...
By Christopher Zoukis
The New York Post recently designated the Mac Baller Brims “New York City’s most dangerous gang.” In one of its articles, the newspaper equated the Mac Baller Brims with the Mafia. Naturally, almost immediately a number of other journalists took exception to the Post’s depiction of the gang, calling the writers at the Post “drama queens” and “hysterical pansies.” And admittedly, even though the Mac Baller Brims are nasty, vicious and brutal, they are not in the same league as the Mafia. The Brims lack organization, size and wealth.
That being said, there were some similarities: just like the Italian gangsters, the Mac Baller Brims had their own language and customs. And the Brims had a narrative history, too, just like the Italians. Of course, the Mafia traced its roots back hundreds of years, whereas the Brims could only trace theirs back to 1969, to a group in California called the L.A. Hat Gang. The Hat Gang changed their name to the 5-9 Brims in the 1970s. Their home turf focused around 59th Street in South L.A.’s Harvard Park area. So when they decided to change the name of their gang, they went with the 5 and the 9 of the street address. The name change provided them with a geographic identity rather than an abstract identity, a la the L.A. Hat Gang.[i]
When Omar Portee established the United Blood Nation in 1993, one of the original New York sets he established was called the 59 Brims. Portee knowingly borrowed the name from the West Coast Bloods. The 59 Brims had no affiliation with their California namesakes, just the same name. Over time, the New York 59 Brims grew so numerous that they divided the set into four subsets. Collectively, the four subsets called themselves the New York Blood Brim Army.[ii]
One of the four subsets was the Mac Baller Brims, which formed in 2001. The ‘Mac’ part of the name was a tribute to Omar Portee, while the ‘Baller’ part of the name was gang slang for gangster or drug dealer.
The “don” or “godfather” of the Mac Baller Brims (MBB) was Larry Calderon aka “O.” His nickname was the capital O of the alphabet, not the numerical 0 or zero. Calderon’s right-hand man was Eli Rios aka Blood Eli. Together, Calderon and Rios comprised what was called the “Board of Directors.” This Board of Directors functioned as a Mafia-like Commission. In fact, it was blatantly obvious that the entire command structure of the Mac Baller Brims mimicked the Italian Mafia. Like Marlon Brando in the Godfather, Calderon had the final say-so, but he never made a unilateral decision; he always discussed things with Rios. Then he made the call.
The New York Police Department identified 525 confirmed members of the Mac Baller Brims, but were the first to concede that the number was in reality much higher what with hundreds of “associates” and wannabe “YGs” or young gangsters, who, although technically prospective gang members, functioned as the real McCoy.
Both Calderon and Rios topped the tape measure at just below 6 feet. Calderon shaved his head and wore a neatly trimmed goatee, providing him with an appearance of ruthlessness which was by no means merely cosmetic. He really was a bad ass. On his part, Rios wore his hair cropped short and sported a wispy moustache, along with a patchy chin-beard. Although Rios didn’t project the malevolent menace of Calderon, he was a stone-cold killer who knew how to take care of business. Rios killed without feeling, deliberately and with forethought. Calderon, on the other hand, was a hot-head subject to temper tantrums and explosive emotions. He was most dangerous when angry or jealous.
Home base for the Mac Baller Brims was the Morrisania section of The Bronx. But the gang had a long reach, stretching into Brooklyn, Staten Island, upstate New York, as well as New Jersey. And they dominated Rikers Island, where at any given moment there were dozens of Mac Baller Brims being held for one crime or another.
One high-ranking law enforcement official called the Mac Baller Brims, “Top dogs in the city. There are more of them than any other Bloods, and they’re highly organized, extremely violent, very powerful. Other gangs fear them.”[iii]
The Mac Baller Brims were loosely organized into two groups or divisions: a money group and a murder or enforcement group. Don’t misunderstand. The money group was not a bunch of accountants keeping track of income and expenses, putting together profit and loss statements or auditing the books. Remember, these were gangbangers. The term money group referred only to the fact that the group’s primary job was to make money. They made money by means of criminal activity.
And business was good.
_____
[i] The name change provided them with a geographic identity rather than an abstract identity, a la the L.A. Hat Gang. http://www.rapdict.org/Brims
[ii] Collectively, the four subsets called themselves the New York Blood Brim Army. http://blood-knowledge.com/
[iii] “Top dogs in the city. There are more of them than any other Bloods, and they’re highly organized, extremely violent, very powerful. Other gangs fear them.” http://nypost.com/2014/09/07/the-mac-...
Mental illness and slow death by solitary confinement
On June 7th, the American prison system took another life. Kalief Browder had not been confined behind the walls of a prison for several months, but the system remains largely responsible for his death nonetheless. On that Saturday afternoon, Kalief’s mother made the discovery that no parent should have to endure: he had hanged himself outside the family home. It would be easy to write this story off as being just one of a “troubled youth,” but it would be a tremendous disservice to his memory were we not to make clear that our entire judicial system set the stage for this tragedy.
Browder was a child of just 16 when he was arrested for robbery and imprisoned at the notoriously violent RNDC at Rikers prison. There he languished for nearly three years, waiting for a trial that never took place. But worse than that, the bulk of his time there was spent in solitary confinement; the practice of confinement for minor issues (or for no reason at all) is a practice that in recent years has been growing in popularity across New York’s jails. The moratorium on isolation for those under 21 years of age came too late for Kalief. There he endured abuse at the hands of prison staff, the withholding of food, and the mental ravages that come with complete isolation from the world. Ultimately, he attempted suicide. The response of the facility speaks to the heart of the problem: he was sent to the prison clinic, then returned to solitary without being provided with treatment for serious mental health concerns. His case was later dismissed, but the damage had been done.
Bowder had done much to better himself both prior to and after his release, to put the past behind him, but experiences like his are not easily swept under the rug. He was released from prison a changed man, and he attempted suicide multiple times; his mental health remained fragile up to his death this week.
A full account of Browder’s ordeals can be read here. New Yorker writer Jennifer Gonnerman became close with Browder, documenting the abuses mete upon him by prison staff and remaining close with him upon his release. He became a cause celèbre for many, and it seemed to all intents and purposes that his life was on the right track. But what is difficult to convey is the emotional toll that solitary confinement takes on a human being. It’s an experience I wish I could say I couldn’t empathize with, but I have been twice confined to solitary for my writing. Nothing can prepare you for that kind of isolation and the desperation it engenders in even the most stable mind. For those with existing mental health issues, confinement can literally be deadly.
or three years, a teenager’s medical needs were neglected and he was tortured by a system entrusted with his care—and it’s a problem that is endemic to the system. The mentally ill are disproportionately represented amongst the incarcerated; each year, 2 million men and women with mental illnesses are jailed, accounting for nearly two-thirds of women and half of men incarcerated. In its current state, the American prison system is incapable of adequately meeting the mental health needs of its inmates.
The system is that is charged with the treatment and housing of the mentally ill, is one that is barely capable of addressing even the most basic of medical issues facing prisoners. And our penchant for simply throwing more and more people into our prisons is only exacerbating the problem. They are not referred to community-based organizations which may assist them, or treatment facilities that can provide critical medications—they are shuffled away into our already over-stuffed prisons and jails.
The Stepping Up Initiative is currently engaged in the issue and seeking to develop new approaches to keeping the mentally ill out of the prison system, and helping to break the cycle of those who are already in it. I encourage you to take a moment both to read Kalief’s story, and to see how you can help change a broken a system that is killing our young men and women.
Browder was a child of just 16 when he was arrested for robbery and imprisoned at the notoriously violent RNDC at Rikers prison. There he languished for nearly three years, waiting for a trial that never took place. But worse than that, the bulk of his time there was spent in solitary confinement; the practice of confinement for minor issues (or for no reason at all) is a practice that in recent years has been growing in popularity across New York’s jails. The moratorium on isolation for those under 21 years of age came too late for Kalief. There he endured abuse at the hands of prison staff, the withholding of food, and the mental ravages that come with complete isolation from the world. Ultimately, he attempted suicide. The response of the facility speaks to the heart of the problem: he was sent to the prison clinic, then returned to solitary without being provided with treatment for serious mental health concerns. His case was later dismissed, but the damage had been done.
Bowder had done much to better himself both prior to and after his release, to put the past behind him, but experiences like his are not easily swept under the rug. He was released from prison a changed man, and he attempted suicide multiple times; his mental health remained fragile up to his death this week.
A full account of Browder’s ordeals can be read here. New Yorker writer Jennifer Gonnerman became close with Browder, documenting the abuses mete upon him by prison staff and remaining close with him upon his release. He became a cause celèbre for many, and it seemed to all intents and purposes that his life was on the right track. But what is difficult to convey is the emotional toll that solitary confinement takes on a human being. It’s an experience I wish I could say I couldn’t empathize with, but I have been twice confined to solitary for my writing. Nothing can prepare you for that kind of isolation and the desperation it engenders in even the most stable mind. For those with existing mental health issues, confinement can literally be deadly.
or three years, a teenager’s medical needs were neglected and he was tortured by a system entrusted with his care—and it’s a problem that is endemic to the system. The mentally ill are disproportionately represented amongst the incarcerated; each year, 2 million men and women with mental illnesses are jailed, accounting for nearly two-thirds of women and half of men incarcerated. In its current state, the American prison system is incapable of adequately meeting the mental health needs of its inmates.
The system is that is charged with the treatment and housing of the mentally ill, is one that is barely capable of addressing even the most basic of medical issues facing prisoners. And our penchant for simply throwing more and more people into our prisons is only exacerbating the problem. They are not referred to community-based organizations which may assist them, or treatment facilities that can provide critical medications—they are shuffled away into our already over-stuffed prisons and jails.
The Stepping Up Initiative is currently engaged in the issue and seeking to develop new approaches to keeping the mentally ill out of the prison system, and helping to break the cycle of those who are already in it. I encourage you to take a moment both to read Kalief’s story, and to see how you can help change a broken a system that is killing our young men and women.
The surprising new source of prison education advocacy
Prison education advocacy is coming from an unlikely country: Lebanon.
The country is generally only on America’s radar for its assistance in the conflict against ISIL and a fractured and complex internal political state. But despite the beleaguered state of the nation at the moment, the Minister has seen fit to prioritize the rehabilitation of prison populations.
This past week, Education Minister Elias Bou Saab announced his desire to see complete educational facilities integrated into the nation’s prisons. His comments came on the heels of a recent visit to a woman’s prison where he met women with women in the process of taking the first ever Life Sciences Baccalaureate exam hosted inside a prison. The visit formed part of a widespread initiative by the Minister to examine the state of education across the country.
Like so many of us involved in prison education, Bou Saab has realized how important education is to providing hope to inmates, and fostering their will to make a better life for themselves and their communities upon release. He noted that he would be discussing the building of education facilities within Lebanese prisons with the Minister of the Interior.
If a country as mired in conflict and political gridlock, with one of the most infamous prison systems in the world, can appreciate the role that prison education plays in contributing to a strong social and economic fabric, and prioritize it accordingly, what’s our excuse?
The country is generally only on America’s radar for its assistance in the conflict against ISIL and a fractured and complex internal political state. But despite the beleaguered state of the nation at the moment, the Minister has seen fit to prioritize the rehabilitation of prison populations.
This past week, Education Minister Elias Bou Saab announced his desire to see complete educational facilities integrated into the nation’s prisons. His comments came on the heels of a recent visit to a woman’s prison where he met women with women in the process of taking the first ever Life Sciences Baccalaureate exam hosted inside a prison. The visit formed part of a widespread initiative by the Minister to examine the state of education across the country.
Like so many of us involved in prison education, Bou Saab has realized how important education is to providing hope to inmates, and fostering their will to make a better life for themselves and their communities upon release. He noted that he would be discussing the building of education facilities within Lebanese prisons with the Minister of the Interior.
If a country as mired in conflict and political gridlock, with one of the most infamous prison systems in the world, can appreciate the role that prison education plays in contributing to a strong social and economic fabric, and prioritize it accordingly, what’s our excuse?
