Chicago Projects Find Shaky Peace A Year After Boy's Death -- Gangs Call Truce, Security Increases As Tension Subsides

CHICAGO - Down near Dantrell Davis Way, they say the shooting has stopped. At least for now.

From inside her concrete high-rise apartment, Sahara Brooks looks out past the invisible walls of Cabrini-Green, a public housing complex in Chicago.

A cool breeze filters through a window. The night is calm except for the muffled sounds of children playing and the occasional thud of a heavy metal door slamming shut.

Sahara Brooks and her husband, John, have settled in for a quiet evening. Standing in the living room window of their sixth-floor perch, she pushes open the metal frame of the window for a few seconds, then fastens it snug.

It is a scene that would not have occurred a year ago, Brooks concedes. A year ago, even something as innocent as catching the night air from a window in the troubled Cabrini-Green housing complex could have meant death.

SHOT HEARD AROUND CITY

Seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was killed a year ago last October, felled by a sniper's bullet as he was walking to school.

He was the 44th child under age 15 to be slain in the Chicago area in 1992, when 61 children were killed. He also was the fourth young Cabrini resident to be slain, the third by gunfire.

The shot that killed Dantrell on Oct. 13 was heard across the city and around the world. Mayor Richard Daley ordered heightened police presence. Gang members called for a truce.

It also brought network television crews and cameras - journalists used to recording the unconscionable. And still they were shocked. The death of someone so innocent, so young, begged for an end to the senseless violence that plagued the people of Cabrini-Green.

Guns were seized and metal detectors were installed in the high-rises. Since Dantrell's slaying, The Chicago Housing Authority has spent reportedly up to $9 million on security, $1.4 million alone for the swift lockdown there on Oct. 14.

And since Dantrell's death, only one other young Cabrini resident has been killed, although 55 Chicago-area children have been slain in 1993.

Instead, Cabrini children have come out to play. A palpable sense of ease surrounds this concrete city within a city.

MEASURABLE PEACE

Dantrell has left behind a measurable peace. In fact, violent crime at the housing complex is down. There were two murders in the 11-month period from November 1992 to Sept. 30, three fewer than in the comparable 11 months of 1991-92.

Children no longer dodge midday gunfire, but they still face drug dealers and gangs who claim the buildings as drug turf. Mothers rest easier, but they still worry about whether their children will yet become urban statistics.

Residents still hold their breath amid fears that violence will return. And while the call of death that was once as inevitable as the crime that envelops the impoverished island has waned, Cabrini-Green still is not safe.

`STILL THE SAME'

You need only ask the children.

"Ain't nowhere safe," said Constance Dockery, a 12-year-old seventh-grader.

"It ain't like it used to be. It ain't a lot of shooting. Young people give our buildings a little more respect," she said.

The feeling of safety remains elusive, dissipating in the face of a grim urban reality.

"Everything's still the same," said Joseph Holmes, 13. "They still sell their drugs. They're still gonna gang bang. Ain't nothing gonna ever change. It's just gonna calm down."

In fact, many residents of Cabrini-Green, including the Brookses, say it is the gang members and not the police who have made a world of difference. The truce, derided by law-enforcement officials, has meant competing gangs no longer enforce violations of complex rules and boundaries.

Young men, who before had not dared venture two blocks outside gang territory, now walk without fear of reprisal. So do innocent residents whose buildings bordered the critical dividing line between feuding gangs.

"They don't shoot no more," said a toothy 8-year-old boy when asked about the changes. "The gang bangers got a peace treaty."

Still, plainclothes detectives canvass the neighborhood. Episodes of young men being frisked on a corner by a cop have become routine.

Inside the buildings, armed security guards have been posted, the Chicago Housing Authority's contribution to keeping the peace. But residents say the guards do little more than police the entranceway.

In sullen hallways marred with graffiti, residents say, illegal drug sales flourish. And gangs are in control.

"I still don't care much about letting my children play outside," said May Lewis, a 27-year-old mother of three. "You don't know when they might change their minds and start shooting . . . As long as these gangs and drugs are here, it's going to get worse."

Few at Cabrini-Green will dispute that.

Authorities, however, maintain they are working to get an even tighter hold on the complex. The housing authority has launched plans to erect metal fences around some groups of buildings in the complex and to construct cul-de-sacs near row houses.

And on the anniversary of the death of Dantrell, one may ask whether life at Cabrini-Green is any better.

"Hell no, it ain't got no better," said an unnamed security guard on duty at one of the buildings on a recent night.

Indeed, despite some progress, the rate of violent crime in Cabrini-Green remains substantially higher than in the city as a whole. Last year Chicago's violent crime rate was 30.3 for every 1,000 residents, ranking fourth in the U.S. But for Cabrini alone, the violent crime rate, tallied for the 11 months ending Sept. 30 is 42.4, more than quadruple last year's national rate.

Still, in a neighborhood besieged for so many years by mayhem, a walk to a nearby store is a coveted luxury. In those terms, the 44th child slain last year has made a difference.

"I walk freely now. You aren't ducking and scared," Janice Freeman, Dantrell's grandmother, said as she walked across an open field that residents had once nicknamed "Death Valley" because of the gunfire.

About 50 feet away from Freeman, a little girl walked slowly by several young men with side-cocked caps and busy hands. Their apparent transaction went on barely noticed.

Still, on an Indian Summer day, the noise of children playing rang from the hard-top playgrounds. Little girls jumped rope. A group of boys hurled a rubber ball into a box on the side of a building in a game of strike out. Outside another building, a loose band of youngsters jousted with sticks.

"It's real peaceful now," Freeman smiled. "This here is peace."