Antagatha Dickerson freely admits her teenage son Kelly sold drugs.
He ran with the kids in Ballard Gardens, who grew up alongside the kids from Hawthorne, on the east side of Baltimore County. The drug trade turned them into rivals around middle school. Now Kelly Franklin is locked up on a murder charge and a Hawthorne boy is dead.
Police say both communities have quieted since Vernell Streams, 16, was shot. Activists in Hawthorne are defensive of the tranquility. But Dickerson is still piecing together Kelly?s drug-dealing life, saying he couldn?t be guilty of murder.
“I?m trying to get down to the bottom of this, and there?s a lot of different stories,” Dickerson said this week. What she?s heard ? and what police agree happened ? is that a black-market turf war was the subtext of the shooting.
“It?s all a drug-selling thing ? this one?s mad because this one?s getting that much money.” Family members of Vernell could not be reached.
Officer Dan Coyne remembers both boys. Each was picked up by police numerous times, he said. Kelly would have “lots of money” on him and Vernell would be “just miserable with the police ? very belligerent,” Coyne said. But, legally, nothing stuck. Authorities cracked down on crime in the area a few years ago, Coyne said. After June 15, when Vernell died, residents achieved something close to peace.
Maybe the shooting scared the teens. Maybe after Kelly and others were locked up, Coyne said, the rivalry deflated. It?s surprising the clashes ended in death, he said, but “the writing was on the wall with this group.”
“We have a lot of roots in this neighborhood,” said Charles Munzert, a longtime Hawthorne resident, adding that his neighbors care that it be a safe, comfortable place to live. “The crime?s not here.”
Dickerson says she?s received threats against her family, and says Kelly has been framed. She wants him tried as a juvenile.
After all, Kelly?s only 15.
