Summary

Two cases connected to the Cook County Jail have special significance to the people of Horner this summer: Urica Winder, eight years old, and Jimmie Lee. Both have to do with drugs, both make the newspapers, but both are incidents that the residents of Horner refuse to discuss.

Urica Winder is the only witness in a murder case. She had watched Lawrence Jackson and Bobbie Driskel kill her mother, her mother's boyfriend, Shirley, a friend of the family, and her four-year-old sister. They had repeatedly stabbed the four and Urica as well, but Urica survived. However, what Bobbie Driskel did to her is unspeakable: he stabbed her with a knife and used a pen to pull her guts out. The two men were looking for money for cocaine, and they robbed the family of a TV and a videocassette recorder, which they pawned for $120. The mothers of Horner call Urica the miracle child, not only because she survived, but also because she has the courage to testify. However, even in victory against the forces of evil, the silence is deafening. People just don't talk about it.

A few weeks earlier, Jimmie Lee had stood before the judge who felt he would have to set an example with Lee. Michael Cronin, a seventeen year veteran of the street forces that followed gang crimes, had been following the activities of the Vice Lords. On November 1, 1986, he and five other officers had raided Jimmie Lee's west side apartment. What they found there was heroin, drug packaging items, beepers and walkie-talkies, and a nine millimeter assault rifle at the bottom of an air shaft. Jimmie Lee had raised the bail money, and for a year, he continued about his business. Later, at trial, he was found guilty of possession of a controlled substance with the intent to deliver. The prosecutor asked for a long prison sentence, while his defense attorney argued that to make his case a cause célèbre for the narcotics problem in Chicago was unfair to his individual rights. However, the judge sentenced him to the maximum term possible: thirty years. The news spreads fast, but LaJoe won't allow the children to talk about it. She fears the people associated with Jimmie Lee who are still out there. It is clear that someone will step into the hole left in Jimmie's organization. He will not be missed for long.

Notes

The two cases connected to Horner are unusual in several ways. First, someone actually steps forward to testify against gang activities, and it is ironically a child. Second, the power Jimmie Lee had wielded is not invincible. A judge has stepped forward and accorded a vicious drug dealer the maximum penalty, a first, albeit small, step towards driving the drug dealers and gangs out of the projects. Third, no one in Horner will talk about it, because fear of the drug lords is still strong, and the old habits concerning survival die hard.