Lucki Pannell’s sisters huddled on the porch of their row home on Sherman Avenue on Monday afternoon to prepare for their loved one’s vigil. Lucki died in a hail of bullets two Saturday nights ago. She was 19. The day’s downpour and gloomy mist fit the family’s task.
The vigil was scheduled Monday evening at Cardozo High. Candles would flicker. Preachers would bemoan the snuffing of another promising life. Neighbors would commiserate.
But until the city gets serious about quelling gang violence, we will be watching vigil after vigil, especially this summer. Lucki Pannell was an innocent. She was sitting on the steps of her home at 3014 Sherman Ave. on Feb. 19 when a gunman fired at two friends who flanked her. He wounded each of them; he killed Lucki Pannell.
Why? What’s to be done?
Sherman Avenue at Harvard Street lies between Rock Creek Park and North Capital Street, just west of Howard University. Its mix of working and middle-class blacks, Ethiopians, Latinos and Howard students makes it one of the city’s most diverse. As Lucki’s family planned the vigil, a young white woman stood on the steps of a renovated condominium two doors away and took delivery of a new flat-screen TV.
“That’s Ward 1,” says Jim Graham, the council member who has represented the neighborhood since 1998.
It’s also home to seven “crews,” according to a volunteer who works with Peaceoholics, a group that attempts to mediate gang wars.
“That doesn’t include the female crews,” he says. “Or the Hispanic gangs. It probably adds up to 15.”
The volunteer, who wanted to remain anonymous to protect his street sources, narrated the trail that led to Lucki’s demise. It started back in 2004, when John “Baby J” Foreman saw his father killed on the Bruce Monroe School basketball court. The father’s blood splattered on Baby J and his brother, Maurice. Both became violent crew members. Both are in jail — Baby J for murdering Arthur “Geezy” Gale at Bruce Monroe in 2008.
It all rang true to me because I had covered Baby J’s trial.
The Jimenez brothers — B.J. and Terry — were visiting Lucki that Saturday night. They are involved in the continuing retribution from the Foreman violence. The bullets were for them.
“Lucki was with the wrong people,” Graham says.
The police are investigating. But who can stop the violence?
The Peaceoholics have had some success, here and across the city. They had negotiated a truce between the Sherman Avenue crews that held for a few years. The group’s cofounder, Ronald Moten, campaigned against Mayor Vince Gray, and his group’s contracts dried up.
“We’ve been volunteering,” he says. “When we started out, we didn’t know what a city contract was. We could do more with some funding, but we’re still at work.”
Graham has seen them in action in Ward 1.
“My experience with them is very good,” he says. “What’s lost here is their very substantial talents, which we need.”
Especially if we want Lucki Pannell’s vigil to be one of the last.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
