A source with access to word on the street and the police investigation spoke to me under the confidence of remaining anonymous Saturday about the tragic death of 15-year old Jermel Brown on Huger Street last week.
Brown, a model student at The Daniel Jenkins Academy, lived with his mother and siblings in a public housing complex on the East Side on America Street called Cooper River Courts.
According to the source witnesses saw the student get into a car near his home. His body was found under the overpass not long after.
“He was killed at the scene, not in the car,” the official said.
The young man was a cheerful boy with an engaging smile and a favorite with the mentoring program at his school.
The community is shattered, asking why, how.
The street knows.
According to another source, Brown has an identical twin who was just released from juvenile prison. The story is that there was a gang posse looking for the brother who was the intended victim.
“Can you imagine the shock the thugs felt when they learned that they’d killed the wrong kid?” my source (who is black) told me. “The dirty secret is that is that had the right brother been killed it would have been a one-day wonder. It would be just another drug killing. Apparently, this is truly a case of the evil twin. “
He said that reports are that the family is in protective custody. We agreed that it might be a bit awkward what with the felonious twin sharing space with his family. We wondered how much remorse the boy felt knowing that it was his actions who got his brother viciously murdered. He has to be shaken knowing that he was the intended victim.
One can hear the disgust and frustration in my friend’s voice as he asserts, “The majority of crime in this area is black on black. These kids keep killing each other. “
He told me of a plan to put cameras up and down America, Hanover and Nassau streets.
“It might not deter them, but at least we’ll know who did it,’ he stated grimly.
The underlying theme in the conversation was that now the police know the motive for Brown’s slaughter, it’s just a matter of rounding up the perpetrator. My source thinks it all be over by Tuesday.
One can only hope so.
The official bemoans the fact that so many young, black adults are serving time. His core complaint is that they aren’t serving enough time.
“Our so-called ‘leaders’ always complain that an inordinate percentage of the prison population is young black men. There’s a reason for that…” he pauses.
“It is they who are committing the crimes. These kids are openly selling crack and heroin on Reid or Amherst Street at 11 in the morning. These guys aren’t affiliated with national gangs, but they sure have their own territories. They think they are bulletproof. They have the arrogance of youth combined with the stupidity of drugs. That’s a very dangerous permutation.
“The same groups of kids keep killing each other. The young man killed on Francis Street a few months back had shot somebody else who shot somebody else. It’s a feud that has unfolded all over. It started about five years ago in North Charleston and has since spread to Mount Pleasant to shootings all over the East Side.”
The man with whom I spoke is a successful businessman who grew up on the East Side. Murder is bad for business, although my source believes that in the end reason will out.
For now, he is shocked and saddened about the mistaken identity.
“It’s almost Biblical, isn’t it? That child died for his brother’s sins.”
Whether any of this pans out remains to be seen, but I live in Wagener Terrace. This murder and the bizarre circumstances are on everyone’s lips. From Food Lion to the corner store, old black ladies are shaking their heads and expressing disbelief and sadness.
I overheard one lady in line for lottery tickets tell her friend, “De bes’ find the Lord for true, for’n he be too late.”
It might be already. Surely, if this story is true, you can bet the farm that somebody in the murder car has a bull’s eye on his back.
And so the circle remains unbroken, bye and bye.
