A two-year-old shoots himself with a gun he finds behind the sofa, a shopper is killed by a security guard, one brother fires on another - so it goes. Nine dead in 24 hours
A two-year-old shoots himself with a gun he finds behind the sofa, a shopper is killed by a security guard, one brother fires on another - so it goes. Nine dead in 24 hours
At 11.31pm on Saturday November 25 2006, Gerardo Parraga withdrew $120 from a cashpoint machine in Throggs Neck, the Bronx, and walked the last 10 minutes home. Ordinarily, it's an uneventful jaunt through suburbia. Gerardo, 19, had just finished a 12-hour shift as a security guard at New YorkLawSchool and this was the final leg of his 90-minute commute. It was the end of a long day, at the end of a long week. Within minutes, it would be the end of his short life.
As he left the bank, he called his girlfriend, Yamil Mejia, to say he thought a car was following him. Soon after, she heard a struggle over the phone and then the line went dead. At home, his mother had just finished decorating the Christmas tree when she got a panicked call from Mejia, asking if Gerardo had made it back yet. When his mother rushed out to look for him, she found his bloodied body lying in the street a few blocks away. He had been shot in the back. Someone who lived across the street found him with his eyes rolling and blood bubbling from his mouth and nose. The bullet had punctured his lung.
Stephanie Rodolico, who lives in the apartment above the Parragas, remembers that evening. "We heard the commotion downstairs, but they weren't the kind of family to scream and yell," she says. It wasn't until the following morning they learned what had happened, when Gerardo's father called out to Stephanie's husband and started crying, "John, John, they killed my son."
Gerardo's father came to the US from Ecuador and the whole family were doing their best to live the dream. Throggs Neck was a move up for them. Were it not for the planes flying low over the Long Island Sound on their way to La Guardia airport, it would be a quiet neighbourhood. Madonnas stand, arms crossed, in glass cases on clipped lawns. Crime is down and on the porches American flags are up. Gerardo had enrolled in a part-time course in software engineering, computer programming and web design at ColumbiaUniversity, targeted at promising students from low-income families. "You hardly ever saw him," says John Rodolico. "He was either at work or at school."
After Gerardo's death, the Parragas moved to Queens. On the corner where he fell, a bouquet of dried flowers hangs from a lamppost. "His mother couldn't keep walking past the spot where he died every day," Stephanie says. "They came to this area to better their lives and this is what happens. It shocked all of us."
On an average day, eight Americans aged 19 or under are killed by firearms - over a year, that adds up to more than the number who perished in the World Trade Centre on 9/11. Of those eight victims, according to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention figures for 2004 (the last year for which statistics are available), seven are likely to be male and one female; variously, three are black, four white and one Hispanic; five are likely to be the victims of murder, two suicides and one classed as "unintentional", "undetermined" or "legal intervention" - a police shooting.
In many respects, then, Gerardo's death set the scene for just another day in America. Over the following 24 hours, on this day picked at random, another eight children would lose their lives. Gerardo was the eldest; the youngest was two. Eight were black and one was Hispanic. They died in housing estates, suburbs and malls, at parties and on porches, in areas of average income and of above-average poverty. They were shot by a relative, friend, unknown assassin, a pizza delivery man, an off-duty police officer and by accident. It was Thanksgiving, the biggest travelling weekend of the year, when people are returning home after joining their families for the holiday. By the time the day was over, nine families were one member short.
3.20amAs Gerardo Parraga's life was ending, Jonathan Jacques' night out in the Dorchester area of Boston was just beginning. At 9.30pm, he had given his mother, Martine, a big kiss, and she had watched from her bedroom window as he set off to meet friends. "He loves to party," she says. "He likes hip hop, reggae and R&B." She still wavers between present and past tense when talking about her son, who was 18 when he died. He and his friends were heading for The $hort $kirt Affair, a three-day party that had been advertised on MySpace: $5 for boys and $2 for girls. At around 2.45am, one of the loudspeakers caught fire and the partygoers moved outside. Some of Jonathan's friends called it a night, but he was still there after 3am when an argument started. Locals, disturbed by the noise, were ready to call the police when at 3.20am there was the sound of gunshots blended with shrill teenage screams. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, and two boys, aged 16 and 17, were wounded. Jonathan was shot dead.
One of his friends called Martine, who rushed to the hospital. "He died instantly," she says, "but someone told me that the hearing is the last to go. So I got to hold him and talk to him and I thought, even if he was dead, maybe he could still hear me."
Jonathan was known as 40 Cal - as in 40-calibre pistol. It is a testament to the pervasiveness of gun culture among US youth that his friends insist his nickname owed nothing to street violence. His middle name was Calvin and he was 6ft 4in and reed thin, like the barrel of a .40. "He's a comedian," Martine says. "You could never stay mad at him for long. He had a very playful personality. People would always ask him to babysit." Martine, who was born in Haiti and came to the US when she was eight, says she has good days and bad days - "Days when I can't talk about it at all." She still has the soap from his last shower. "Every time he left the house, he would look in the mirror and ask me how many phone numbers I thought he would get that night."
Jonathan dropped out of school. He had a part-time job at a Stop & Shop supermarket, but wanted to go into real estate. Martine had only recently moved from north Dorchester, where she worried her children might get into trouble. She'd thought about moving to the suburbs, but believed Jonathan would then be harassed by "racist white cops asking what he was doing there". There had been a time when Jonathan hung out with the wrong crowd and had had a few brushes with the law, but all of that was behind him now. "He was no hoodlum," his mother says. "He was a good kid."
Since her boys were teenagers, she had been haunted by the fear that guns might take them. There is a connection, she believes, between the violence that blights America and the country's actions elsewhere. "When people see what we're doing in the rest of the world, they think, why not in my neighbourhood? The government sets an example of violence and then it gets played out on the streets."
A mile or so away, at the Louis D Brown Peace Institute, Clementina Chery says American society is failing its children. "This violence did not just happen overnight," she says. "We allowed it to happen. This country does not help people to help themselves. I love Dorchester. But we live in hell. The only resources we get are helicopters, police, cameras and prisons. These are the hellkeepers, but we have no resources to find the peacekeepers."
Chery's son, Louis D Brown, was 15 when he was shot 14 years ago. The institute that bears his name aims to assist families of both victims and perpetrators in the immediate aftermath of shootings, and works in schools and the community to educate people about gun violence. When Jonathan was killed, Chery knew how to help. As the sun came up on the morning of November 26, a memorial for Jonathan, complete with candles and flowers, was already forming in the neighbourhood where he'd grown up. "The victims and perpetrators are getting younger and younger," Chery says.
10.28amTimberlan Addison, two years old, was staying with his 37-year-old father, Timothy, in Tampa, Florida. The west coast of Florida simmered in the mid-70s that day and, amid the palm trees and Spanish moss, you could almost forget that one in five families in this part of the city lives below the poverty line. Timothy had had several brushes with the law, including time in prison for cocaine possession. But neighbours say he was an attentive father who often looked after Timberlan at weekends. Renee Henderson, who lives across the road, described Timothy as "a sweet person". Her daughter, Marquita, was pregnant with his seventh child. Timberlan was his sixth.
That Sunday morning, the two of them had gone out to get some breakfast. Back home, Timberlan was playing, climbing over the furniture, when he reached behind the couch and found a Sig Sauer 9mm semi-automatic. According to the police report, Timothy said he had the gun for protection - there had been several burglaries in the neighbourhood - but usually left it in a safe when his son was home. Timberlan pulled the trigger. When Timothy heard the bang, he picked up his crying son to comfort him, thinking he was just scared. Only when he saw the blood seeping through his red-and-white striped T-shirt did he realise that Timberlan had shot himself.
Timothy ran across the street with Timberlan in his arms, knocking and shouting for Renee. When she opened her door, she saw the baby slumped in one of the white plastic chairs on the porch. She tried to staunch the blood by putting a towel to his chest, and then called an ambulance. Michael Spirk was the first policeman on the scene. He "observed an adult black male holding a small black male child, lying on a sofa in the living room. The adult black male was extremely distraught." When he tried to give Timberlan mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, "copious amounts of blood would run from his wound".
Timberlan was taken to Tampa GeneralHospital. Timothy was taken to the station for questioning while the police searched the house. They allegedly found two 1oz bags of marijuana in the microwave and more seeds on digital scales on the kitchen counter. They also reportedly recovered a Glock semi-automatic pistol and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, including some for an assault rifle. "He was then handcuffed," reads the police report, "and placed under arrest for being a felon in possession of a firearm, after which he was told that his son had expired as a result of the gunshot wound. Mr Addison then became overcome with grief, and began screaming and crying. After a short time he became more agitated and refused to sit in a chair or be cooperative. He was then transported to central booking by uniformed officers."
Two months later, Timothy was arrested while at his construction job and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell, parole violation and possession of a firearm during a drug crime. He still faces state charges of culpable negligence for leaving the gun where Timberlan could get hold of it. Timberlan's mother was at the hearing, where she reacted angrily to the charges. "I forgave him from day one," she said. "These people are not taking into consideration that this man lost his child ... He wakes up every morning crying. He feels like it's his fault."
All of this made Timberlan's death newsworthy for several weeks - far longer than any of the teenagers killed by gunfire that day. It is nothing unusual for a shooting to rate a few paragraphs in the local press and then disappear altogether from the public record. "Over the past few years we have seen America become more desensitised to gun violence," says Alicia Horton of the Brady Campaign, an advocacy group to prevent gun violence. "I'm not sure if it's an emotional reflex or a coping strategy or what, but people have just started to turn the channel. They shut down in a way that they didn't used to."
2pmThe case of Brandon Martell Moore, a 16-year-old killed in Detroit, caused barely a ripple. Moore was shot by an off-duty police officer outside the National Wholesale Liquidators on 8 Mile. Brandon was never named by the authorities or the city's two main newspapers. "Why would I want to live in a place where my son can't even be remembered?" says his father, John Henry Moore Sr. "That means he didn't mean nothing to this city."
Brandon was a quiet boy. According to his sister Ebony, the only time he had anything to say was when "he was seeing a girl or making jokes". He and his younger brother were such devotees of Beavis and Butt-head that his mother had to hide the video so they wouldn't keep watching it. "At the funeral, lots of girls I didn't even know came up to me crying and said, 'I was his girlfriend,' " says his mother, Susie Burks, laughing. "There was a whole row of them there."
National Wholesale Liquidators, a warehouse store, sprawls along the edge of Bel-Air mall on the corner of a road lined with boarded-up houses, empty lots and abandoned stores - a burned-out carcass where the heart of a community once beat. On the front door, a sign says that those 16 years and younger must be accompanied by an adult. Brandon had come with four friends to buy video games. They didn't see the sign but, since one of them was 22 and another 19, it didn't apply to them anyway.
Police say Brandon was part of a gang making trouble in the store, and that one of the staff had asked them to leave. On their way out, they ran into an off-duty police officer (who was moonlighting at the store as a security guard): "One teenager took off his coat and rushed the off-duty police officer," according to a police spokesman quoted in the Detroit Free Press. The others got involved and the officer opened fire, killing one and wounding another.
Diane Bukowski, from the local black paper, the Michigan Citizen, was the only reporter to pursue the case and heard an entirely different account from those who were with Brandon that day. They had split up and were walking round the store when Brandon's older brother, John Henry, saw his friends being thrown out. They argued but left anyway, before realising that one of their number wasn't with them. One of the boys (not Brandon) tried to get past the security guard and back into the store. A tussle began. "I saw something fall to the floor. I thought it was a cell phone, but it was a gun in its holster," John Henry said. "The man didn't realise at first. Then he picked it up, put one arm on top of the other arm and started aiming at us. Brandon wasn't involved in anything. He was the last one to take off running, I guess."
According to the autopsy, Brandon was shot in the back. When his father asked for a police report, an officer allegedly told him, "I'm not fucking giving it to you."
The man who killed Brandon is Eugene J Williams. His badge number is 4174. According to various press reports, he has had a colourful history with Detroit's finest. In 1971, he was sacked after he was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol. He was reinstated in 1974 on appeal. Five years later, he shot dead an armed and drunk 31-year-old man while in a neighbourhood dispute. Five years after that, he shot his wife in the side during a domestic dispute in which he claimed she lunged at him with a pair of scissors. She survived, and he was able to continue his career in the police force.
Williams was not suspended for the shooting of Brandon Moore; instead, he was assigned to a Detroit traffic unit. When I called the unit, Williams answered the phone and, after some initial equivocation, denied ever having heard of Brandon. Last month an investigation ruled that the shooting was justifiable homicide.
3.30pmAn hour and half after Brandon died, and 700 miles to the south-east, a 13-year-old took his late great uncle's shotgun out of a closet and shot his cousin Terry Hayes, 14, square in the face at point-blank range. The bullet went through Terry's left cheek and took off the back of his head. The boys had just returned from church in Petersburg, Virginia, a sleepy town that feels more southern than its geography would have you believe. By all accounts Terry was a regular kid. He wanted to be a businessman or a pro-footballer. He loved sketching, and playing video games with his cousin. "They were always hanging out," says Tania Hayes, Terry's stepmother. "They were beyond cousins. They were best friends." She recalls a time when she grounded Terry only to find his cousin at her door demanding access. "Mrs T, you're either gonna let me in or let him out," he told her.
The Hayes' extended family had been having a tough winter. A few weeks earlier the 13-year-old's great uncle, James Brunt, had been killed by a drunk driver. Uncle "Bo" always told him to stay away from the closet, but now he was gone.
"We're still trying to find out where the gun came from," said police lieutenant Tom Young. "We think it was stolen but whoever stole it never checked to see if it was loaded."
Last month the boy appeared in court, but sentencing was postponed pending psychiatric evaluations. "The judge was asking him simple questions, like, 'Where do you live?' and 'How old are you?'" explains Young, "and he kept saying, 'I don't know.' "
Terry's dad, Terry Sr, has been in the military, stationed in Europe, and knows American gun culture is not inevitable. "I'm torn," he says. "I respect the right to bear arms. But you don't know what fool out there might have a gun or what child in the next room might pick one up next. And then - bang!"
7.49pmIn a wealthy suburb of Las Vegas, three time zones away, Jason Moore, Lamar Brown and four friends went to another friend's house to drop off some jeans. The friend and his family were all away, but Lamar knew the code to the garage door and let them in. Once inside, they made themselves at home, logging on to a computer and messing about with Lamar's MySpace page. Lamar's younger sister, Tatiana, describes him affectionately as "a little shrimp always talking like a big lobster". Jason is variously described by friends and family as "cool", "chilled" and "really nice". He wanted to be a rapper and certainly had attitude. He had recently been suspended from school after he "cussed out" a PE teacher who "jumped up in his face". Lamar, 18, and Jason, also 18, were foster brothers. Their mothers had once been friends. But Lamar's mother, Robin Stumps, had become Jason's legal guardian because of his own mother's drug habit. "When you saw one, you saw them both," she says. "They were so close."
But there, in their friend's house, something happened. No one will say what, but it ended shortly before eight o'clock when Lamar shot Jason in the chest with a 20-gauge shotgun, according to the police report. "I didn't know what happened," says Curtis Perkins, one of the boys who was with them. "I heard a gunshot and then suddenly everybody was just running out the house. I ran, too."
According to the police report, Lamar threw the gun in the bushes, called 911 for Jason and then got in a car with three of the friends and drove away. Later, he came to the hospital to see how Jason was faring and was picked up by detectives. News reports that night suggested Jason's condition was critical but stable and recovering. He was pronounced dead at 3.50am the next morning.
"He bled to death," insists family friend Dee-Dee Lovato. "The bullet hit his shoulder and missed his major arteries and organs. Lamar shot him, but he didn't have to die."
"Accidents happen," says Jason's brother, Genesis. "People should watch what they do with guns and shit - they ain't nothing to play with."
I met Jason's family the day that Seung-Hui Cho shot dead 32 of his fellow students at Virginia Tech university before turning the gun on himself. On the way there, I heard several callers to the local radio station ringing in to say the tragedy could have been avoided if the students had been armed.
"If you're not a policeman, you don't need a gun," says Robin Stumps. "I thought I was the best black mother in the world. None of my kids were gang members. None of them has a gun."
"I do," says her eldest son from across the room. "Well, I know how to get one."
Tatiana has Jason's name tattooed on her arm - it is just one way in which the young here remember their dead. Stores in some areas do a good trade in Rest In Peace T-shirts. Inner city walls are decorated with RIP murals. More recently, pages on MySpace have transformed a social networking site into an electronic graveyard, with friends posting testimony to the departed. Jason's page bears a picture of him and Lamar with their arms around each other's shoulders, taken just days before the shooting.
Lamar pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Originally it was thought he would get five years' probation but, following the publicity surrounding the shooting, a young woman came forward with an accusation of sexual assault against him that could carry anything from 10 years to life in prison. According to his sister Chenell, he now sits in Clark County Detention centre crying himself to sleep. When it comes to sentencing, his mother will act as a character witness for both him and Jason.
7.57pm Two and a half thousand miles east, in Hyattsville, Maryland, gunfire shattered the quiet of a new housing development near the Martin Luther King Highway. Korey Campbell, 17, had been shot in the back just five minutes from his home. Korey was going places. Specifically, the next day he was going back to Keystone, Pennsylvania, where he was just two weeks from graduating from Job Corps, a vocational training programme for young adults. Korey had been doing well: three weeks earlier, his supervisor's report had described him as an "outstanding young man" with "excellent leadership skills" - "Korey will be an asset to whomever and wherever he takes employment."
"He was ready for life," says his mother, Vonda Campbell. "The first thing he had to do was learn to drive. But he was ready ... He was ready." Vonda had struggled to make sure her children made something of themselves. Her eldest son got a basketball scholarship to attend New Haven university.
Korey had come back for Thanksgiving, and when he was shot he was walking home from a friend's house to pack for the next day's trip. "A lot of women around here have lost their children for no reason," Vonda says. "I would hold my breath when Korey was back until he got on the bus for Pennsylvania. I chose to send him away from this area."
Korey was the fourth person to be shot in the area - notorious for drug dealing, she says - in the past four months. "They had a vigil right there after two previous murders, but I never thought it would happen to me." She pulls out a small black bag with some of Korey's things in it, including some T-shirts and his favourite chewing gum. She hands me a picture of him in his coffin. "I can't look at it," she says. "If his sister comes in, pretend it's something else. She can't handle that at all." The prison where Korey's father is incarcerated would not let him out for the funeral.
The police have not contacted Vonda in several months to tell her of any developments in the case. "It feels like nobody cares," she says. "Like he was never here. Just another black kid dead. But he was here. He was my child. He existed."
The Campbells live just 25 minutes' drive from Washington DC - the nation's capital and, tellingly, the place where young people are by far the most likely to be shot dead (more than 15 times more so than in New York state). It is also home to the Supreme Court, which upholds the second amendment of the constitution enshrining the right to bear arms. Back in the 18th century, this was a revolutionary measure, crafted to protect the general population from tyrannical government (notably Britain). Nowadays, the citizenry are more likely to shoot each other. Even the most strident supporters of gun control, such as the Brady campaign, say they respect the second amendment. "We don't even want to get into the discussion," says Alicia Horton. "We are not a gun-banning organisation. The number one preventative measure to stop young people being killed by guns would be to reduce access to firearms. Regardless of how they died, if young people couldn't put their hands on a gun, then other young people wouldn't be shot." Most Americans seem to agree: a Pew research poll shows that while public support for greater gun control has waned over the past decade, the majority still back it.
But it does not look likely to happen any time soon - the gun lobby can still rally sufficient support to take gun control off the political agenda regardless of who's in power. Before the 2000 election, the National Rifle Association boasted that it was so close to George Bush that it would be working "out of his office". They have been pretty much true to their word. (The NRA turned down repeated requests for comment for this article.) Just a few weeks before these nine youngsters died, the Democrats won control of both Senate and House of Representatives in the Congressional elections. John Conyers, who became the Democratic chairman of the House judiciary committee, pledged he would not "support or forward to the House any legislation to ban handguns".
9.45pmIn Cherry Hill, Baltimore, 14-year-old Bernard Simon was sitting on a friend's porch, just around the corner from his home, when someone shot him. At one end of the street where he lived, searchlights stand on 20ft poles; at the other is a flashing neon-blue light, courtesy of Baltimore police, with the message "24/7 Believe". No one on the small block where Bernard was shot will admit to having even heard of him. His mother has moved away. The only evidence that Bernard was ever there is some graffiti scrawled on a power box: "Hez hooliganz. RIP Bernie."
Cherry Hill has the feel of a South African township. With just a few ways in and out, it is easier to contain than it is to police. Sitting on a promontory poking out into the PotapscoRiver, it is not on the way to anywhere. Outsiders have no reason to go there, and many of those who live there have no reason to leave because they don't have work. More than half of its 8,000 residents live in poverty.
"If you're in Cherry Hill, then chances are it's your destination," says Cathy McClain, executive director of the Cherry Hill Trust, a local group dedicated to revitalising the area.
Boarded-up houses punctuate the estate. In what is left of the playpark opposite Bernard's former home stands half a slide with small steps leading to thin air. The night before I arrived in town, somebody was shot dead. Gangs became rampant in the 80s; membership was based on where you lived. And if gang life is no longer synonymous with the drugs trade as it once was, the dealing continues.
Bernard was a member of the Up The Hill gang - not to be mistaken for the Hillside gang. "I don't know what you can do to fix this," says McClain. "We just haven't been successful in persuading these kids to want to live beyond their teenage years. They don't seem to want to be grandparents. They'd rather live on on somebody's T-shirt. If they're 21, then they're old."
Bernard's assailant was never found. Indeed, not one of the four cases of teenagers killed by unknown gunmen that Sunday has been solved.
10.15pmLess than an hour after Bernard Simon was gunned down, a call came in to Super Crown Pizza in suburban Atlanta for a home delivery to the Huntingwood Pointe housing complex two miles away. Super Crown has a list of addresses it won't deliver to. It's not difficult to see why - pizza delivery is a dangerous business in these parts. "A lot of my deliverymen have been robbed," says Muhammad Iftkhar, a Pakistani immigrant who arrived in the US 13 years ago. "They steal the money, they steal the food, the car. One time they took all the man's clothes and car keys. The guy just walked back here in his underwear." Another time, Muhammad had a pistol stuck in his mouth while the place was cleaned out. The chefs work behind bulletproof glass. Muhammad won't say whether or not he keeps a gun in the shop. "My main concern is business," he says. "I don't want any kind of trouble."
It was Zaid Mahmood's turn to take the pizza. Zaid had risked his life to deliver pizzas before: four months earlier, he had been beaten and had all his money and his green card stolen.
Huntingwood Pointe is one of several housing estates that sits back off a main road and is enclosed on all other sides by trees - it was not on Super Crown's no-go list. Zaid delivered the pizza and was on his way back to his car when, according to police reports, "he was approached by a group of three or four people who demanded his money". They told him to lie on the ground and hand over his car keys. Zaid stayed standing and handed over the keys. One of the boys, 14-year-old Kenyatta Calhoun, told Zaid to hand over his mobile phone. Zaid allegedly put his hand into his pocket, as though he were going for his phone, took out his gun and shot Kenyatta several times. Two of the boys, one of whom had already got into Zaid's car, ran away. Kenyatta lay dying under a tree.
Chikobi Bush, 19, says he heard the shots and ran out to see what was going on. "I saw Kenyatta lying on the ground. He was breathing, but he couldn't say nothing." He describes Kenyatta as a "cool guy". "He used to come out, sit around and talk to people." It's 11 o'clock in the morning when I visit, and Chikobi is doing just that himself, sitting and talking in one of the stairwells. One of his friends struggles to recall Kenyatta.
"The short nigga?"
"No, the light-skinned guy."
"He got shot? Shit!"
A lot of people get shot around here, they say - "For drugs, gangs, girls ... anything."
When I ask whether everyone has guns, they just laugh. "You knock on a door and ask, 'Have you got a gun?' and see if they don't pull a pistol on your ass," says the friend and laughs some more.
What do they need guns for?
"Protection," says Chikobi.
From whom?
"From everybody."
A few months earlier, Georgia had passed a "stand your ground" law that permitted state residents to use deadly force to respond to threats in public places, with no duty to retreat. Zaid walked free.
And so Thanksgiving Sunday ended in Atlanta as it began in the Bronx - with robbery, death and the sound of gunshot. No one would know from where the next day's deaths would come. The only certainty was that they would come.
On the morning of November 27, a gunlovers' website, glocktalk.com, ran a discussion thread about Kenyatta's death the night before.
The Fly wrote, "I do love a cleaner gene pool."
Butcher asked, "How many 14-year-old gangbangers are gonna be killed this week?"
Lcarreau responded, "Not enough."
Robert De Niro tells David Thomson why he has become hooked on spooks and why pretending to be other people is strange
'Hallo, how are you?" You'd know the voice anywhere. It's harsh, streetwise and intimate - and there's a streak of irony or teasing riding on top of it. It's one of the greatest voices of our time. It's the voice that said "Why not?" in Heat, when Al Pacino tracked him down on the freeway and said, what about a cup of coffee - and there was a steely lack of surprise, as if he was well used to coffee invites even when the other guy came by helicopter and hired car.
"So where are you?" he asks.
"I'm in San Francisco," I tell him.
"But you sound English," he says. "And I suppose I sound American, but here I am in London." There's a pause, and I hear him ask, "Aren't I in London?" Voices mutter back to him. "Right, London. You see, these days it's all uncertain. You don't know where you are."
"It's a spooky business," I say.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Like spying," I say. "Don't they call it a spooky business?"
"Oh, right, I believe they do."
We have this telephone booking to talk about The Good Shepherd. Robert De Niro is an actor, of course, and on screen in this one he plays the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a character based on Wild Bill Donovan, a hero from the days when the OSS was a new idea, a band of the best and brightest young minds in America - so long as there were no blacks, no Jews, not many Catholics, and plenty of people who'd been to Yale, and been in Skull & Bones at Yale. This was a kind of fraternity with secret rituals and it channelled talent into the American secret service in the way a few Oxbridge homosexual circles kept Britain supplied for the same kind of subterfuge.
In fact, Donovan has only a few scenes in The Good Shepherd. And as a rule, he's sitting down because he's sick and the surgeons are taking bits off his feet and legs every year. "It's just a small part, just to show willing," he says, "because when I'm directing, I find it very hard to trust myself as an actor."
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know. Trust is hard."
Still, in what is a famously busy career, where De Niro is likely to act in two or three films a year, while taking a close interest in his restaurant business, he has chosen this epic survey of the OSS and the CIA (it stretches from the late 1930s to the mid -60s) because he wanted to direct it.
"Well, it was a labour of love, I suppose. I was working in something else, but in the same area. And I read The Good Shepherd and I liked it. And I was meeting its writer, Eric Roth, for this other project. And I told him it was like he was writing my picture. And he said if I would direct it, he would write it. And I think what I like about it is that spy stuff is always fascinating. But it can be fanciful - James Bond and the Mission: Impossible stuff. Spectacular but not real work. But I don't like those leaps of faith. I wanted to make it as believable as possible."
De Niro had directed once before - A Bronx Tale in 1993 - a nice little film, set securely in his New York and in a world he knew. What is most striking about The Good Shepherd is its amazing movements in place and time - London in the 30s; Washington during the war and after; Russia in the same years. Matt Damon plays a man who enters the secret service out of Yale and who is clearly set on ultimate leadership in the world of spooks. In his generally unhappy personal life, he marries Angelina Jolie but neglects her so much that she and their son hardly know him.
"I have to admit," I tell him, "that it's only after three viewings of the film that I'm really able to follow it all."
"Oh," he says, "I'm sorry about that."
"It's not a criticism," I say. "I love the film, and I love pictures that need that many viewings. But the structure of the film is very intricate."
He sighs. He's heard the story before. And while he likes the release version (2hr 37mins), there is a 3hr 20mins version that he'd like to get shown one day. "But we had to make it a reasonable length. You see, every action in this sort of film - you don't know if it's for real or a game. And I think that affects the people in the business. They get to be people who can't trust anyone."
"Are there any spy films that helped you see what you wanted to do?"
"Yeah, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. And The Third Man, going back. And the thing the BBC did on Smiley's People. With Alec Guinness. I liked those things a lot. I felt I could believe in them."
"But you hadn't directed much before, and not for 12 years."
"Right. And I like directing. But it is a lot of work. You know, all the time you have to spend with the money people and the budgets. You have to listen to so many people, and everyone reckons he can say his piece. Me, I'd sooner say, take it or leave it. I mean, I like to get on with the work. But this material ... it really got to me."
"But these are unhappy people?"
"Well, I think a lot of time with real work, that happens. People get carried away. And Matt Damon's character, he means well, he wants to be likable and so on. But as time goes by he gets to be more and more inaccessible. If you don't believe what you see you get cut off."
"Do you think there is some kind of deep-down resemblance between actors and spies?"
"How d'you mean?"
"Well, the way you spend so much of your life pretending to be other people - so the real person you might have been fades away. And after 40 or 50 years of it, you can wonder, 'Where did I go? What happened to me?'"
"Yeah, yeah. You know, I would not disagree with that."
"That has happened to you?"
"Well, I don't know about that. But I would not disagree with it. It's a strange thing wanting to be other people."
"Do you think maybe you'll direct more often now?"
"I want to. The Good Shepherd has done quite nicely - not great, but OK, you know? And we are talking about two more films coming right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Trace the whole story. Because, you know, that's a war we won - the Cold War."
"There's a strong passage in the film where your character makes it clear that spying is for the 'right' people - white Anglo-Saxon protestants, Ivy League people, the members of the club, if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do. I don't think it's quite the same now. But it was once and old habits stick."
"The Good Shepherd is also quite clear about the damage that can come from too much secrecy."
"That's what it's really about. If you get very good at secrets you risk losing something in life, you know. And we have made a business of it. There are people who would die rather than tell the truth. And it's where we are now. And it's dangerous. And I think there are people in the CIA who know that very well, and are afraid of it."
"Do you think sometimes the security service can become like a private fortress in a free society - something that in the end freedom has to tear down?"
"Well, you know, this is a little deja vu - but I don't think there's anything I would argue about with that."
"So, two more films? With some of the same characters?"
"Yeah, that's what I would like. Some are dead, of course, but some go on."
"It could be a saga like The Godfather."
"Well, I was in that, you know, and I thought it worked out pretty well."
· The Good Shepherd is available on DVD and to "download to own" from Universal Pictures
Friday, June 29, 2007
México, D.F., 26 de junio (apro).- El 30 de junio de 2006, dos días antes de las elecciones presidenciales, Andrés Manuel López Obrador asistió a una comida con los principales directivos de Televisa.
La verdad de López Obrador, en su libro La mafia nos robó la Presidencia
raúl monge
México, D.F., 26 de junio (apro).- El 30 de junio de 2006, dos días antes de las elecciones presidenciales, Andrés Manuel López Obrador asistió a una comida con los principales directivos de Televisa.
Fue en la casa del vicepresidente del Grupo Televisa, Bernardo Gómez, y ahí Emilio Azcárraga Jean encaró al entonces candidato presidencial de la coalición “Por el Bien de Todos” y le dijo sin rodeos: “Tengo información de que… vas a expropiar Televisa”.
Sorprendido, López Obradorlo negó. “Le respondí que no era cierto”, dice.
La anécdota anterior es una de las muchas historias personales que el tabasqueño relata en su libro La mafia nos robó la Presidencia; sólo le han quitado una pluma a nuestro gallo” que comenzó a circular hoy de manera anticipada bajo el sello de editorial Grijalbo.
El libro está dedicado a “quienes participan con corazón y conciencia para lograr el cambio verdadero”.
López Obrador cuenta el desenlace de esa comida con los jerarcas de Televisa, como un ejemplo del tamaño de la guerra sucia que enfrentó antes de las elecciones presidenciales del 2 de julio de 2006
Ellos sabían que yo no estaba de acuerdo con el monopolio que ejercen en la comunicación, y mucho menos con que se quieran convertir en un poder de facto, por encima de los poderes legal y legítimamente constituidos. No estoy de acuerdo con la república de la televisión. Sin embargo, nunca he pensado que el camino para democratizar a los medios de comunicación y garantizar el derecho a la información sea expropiar Televisa.
Inmediatamente después de la pregunta de Azcárraga y de mi respuesta, me entrego el texto de un decreto expropiatorio que supuestamente yo presentaría al Congreso el 2 de diciembre de 2006, es decir, al día siguiente de mi toma de protesta como presidente de la República. El documento, que por cierto quedó en mi poder, esta bastante bien hecho porque se redactó precisamente para ser creíble. No sólo cuenta con toda la fundamentación legal, sino que detalla la razón social de cada una de las empresas del consorcio, algo que yo mismo desconocía. Se habla de expropiar no sólo Televisa sino también las empresas: Grupo Televisa, S.A.; Corporativo Televisa, S.A.; Telesistema Mexicano S.A. de C.V.; Corporativo Vasco de Quiroga S.A. de C.V.; G-Televisa-D S.A. de C.V., y Televisión independiente de México S.A. de C.V.
Es importante saber quién elaboró este documento. Creo que corresponde a Emilio Azcárraga aclarar cómo llegó a sus manos, pero casi podría asegurar que pudo haber sido fabricado por el Cisen o por el equipo cercano a Calderón o Fox; incluso, con la colaboración de algunos funcionarios de la misma televisora.
Lo que si esta claro es que el propósito fue sembrar la desconfianza. Tengamos en cuenta que si engañaron a muchos integrantes de la clase media, por qué no hacer dudar a quien representa a tantos intereses económicos como Emilio Azcárraga. Por eso es imprescindible que se garantice el derecho a la información por encima de intereses de grupo.
En la parte final del libro, de 301 páginas, López Obrador detalla cómo vivió los días posteriores a la elección, los más aciagos de carrera política sin duda:
El día de la elección fui a votar con mis hijos muy temprano y regresé a mi domicilio. Ahí permanecí hasta las 8 de la noche. En mi casa, en compañía de Federico Arreola, estuve recibiendo los reportes de una encuesta de salida que se contrató con la empresa de la doctora Ana Cristina Covarrubias. Este sondeo consistió en aplicar 38 mil 618 entrevistas, inmediatamente después de que los ciudadanos habían votado. Fue el ejercicio más grande y riguroso que se aplico en todo el país, el día de la jornada electoral. Desde el primer reporte de las 10 de la mañana hasta el último siempre nos mantuvimos arriba con un promedio de tres puntos de ventaja.
Este mismo resultado se reflejaba en otras encuestas de salida aplicadas durante la jornada electoral. Incluso, hacia las 5 de la tarde recibí una llamada de Bernardo Gómez, de Televisa, para decirme que ellos tenían información de que había ganado la elección presidencial. Sin embargo, al cierre de las casillas, cuando comenzaron a falsificar los resultados, se empezó a hablar de un empate en los conteos rápidos.
Aquí cabe recordar que las encuestas de salida se hacen preguntando a los ciudadanos por quién votaron, mientras que los conteos rápidos se sustentan en los resultados contenidos en las actas; es decir, cundo ya se habían introducido boletas de más con votos a favor de Calderón, nos habían quitado o anulado votos indebidamente, o de plano, habían falsificado un buen número de actas.
Esa noche, justo después de que Luis Carlos Ugalde, consejero presidente del IFE, informara por televisión que no darían resultados de las 7 mil 281 casillas del conteo rápido del Instituto, porque la contienda estaba muy cerrada, apareció Vicente Fox para transmitir un mensaje en el mismo sentido. Quedó en evidencia que estaban actuando de manera concertada, sin respetar la autonomía y la imparcialidad que debía normar la actuación del IFE.
(…) la noche del 2 de julio no dormí. Estuve pendiente de los resultados oficiales. Al día siguiente en el PREP aparecía reportado el 98.45 por ciento de las casillas electorales para presidente de la República, lo que significaba, según el IFE, que sólo faltaba por contabilizarse la votación de dos mil 17 casillas.
El día 5 de julio se llevó a cabo el cómputo distrital. Para entonces, dado el cúmulo de irregularidades que aparecían por todos lados, la gente comenzó a demandar que se contaran los votos casilla por casilla. Sin embargo, la instrucción del IFE a los consejos distritales fue que no se permitiera la apertura de los paquetes electorales.
Ese día, 5 de julio, la manipulación y el engaño lastimaron la dignidad de millones de mexicanos. El cómputo final por distrito fue transmitido por televisión y los resultados comenzaron exactamente al revés de cómo se presentaron al final de la jornada electoral. Yo aparecía con ventaja todo el tiempo hasta que, hacia las cuatro de la mañana del día 6, me “rebasó” Calderón. Después apareció el presidente del Consejo General el IFE y, usurpando funciones, lo declaró ganador.
López Obrador revela también en su libro lo que sucedió en los días previos a los festejos patrios del 15 de septiembre, cuando mantenían el plantó en el zócalo.
Según él, no podían permitir que Fox se burlara de ellos dando el Grito de Independencia en el balcón del Palacio Nacional. “La decisión era desfile sí, Grito no”, dice.
Cuenta que entonces lo buscó el secretario de la Defensa, Gerardo Clemente Vega García, pero específica que él se negó a dialogar con el alto mando castrense.
Sostiene que, para darle una salida aterciopelada al problema, sugirió al entonces jefe de Gobierno del Distrito Federal, Alejandro Encinas, que le propusiera a Fox que diera el Grito en Dolores Hidalgo.
Así lo hizo Encinas, pero un día antes de la ceremonia desayunaron y ahí Encinas le dijo que Fox estaba necio, que quería dar el Grito en el Zócalo.
Prosigue López Obrador:
Lo de Fox era una abierta provocación. Por eso convoque a una asamblea para la mañana del 15, con la intención de convencer a la gente y tener tiempo para ensayar, lo del apoyo del Coro Monumental, un acto de protesta pacifica, que consistiría en que, al momento en que Fox saliera al balcón principal de Palacio Nacional, a dar el Grito, nosotros, en forma organizada, le diéramos la espalda en silencio, y que una vez que él se metiera, nos voltearíamos y llevaríamos a cabo nuestra ceremonia.
Afortunadamente no hubo necesidad de esto. Llegó a mis manos un documento sobre la estrategia del Estado Mayor Presidencial para garantizar la presencia de Fox, que consistía básicamente en tomar la calle frente a Palacio una noche antes del Grito, que nosotros manteníamos libre.
El plan comprendía llenar esa calle frente al balcón con tres mil militares vestidos de civil y ahí mismo colocarían los equipos de televisión para transmitir a todo el país.
De modo que tuve que optar y decidimos adelantarnos. Dos horas antes, en vez de que ellos pusieran las vallas, nosotros las pusimos hasta la banqueta del Palacio, tomamos la calle y recorrimos el campamento. Cuando se dio cuenta el Estado Mayor hubo un pequeño forcejeo y momentos de tensión, pero ya no pudieron evitarlo. Al día siguiente por la mañana no tuvieron más opción de que Fox se iba a Guanajuato.
En la parte final de su libro, que incluye sus crudas vivencias en el gobierno de la ciudad, como los videoescándalos y el desafuero, López Obrador hace una reflexión final. Afirma que está convencido de que el remedio a los males que aquejan y atormentan a la nación no vendrá de la elite que detenta el poder.
Sostiene que la llamada sociedad política está podrida y que sólo vive pensando en mantener y acrecentar sus privilegios. Asegura que el país necesita una transformación de las dimensiones de los movimientos de Independencia y de Reforma y de la trascendencia de la Revolución Mexicana.
Termina:
Esta lucha no es de un día, nos puede llevar tiempo, pero vale la pena. Si ya iniciamos la construcción de una nueva República, vamos hacerlo bien, a construir buenos cimientos. Vamos a establecer nuevas condiciones económicas, sociales, políticas, culturales y espirituales, con nosotros y por los que vienen detrás de nosotros, por nuestros hijos.
Una condición es esencial en toda lucha social si es que se aspira a la victoria final: la autocrítica. Un líder de masas generalmente amalgama distintas corrientes; más no necesariamente es el productor de ideas o el identificador de coyunturas políticas. Ese fue precisamente el caso durante la elección del 2006. Los intelectuales de izquierda estuvieron avisando puntual y anticipadamente que había suficientes señales para pensar en una elección FRAUDULENTA, o para ser más precisos como lo llamó Jaime Avilés: “un golpe de estado preventivo”. De hecho, si buscan consolación, también se aplicó la misma dosis a los demócratas Estadunidenses en 2000 y 2004.
Contrastantes son las palabras de Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz en el documental “Comandante” dirigido por Oliver Stone (2003):
“suelo ser exagerado en la autocrítica...de las cosas que pudimos haber hecho mejor...yo digo incluso que sentimos vergüenza de lo que hemos hecho...”.
Es sólo cuando se identifican los yerros, pero por sobre todas las cosas, cuando tratan de buscarse soluciones a estos tropiezos, que podemos salir espiritualmente fortalecidos.
¿Quién me convenció, por ejemplo, que sólo utilizando herramientas cibernéticas podríamos monitorear la elección? ¿No son acaso de clasemedieros pa’ arriba quienes cuentan con acceso a internet? ¿Cuál creen que fue su tendencia de votación el 2 de Julio del año próximo pasado? Ese fue uno de los errores garrafales del grupo que hizo caminar EL FRAUDE NO VA y el mío propio. Caso grave es aquel en que alguien teniendo signos inequívocos de un error, persiste en el papel de sabelotodo y se desestiman los análisis de los intelectuales afines a nuestras posiciones ideológicas. ¿Ya nos disculpamos de aquella afirmación de que el fraude de Julio de 2006 había sido ejecutado a la antigüita?
El ala progresista es verdaderamente ducha para identificar y listar el catálogo de agravios, como dice el maestro. Sin embargo, muchísimo menos frecuente es encontrar a analistas que propongan estrategias vencedoras. Sin embargo, tales intelectuales existen, pero tenemos que sacarlos de las aulas universitarias junto con sus estudios, tal como lo planteamos en el anterior post en el que juntos discutíamos acerca de la incipiente democracia Mexicana. Por ejemplo, hablando de este libro que se reseña en la revista proceso; nosotros hemos discutido varias veces que, detrás de estos régimenes autoritarios disfrazados de democracias, están grandes intereses económicos tanto “legalmente” establecidos como delincuenciales. Ya hemos abordardo bastante (y seguiremos haciéndolo) que hoy en día uno y otro grupo se confunden, y tienen a la política como fachada.
Caso más difícil es contestar y proponer respuesta a la pregunta: ¿Cómo vamos a vencer esta cadena de complicidades dentro de un sistema económico que pretende inmisericordemente devorarlo todo? Conocemos bien la tremenda fuerza del boicot económico, y la inquietud y desgaste que provoca en los dueños del dinero. Pero, ¿dónde está el plan para derrotarlos definitivamente? ¿Dónde están todos nuestros brillantes elementos pensantes, contra los que ningún facho o todos juntos pueden competir? ¿Qué haríamos si alcanzáramos el poder como Evo en Bolivia? Por ello, la autocrítica es imprescindible, y aparejada con esta la retroalimentación para encontrar soluciones, así sean transitorias, al actual estado de descomposición política en la que se encuentra el país.
Infinitamente más sencillo es hablar sobre el actual estado del país. Este lunes se cumplirá exactamente un año de que se perpetró el fraude más descarado de la historia moderna Mexicana. El grupo que planeó y ejecutó el plan electoral golpista apostٌó a que, tal como los Estadunidenses, los MEXicanos olvidaríamos “el numerito” después de cierto tiempo. Les voy a ayudar un poco con el análisis. Estos delincuentes electorales cometieron dos errores garrafales. La apuesta por la enajenación mediática fue demasiada; en sus febriles mentes cavilaron que con ese bombardeo asqueante el Mexicano no percibiría el fraude; una vez que notaron que, desde los más viejos hasta los apenas jovencitos, crecieron dentro de la cultura del cochupo electoral, con todas las “creativas” versiones imaginables; tal vez uno de los brillantes analistas de nuestros antagonistas, después sugirió que con “maiciar” a los “renegados” podrían debilitar el movimiento de Resistencia Civil Pacífica. Inútil, en primer lugar, abajo y a la izquierda, existen todavía personas para que los valores universales como honestidad, probidad, solidaridad, etc., tienen significado; en segundo lugar, se necesitarían vaciar las arcas nacionales, con todo y sus “blindajes”, para aplicar “cañonazos” a casi el 60% de la población de la República Mexicana. Por otra parte, va contra su propia naturaleza. El grupo en el poder tiene como máxima: “Todo pa’ Miguelito”. Por esta razón poca importancia tiene para ellos el “affaire” Lydia Cacho, la candidatura al gobierno estatal de BC, el conflicto de Oaxaca, la violación tumultuaria de Ernestina, el asesinato de infantes y féminas desarmados en Sinaloa, más lo que se acumule antes que caiga el susodicho.
Bien comp@s, sólo me resta recordarles que aguantemos, pero mientras que entendemos a la perfección los boicots económicos, hace falta la efectividad imparable que tienen los boicots a escala nacional, ese es el verdadero reto de hoy. Sigamos por el camino que hemos diseñado (que los tiene preocupados), y que no será modificado, hasta que alguno de los que tienen soluciones a nuestros dolores de cabeza sociales, se decida a salir de su torre de marfil académica.
M@rcrítico;
Norwich, U(n) K(onteo-ciudadano);
29/6/07.
P.D.MUDA. "...TALK to me like LOVERS do..." - Here comes the RAIN again (Annie LenoX).
P.D.PROFESIONISTA. "...hasta las prostitutas se han graduado en las universidades..." - COMANDANTE (Oliver Stone).
P.D.QUIROMANCIANA. "...sleight of HAND and twist of FATE..." - With or Without YOU (U2).
P.D.PSíQUICA. "...Did you meet your FORTUNE teller?..." - The Zephyr song (Red HOT Chilli Peppers).
P.D.COLUDIDA. "¡Ay...de los que justifican al impío mediante cohecho y al justo quitan su derecho!" – Isaías 5:22-23 (Cipriano de Valera, 1569).
Pilona Mediática:
No se vayan con la finta. La supuesta publicación de la tregua entre capos fue sólo publicada en los diarios proclives al sistema (entre ellos EL REFORMA y EL ECONOMISTA). Deconstrúyanlo: ¿Qué significado tiene que sólo estos medios lo dieran a conocer? Además, recuerden que el Domingo de Resurrección les avisé que el Paramilitarismo es otra de sus tácticas. Los esquizofrénicos clasemedieros están más que puestos para llevar a cabo el “trabajito sucio”.
