Maurice Miller’s life tells the story of conflict and redemption on Rochester’s west side BY MARY STONE

DISPARATE TIMES...

PHOTOGRAPHS BY EVE LYONS

hough seldom considered, success has no universal measurement: It is a concept as relative and radically varied as any.

To a young male in Brighton, for example, the landscape of success is broad and lush, and above all - generally attainable. But to a young man in the 19th Ward or the Plym-outh-Exchange neighborhood some eight

UQTM[� I_Ia�� []KKM[[� Q[� JIZMTa� LMÅVIJTM�� TM\� ITWVM� QUIOQVIJTM��when basic survival is such a consuming occupation.

Maurice Miller, who spent most of his high school years living on Flint St. on the city’s west side, is a rare exception. At 24, Miller already has led two careers and earned respect and suc-cess in both, even though their agendas were at extreme odds.

“I could live a double life in the daytime, you know, I’m a preacher,” Miller said. “In the nighttime, I’m a street pharma-cist, and it was like for a minute it was okay, it was working. It was working.”

Released from Monroe County Jail last October, Maurice Mill-er, since the age of 21 has survived countless armed and un-armed confrontations, two shootings, 18 months in prison, and most traumatic of all, the murder of his best friend. For those facts alone, however, Miller’s story is not exceptional: Murder rates in Rochester are some of the worst in the state, and they show little sign of improving.

1V�������\PMZM�_MZM�Å^M�UWZM�U]ZLMZ[�\PIV�\PM�aMIZ�JMNWZM���a 16 percent increase to 36 homicides for the year, according to the Rochester Police Department’s year end crime-report. Shootings, meanwhile, were up 52 percent, from 143 in 2011 to 218 last year.

The RPD’s third-quarter report, released in October, noted that of the total non-fatal shootings from January to Septem-ber, 68 percent were gang-related, up from 66.3 percent in 2011. Among homicides, 62 percent were gang-related for the ÅZ[\�\PZMM�Y]IZ\MZ[�WN �������]X�NZWU����XMZKMV\�QV������

,M[XQ\M�\PW[M�ÅO]ZM[��TWKIT�W]\ZMIKP�_WZSMZ[�[Ia�OIVO[�IZM�VW\�to blame as much as they might seem to be. In fact, their impor-tance has decreased since the 1980s and ‘90s. Gang members are not always active, but the label follows them - even though, in many ways, it does not carry the same weight it once did. Gangs are less organized in Rochester now than in previous decades, which in some ways could be adding to the violence in Rochester. Without strong leaders, for example, it is more LQNÅK]T\�\W�[M\\TM�LQ[X]\M[�IVL�SMMX�MOW[�QV�KPMKS��

¹1V\MZXMZ[WVIT�KWVÆQK\�Q[�\PM�XZWJTMU�º�M`XTIQVML�>QK\WZ�;I]V-ders, director of Pathways to Peace, a Rochester youth violence intervention and prevention agency. Gangs at least have a code, he said: no children and no elderly. Youths today, Saunders [IQL��IZM�]VIJTM� \W�LMIT�_Q\P�KZQ\QKQ[U��KWVÆQK\��LQ[ZM[XMK\��WZ�humiliation without resorting to violence.

DEEP ROOTS The reasons for that go back far and deep, from generations of poverty and addiction to abysmally low graduation rates, crowded class rooms, and ongoing joblessness.

In Rochester, for example, only 9 percent of black males grad-uated from high school in 2010 - the lowest graduation rate in the country, according to the Schott Foundation for Pub-lic Education’s 50-state report on public education and black males. Only 10 percent of Latino students graduated that year, according to the report released last fall. If minority youths do graduate, teenagers face high unemployment rates as Roches-ter’s economy shifts away from manufacturing to health and services jobs that often require higher education.

According to a Brookings Institution report from 2007, Roch-ester, with 10.10 percent unemployment rate, had the 16th-highest unemployment rate among the 100 largest U.S. cities. That same year, over 22 percent of Rochester children were in families with no parent in the work force - the third-highest level amongst the 100 largest U.S. cities, the Brookings study found. Taken together, the obstacles are overwhelming to young people.

Negotiating one disadvantage after another makes them snap, like it would make most people snap, said Janelle Duda, as-sistant director at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Center for Public Safety Initiatives. Kids who joins gangs, for example, usually are just trying to get their needs met. Often they want protection, she said. They want someone to provide for them, to feel a sense of belonging.

VIOLENT TYPES Miller, now 24, said there are three types of violent men in Rochester. The man who grew up with limited resources, living in cramped quarters, nursing anger and a disaffection for life. The two other types, Miller said, are motivated by a desire to prove themselves, or they want fame. Miller said he was both. “Those are the guys that do a lot of violent things, because you are put in situations where the guy just doesn’t care. Has no [respect] for life, because nobody - he feels nobody has respect for his life.”

A shooting can result from stepping on someone’s shoes or spilling a drink at a party, Duda said. CPSI, where Duda works at RIT, provides evaluation and support services in addition to other resources to agencies such as Pathways to Peace and Teen Empowerment Inc., a Rochester organization that lever-ages the experience of local youths to make street-level, politi-cal, and legal change.

Doug Ackley, TE’s director of Rochester programs, said people shoot people over a few dollars. “They’re not settling major drug deals where there are thousands of dollars involved. This Q[�� »AW]� R][\� \WWS�Å^M�J]KS[� NZWU�UM��1¼U�OWQVO�\W�SQTT�aW]�¼º�he said.

VAST CHASM People who want to solve the situation want to bring people to-gether, Ackley said, but at this point, the chasm between adults and youths is so vast, it seems in every way irreparable.

Ackley and others admit they are discouraged. Those youths who show the most promise go to college and move away, or get shot before they have a chance to. Teenagers talk about how adults are afraid of them, said Jennifer Banister, TE’s develop-ment and collaborations manager. As a result, no one reaches out to youths, Banister explained.

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The root cause for the city’s low graduation rate, she said, stems from a legacy of intense disparity and denial. “I think since the beginning of the African-American migration here and the Latino migration to Rochester it has been like hide them away in this really dilapidated housing, it’s a history,” Banister said. “I think Rochester falls into the same category as a lot of cities with legacies of not dealing with the levels of

disparity and access to opportunity, which are part of a com-pounding problem.”

And as the problems compound, the pressure builds. The re-spect youths do not get from their community they in turn de-mand from their peers.

<PM�ÅZ[\�PITN �WN �5QTTMZ¼[�aW]\P�_I[�[XMV\�QV�;IV�,QMOW��_PMZM��as the son of a prominent gang member, Miller was entitled to respect. As a teenager, his family later moved to Rochester, which Miller saw as an opportunity to make a name for himself.

MORE THAN POWER For Miller, as for his peers, respect is not just about power, he said. As a teenager, Miller could not tolerate disrespect - not because it mattered to him, but because any toleration of disre-spect is a strategic error: It is an invitation for the abuse to get worse. As a teen, Miller sought to get respect another way and avoid provocation whenever possible.

Miller felt safe inside the walls of East High; he never had a violent confrontation there. Outside those doors, he said, it was a different story. “I just thank God that now I can go anywhere in Rochester, and I don’t have the same problems,” Miller said. “It used to be where if I was anywhere off the east side of :WKPM[\MZ��1�_I[�ÅOP\QVO�º

To go home right after school was never possible. If he did, Miller said he would have found a group of boys waiting in his aIZL�ZMILa�\W�ÅOP\��)VL�QV�\PW[M�[Q\]I\QWV[��QN �[WUMWVM�PMIZ[�a provocation, Miller explained, he is ill-advised to ignore it. “It’s like they say, ‘OK, ignore it. He didn’t do nothing to you. He just called you names, sticks and stones they break your bones,’” Miller said. “But where I come from, the environment that I live in, you can’t let things like that just slide, because they become monumental.”

If it’s tolerated, the name-calling quickly escalates. It may start by picking on a boy’s shoes and advance to insults. The next time, someone might throw something at him, Miller said, or take his things. “The old saying ‘nip it in the bud,’ is because otherwise, you won’t live comfortable after that,” Miller said. “It’s another reason why when I was younger, I wanted to make that image, [get] that love and fear from people so I wouldn’t

have to go through those things.”

LEVERAGING RESPECT Miller leveraged that respect to do some good. As a junior in high school, Miller beat out some 500 applicants for a job as a youth organizer at Teen Empowerment. His mission was to organize events, speak publicly, and develop ways to steer inner-city youths from street life.

Miller’s experience in other cities where he lived, he said, gave him perspective that a lot of his peers in Rochester lacked. Having associated with people who were both privileged and impover-ished, he said, gave some balance to his perspec-tive on life.

Youth organizers such as Miller are sought based on multiple criteria but especially for their ability to strike a chord with the at-risk youths Teen Em-

powerment most wants to impact. Banister said they provide a skilled and necessary service to the community; that does not mean they have not been or are not involved in street life.

“We’re looking for qualities that are dynamic and deeply root-ed in experience - knowledge and ability to communicate what they’ve been through and where they see themselves going and where they see the community going,” TE’s Ackley said. “It happens over the time they’re hired, but you see some seeds of it in the interview process,” he added.

SENSE OF PURPOSE Miller was an example of what TE looks for. In addition to a sense of purpose, Teen Empowerment gave Miller structure. Between high school and a strict father, Miller did not get in trouble until he graduated from high school. “See, with my dad, even though he was exposing me to a lot of negative things, he kept me structured and contained. It wasn’t too positive, but it was a little bit of positive reinforcement,” Miller said.

Still, it was a balancing act. “So now it’s like every day after school I’m going to work at Teen Empowerment, and I’m be-ing exposed to this new life, so to speak, dealing with politics and senators and policemen and things like that, but yet on the weekends we don’t work. Every weekend I’m still with the same guys,” he said.

Ackley said without full-time work it is hard to resist the sur-rounding lifestyle. “They share a street; they’re trying to hustle and make money. It’ll end up from hanging out late at night, drinking, smoking weed, to everything from stealing cars, to robbing people, dice games, petit theft here and there, breaking into houses,” Ackley said.

But unlike the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, hustling is no longer eco-nomically viable. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Ackley said, it was pos-

“I’d rather go to bed hungry before I go

back to that life.”

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sible to make some money from hustling and use it for college. Now, people are just getting by, and because of that, they get stuck in the lifestyle. Essentially, Ackley said, people end up robbing each other. The same dollars get recycled, and no one gets ahead.

CREWS RIT’s Duda said gangs do exist here, but they are not like por-trayals of gangs in popular culture. In Rochester today, gangs are loose groups that form because kids live on the same street WZ�\PMa�[PIZM�INÅVQ\QM[��*IVQ[\MZ�[IQL�

,]LI� [IQL� \PM� WNÅKQIT� VIUM�I\� \PM�:WKPM[\MZ�8WTQKM�,MXIZ\-ment is gangs, but she thinks of them as crews. “They’re neigh-JWZPWWL�SQL[��<PM�OIVO[�IZM�^MZa�Æ]QL�º�[PM�M`XTIQVML��

“Crew” is how Miller and his friends referred to themselves. They lived near each other and liked to rap together, Banis-ter said. “They became a de facto gang only through others’ XMZKMX\QWV[� WN � \PMU� X][PQVO� \PMU� QV� \PI\� LQZMK\QWV"� [XMKQÅ-KITTa�� \PM� XWTQKM¼[� KTI[[QÅKI\QWV� WN � \PMU�I[� I� OIVO�� I[�_MTT� I[�other groups of youth who wanted to challenge them and their popularity, etc.”

As they slipped into the roles, the lines got blurry, Banister said.

Today, there are roughly 2,500 gang members in Rochester, according to the last count at Pathways to Peace. The list, how-ever, includes many inactive gangs that never get removed from the list. Determining exactly how many active groups there are Q[�LQNÅK]T\��;I]VLMZ[�[IQL��*]\�\MZZQ\WZQIT�LQ[X]\M[�IUWVO�\PMU�are not the problem, he said. Youths in Rochester generally respect gang territories. “As small as Rochester is, we got kids on the west side that have really never really gone to the east side,” he said.

Other mid-size cities, by contrast, have “super gangs,” Saun-ders said, which represent a larger gang body that runs op-erations. That kind of organization does not exist here. Gangs QV�:WKPM[\MZ�IZM�TM[[�[\Z]K\]ZML��PM�M`XTIQVML��¹?PMV�_M�ÅZ[\�started 15 years ago, it was more of a situation where gangs that had sustainability usually grew into a situation where they _MZM�[MTTQVO�LWXM��UWZM�\PIV�R][\�OI\PMZQVO�IZW]VL�IVL�ÅOP\-ing for no reason,” Saunders said.

AW]\P[�VW�TWVOMZ�KIV�KWVNZWV\�I�KWVÆQK\�_Q\PW]\�M[KITI\QVO�Q\��Saunders said. Meanwhile, he added, everybody knows every-body, which provides ample opportunity for misunderstandings and perceived disrespect. “We used to be able to handle being humiliated at some point,” said Saunders, adding that youths KW]TL�ÅOP\�IVL�_ITS�I_Ia�_Q\PW]\�OWQVO�PWUM�\W�OM\�I�ÅZMIZU�and come back.

NO CODE OF CONDUCT Fractured families due to homicide or incarceration, single-parent homes, years of trauma, generations of poverty and ad-diction leave gaps where role models ought to be. Research at CPSI shows that, in certain parts of the city (zip codes: 14605, 14613, and 14621), one out of four black males between ages 20 to 39 is on probation, on parole, in jail, or in prison, Duda said.

?PMV� I[SML�_PM\PMZ� QV\MZXMZ[WVIT� KWVÆQK\[� WZ� OIVO�ZMTI\ML��\MZZQ\WZQIT� KWVÆQK\[� _MZM� _WZ[M�� ;I]VLMZ[� [IQL� QV\MZXMZ[WVIT�^QWTMVKM�Q[�UWZM�LQNÅK]T\�\W�LMIT�_Q\P��QV�XIZ\�JMKI][M�Q\�Q[�TM[[�

predictable. “There are a lot more young guys on the street now that have less connection with positive male role models. That being the case, they’re taking their cues from their peers a TW\�UWZM�\PIV�_PMV�_M�ÅZ[\�[\IZ\ML�º�;I]VLMZ[�[IQL��¹?PMV�_M�ÅZ[\�[\IZ\ML��_M�[\QTT�PIL�[WUM�WTL�PMIL[�W]\�PMZM�\PI\�_MZM�I\�least teaching some of the young guys the rules of the streets. There were certain rules that were adhered to, whereas now these young guys don’t adhere to anything.”

A desire for power and a feeling of connection drive youths to join gangs. One reason they are less structured now, Ban-ister explained, is because the hierarchies have collapsed over the years for some of the same reasons their families fell apart. Drugs are the common factor. “My guess is that part of what happened is that with the crack and drug-trade increase in the 1980s, more people than before got involved in the gang-life “opportunity” with clear power structures to run [and] control the business,” Banister said. As gang leaders got locked up, as they stepped away or got killed, power vacuums were left at a \QUM�_PMV�\PM�MVQOUI�WN �OIVO�TQNM�_I[�JMQVO�OTWZQÅML�QV�XWX]-lar culture, Banister explained.

The saying today is “TFL”, or “thug for life,” she said. As a result, kids today are more focused on the image that goes with taking on a thug lifestyle than they are with the infrastructure they would have to institute to run underground illicit markets, Banister explained.

FEW OPTIONS In this environment emotions are so high, Ackley said, that even if you try, without the structure and distraction of a job, staying removed from street life is nearly impossible.

Miller said that Teen Empowerment was keeping him on the straight and narrow without him even realizing it. “That posi-tive reinforcement every day was keeping me from actually taking both feet and crossing over, so it was like I was teeter-tottering,” he said. “Some days I was a little worse; some days I was a little better.”

By 21, Miller felt like he missed his chance to start a new life. He had aged out of TE, he was talked out of joining the mili-tary. He wanted to start his own business, go to college, but he was intimidated. “I didn’t think college was ever an option for me, because I struggle with spelling and grammar and things like that, and I was always told that college is nothing but a whole bunch of essays,” Miller said. “So it was like, ‘What else am I going to do?’”

To make matters worse he was battling a criminal charge pend-ing from when he was 19.

He told Ackley he was unhappy with himself and wanted to change. But then circumstances took over. Miller was becom-ing a case in point to the kids he was trying to steer away from his lifestyle as he continued careening through it.

BRUSH WITH DEATH <PM�[MKWVL�\QUM�5QTTMZ�_I[�[PW\�Q\�_I[�NWZ�ÅOP\QVO�PQ[�[PWW\MZ¼[�brother the day before. Before he could reach for a gun his I[[IQTIV\� ÅZML� PQ[��5QTTMZ� [I_� \PM� J]TTM\� PQ\� I� JZQKS�_ITT� IVL�explode in front of him after it grazed his thigh on the way by. The second bullet remains lodged in his leg today. “All the

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dust and everything was everywhere, and I took another step, vroom. Another shot, boom. It grazed my leg [again], vroom,” Miller said. “I was trying to go, but I got stuck because there was a fence. And I looked back, and I seen the guy like take cover, like a cop would, and go from one wall to another wall.”

Miller ran to a house nearby until it was over. Later that day he was put under house arrest.

Miller said he was carrying a gun that day for protection after a pre-vious shooting by a still-unknown attacker. The man was not wear-ing a mask, and while Miller did not see him, he suspected the at-tacker thought he did. The inci-dent traumatized Miller, whom, fearing for his life, got a gun and carried it everywhere, even while on house arrest.

On May 25, 2010, as Miller stepped out of his house, with permission from his house- arrest monitor, he was approached by a half-dozen men accusing him of jumping their friend. Miller in-sisted he did not. His brother ap-proached and nearly escalated the situation, he said. Miller told him he had a gun, but that they had to get out of there.

Shortly afterwards, the group was stopped by Police and Citi-zens Together Against Crime Program. PAC-TAC is a crime prevention initiative by Mayor Thomas Richards that assigns volunteers to patrol neighbor-PWWL[�_Q\P�WV�L]\a�WNÅKMZ[��<PM�youths gave PAC-TAC Miller’s description and said he tried to rob them. PAC-TAC radioed the description to police. “The po-lice came off the expressway, 30 minutes later, and maybe like an hour later I’m downtown facing the charge,” Miller said. “I was already facing one felony, which they had given me as a cop out to make it a misdemeanor.”

But under Miller’s agreement, he had to stay out of trouble. With the gun charge, the deal was off the table. Miller went to county jail for 18 months. In the end, it all worked out in his favor, he said, but not in the way he hoped.

1\�_I[� Å^M�UWV\P[� QV\W� \PM� L]ZI\QWV� WN � PQ[� [MV\MVKM� \PI\� PM�heard about his best friend’s murder.

Miller’s friend was on the way to the mall, after having been spotted in his car counting what looked like a large sum of drug money. He was jumped and then shot in the back while he was trying to escape, Miller said. They tried to take his shoes, he said, but in the end, they did not even get that. “They just killed him for no reason,” Miller said.

His friend was supposed to visit Miller in jail the next day. When he found out by phone that he was gone, Miller nearly blacked out.

FRESH START The day of his funeral, Miller’s friend came to him in a dream. It was a warning, he surmised, not to return to his former life. “Now, I just can’t do it. Like there’s nothing - like I’d rather like starve now. I’d rather go to bed hungry before I go back to that life,” Miller said.

When he got home from jail, he had nothing he said, save for two pairs of shoes and pants. “Before I went to jail, I had every-thing I ever wanted - clothes, car, jewelry, women, cell phones, computers, games, all that,” Miller said.

<PM�ÅZ[\�VQOP\�_I[� \W]OP��PM� [IQL��J]\�PQ[� ZM[WT^M�KWV\QV]M[��He decided to get a job, continue volunteering, and dedicate himself to his dream: opening a combination barber and tattoo shop. “I love cutting hair, and I love to draw and do tattoos, so, if I could combine both, I feel why not. I mean it’s doing what I love,” he said.

For now, he works at the Rochester Riverside Convention Cen-ter and on an assembly line at LiDestri Foods Inc., and contin-ues to volunteer at Teen Empowerment. Everyone, he said, is OQ^MV�I�\ITMV\�\PI\�\PMa�KIV�ÅVL�I�_Ia�\W�JM�[]KKM[[N]T�I\��¹*]\�because of the way the society is set up, there’s so many things thrown at you on a day-to-day basis that you get stuck in the day-to-day hustle of life,” Miller said. “It’s because, like I said, most people aren’t born in the privileged situation that they can devote their adolescence to making their skill actually into something that could make money.”

Banister said people need to stop ignoring the disparity in the community and examine it. “As a white person, I think it’s real-ly important for white people to think about whether they want to continue down this road of denial and not owning [up to] the levels of opportunity that have been given to white people and that have been denied to black people over time,” she said.

Miller said that in his experience, people are desensitized to the city’s shootings. The city used to shut down when someone was murdered, he said. Now, he said, locals say “I just saw him the other day” and then go about their business.

Miller is trying not to be that way. That is what makes him a success, he explained. Not for living two lives and getting what he wanted, but for letting go of the lifestyle that almost killed him. Success, he said, is keeping busy and working hard to avoid feeling frustrated and tempted to backtrack. “This may be an arrogant thing to say, but I feel as if I deserve way better - I deserve way much more,” Miller said. “And I’m just not going to stop until I get that much more, but I don’t feel I have to do what I used to do to get it.”

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