STATEMENT OF LEE SULLIVAN My name is Lee Sullivan. I am seventeen years old. I grew up in Chicago, in Hyde Park. I moved here with my parents when I was ten. My moms, she's a secretary at Gentecho. My pops is a foreman in Gentecho's chemical manufacturing plant. I hated moving from Chicago to this hick town. Whiteacre Bluffs--the name tells you how lame this place really is.
It was only a few months before I left Chicago that I met Ronell and Jamie Grayan, Big G and Baby G, at some company picnic. Baby G and I are about the same age, I am just a few months older. We started to hang out; my parents were happy for me to be with Jamie and Ronell. You see, their mom is a big deal at Gentecho and their dad is a lawyer. Moms thought it would be good for me to get to know them. Jamie and Ronell went to nice schools and had good reputations, at least according to their parents. My parents figured Jamie would be a good influence on me.
When we were still in Chicago, Jamie and I hung out at each other's houses. Often, Jamie and Ronell would end up coming over to our house in the evening because their parents had to work late. Moms didn't have a problem with having Jamie over; she figured it kept me out of trouble. At lot of times Ronell was hanging out with his friends and wouldn't be at the house with us, although he would come in and eat. Not too long before we left Chicago, I found out Ronell belonged to a gang known as the Double Deuce. They called him Big G. We had gotten to be pretty good friends by the time Gentecho announced their move. In fact, Big G took me under his wing. He introduced me to some of the Double Deuce in Chicago. They were so tight.
Not long after we moved to Whiteacre Bluffs in 1991, Big G started to hang out with some kids at this place called Worldwide Pizza Palace. At that time there was only one gang in Whiteacre Bluffs, the Fuchsia Posse. They were a bunch of low lifes from Gateway City, where the gang started. When the factories opened up, a bunch of people from Gateway City moved to Whiteacre Bluffs. They came in around the same time we did. Most ended up in Northeast, over in the apartments. The Posse considers Northeast their turf. Sometimes you go up there and there's like, you know, like 30 or 40 people hanging out, blocking traffic, and messing with people. There's a lot of drugs up there, people getting beat up all the time. There was another drive-by up there a couple of weeks ago. The Posse, man, they're idiots. They're out there recruiting little kids, man, to run their drugs and stuff. The Posse run a lot of drugs, and are into rippin' people off. Big G saw that the kids who hung around Worldwide Pizza Palace were scared of the Posse and knew he could offer them some protection.
Big G told some of the Double Deuce in Chicago that Whiteacre Bluffs had potential. Between 1992 and 1996, some members of the Double Deuce from Chicago were back and forth between Chicago and Whiteacre Bluffs establishing some territory and getting involved in some of the local drug trade, especially at the University. By 1996, the Double Deuce had established enough of a presence to start proclaiming its territory. During this whole time, Big G still liked to hang at Worldwide Pizza. A lot of the kids from the University went there, so it was a good place to take care of business, if you know what I mean. The owner, Reagan Locksdale, was cool too. S/he lets us hang out whenever we want and doesn't hassle us about anything. We spend a lot of money there and make sure nobody from the Posse hassles Rae/Ray.
No, I am not in the Double Deuce--Big G wants me and Baby G to stay out. He says he can take care of us just fine, and stuff with the Posse is getting too rough. He wants us both to go to college--he's as bad as our parents. It’s cool though, cause we still get to hang with him.
I was there the night Officer Johnson busted K.J. Tyler and Big G. I don't care what she says about the Light in the Window program, Tyler is still a wannabe. She used to hang out with the Posse, but they dissed her when she was in drug rehab. She tried to hang with us for awhile but, Big G just couldn't trust her. You know when you belong to the Double Deuce, its all about trust and respect and rep. They're like family. They hang together, bang together, and take care of their own. The Double Deuce don't do what the Posse does. They don't sell drugs to kids, or tear up the neighborhood, or hassle old people. I have seen K.J. talking to members of the Fushia Posse and hanging out with them. I saw her a few nights earlier talking to the Posse's leader. Big G didn't want a friend of the Posse hanging around.
Anyway, that night we were hanging at Worldwide Pizza like we usually do. I'd say there were about fifteen of us, more or less. We were standing around in the grassy area between the Panache and Worldwide Pizza. A few of us were hanging out in the street. Some of us were on the sidewalk. It's cool to watch the people in the cars as they go by and to talk about some of them as they walk by. Yeah, I guess sometimes they must feel kind of hassled, but how is some adult, in their car, with their windows rolled up, going to be intimidated by a bunch of teenagers standin' around? It's not like we were running up on the cars and banging on them, chasing them down the street or anything like that.
Big G, Baby G, me, and a few others in the Double Deuce were talking about some fighting Big G, Bobby Jones, Rene Fontaine, and a few others had been doing the night before. The downtown area is where we hang out; it never has been a part of the Posse's territory, and it never will be. In the past few months, some of the Posse had been dissin our people, hassling them, and instigating a whole bunch of mess. Big G had been telling us for some time that the day would come the Double Deuce were going to have to protect its territory--it finally had. The night before, Big G had seen about five of the Posse hanging out about a block from Worldwide trying to make some drug contacts with some of the students from the University. Big G said he got some of the gang together, went over and surrounded them. Big G let the Posse know they needed to go back where they came from. Man, Big G was really excited--he called some of the gang in Chicago, told them what was going on, and said he might need some back-up over the next few days.
On September 25th, the night K.J. and Big G got arrested, Big G was standing outside Worldwide Pizza dissin the Posse, and bragging about how the Double Deuce protected its own. K.J. comes over, with her sorry behind, and tries to get in on the conversation. At first she was just hanging around listening to Big G. Then she started talking to Baby G and me about how dangerous it was to mess with the Fuchsia Posse; she was telling us that Big G was just trying to use us and ruin our lives. She was talking some stuff about how she had heard the Posse was planning to come back to retaliate for the night before and how we were going to end up dead in the street. K.J. was all into how bad the drugs were for us and that there was another way. She kept trying to talk to us about that "Light in the Window” crap. K.J. really started going off when some college kid approached Big G to buy some drugs. She and Big G got into it. They started yelling and screaming at each other. Big G said she'd better stay out of his business and leave Baby G and me alone if she didn't want her behind kicked too. It was getting pretty loud. People on the street were trying to avoid us and kept looking over at Big G and K.J.
Before Big G and K.J. could really get into it, Officer Johnson comes over. Big G saw him coming and signaled to some of the other Double Deuce, like Bobby and Rene, to leave.  They had been involved in the gang bang the night before and Big G was afraid Officer Johnson was looking for them. Big G, Baby G and I stuck around. Baby G and I wanted to make sure Big G was not going to get hassled. Rae/Ray had warned us that Sgt. Johnson was just looking for a reason to bust us--that stupid K.J., she was only too happy to cause problems. Sgt. Johnson came over to us and asked what we were doing. We told him that we were just hanging out like we always did. We told him that we were going to be eating some pizza after awhile. Sgt. Johnson told us that he wanted us to leave, that we were in violation of some kind of law or something that said we couldn't hang out. Reagan came out and tried to take up for us. S/He tried to explain to Sgt. Johnson that we were her/his customers and weren't causing anyone any problems. Sgt. Johnson basically told Reagan to shut-up or s/he could be arrested too. Baby G and I started to leave, we knew we would just come back later anyway. But that old stupid K.J., she just kept mouthin' off to Sgt. Johnson about her rights and her freedom of speech. She said it was a free country, she could be around whoever she wanted, and couldn't nobody stop her from talking to us about getting out of the gang. She starred talking all that stuff about LWP and working to save me and Baby G. Sgt. Johnson said no punk was going to mouth off at him/her, got real upset with K.J. and arrested her and Big G. Sgt. Johnson was talking about how K.J. and the Double Deuce and all the other hoodlums from Chicago and Gateway City had destroyed her/his precious Whiteacre Bluffs and how s/he wasn't going to stand for it anymore.
If it hadn't been for K.J., everything would have been cool. There were about twelve of us standing around, and a few of us were in the street, but we weren't really doing anything to anybody. Big G was being really loud and was talking about fighting and stuff like that. There were a few people who were heading to that uppity restaurant who tried to avoid walking through the group and crossed over to the other side of the street. We weren't saying anything to them though. You know, some people just react when they see a hunch of kids together. It wasn't like everyone there was even apart of the Double Deuce. Only three or four of us had on colors at the time. Nobody was really about to fight. Big G wasn't going to start fighting with a girl, especially not K.J.--that kind of crap wouldn't do anything for his rep. Wasn't nothing about to happen at least not until K.J. got stuff started.