NEIGHBORS HOPE FOR END

Residents Say Boot Camp Indictments Won't Remove All The Violence.

Donald Cannaday is glad some members of the Boot Camp Gang were arrested
Tuesday.

He's tired of chasing them off his porch with his pit bull, having his
house struck by errant bullets during drive-by shootings on the corner
where they hang out, and having gang members try to stash bags of crack
cocaine in his back yard.

Cannaday and others who live in the Midland Avenue and West Colvin Street
neighborhood - which police say the Boot Camp gang terrorized - said they
hope the federal grand jury indictment of 24 Boot Camp Gang members will
end the violence by their homes.

But they're not real confident it will.

"It will mean there's a little peace for a while. But those fools are
always fighting over turf," said Cannaday, a UPS worker who lives at 1424
Midland Ave.

Cannaday predicted it won't be long before rival gangs move in.

Tuesday afternoon, a 20-year-old man dressed in a black T-shirt and baggy
camouflage pants swaggered past Cannaday's house in the 1400 block of
Midland Avenue, yelling, "They think Boot Camp is done. Psych. Boot Camp
ain't done."

"They did the same thing to Elk (Street Gang). And Elk is still out there,"
said the man, who declined to identify himself, but who was identified as a
Boot Camp member by one of the neighborhood's most-established residents,
Willa Dixon.

"I'm hoping (the indictment) will bring peace. I'm praying it will," said
Dixon, 65, whose 1430 Midland Ave. home was struck June 8 by a wayward
bullet during a drive-by shooting.

U.S. Attorney Glen Suddaby said the Boot Camp Gang used guns and knives to
control drug-dealing at the corner of Midland and Colvin.

Tuesday, news of the indictment was causing a buzz inside the Midland
Discount Market, a store that sits at the corner.

Most of the defendants hang around outside the store, said Base Homer, 18,
who manages the store.

"They're not all bad guys," Homer said. He said Charles Myles - whom the
grand jury alleged sold crack cocaine and was present when Boot Camp
members fired guns at rivals - is a really nice man.

Midland Discount Market has obtained court orders requiring some of the
defendants to stay out of the store.

Homer said he can't prevent them from hanging around outside, even though
it scares his elderly customers.

Kenyatta Harrison, 28, who dated one of the defendants, Waliek Betts, said
Tuesday outside the store: "They're not notorious gang members. They're
kids. They're lovable. They're fathers and sons."

"Boot Camp . . . it's not even a gang," Harrison said. "

She said she never saw Betts with a gun in the three years she dated him.

Betts was sentenced in 1999 to a year in prison for possessing a gun, a
charge filed in the wake of the 1998 murder of Robert Smith Jr., 19.

Across the street from Midland Discount Market sits St. Anthony of Padua
Church.

The Rev. Robert Chryst, pastor of the church, saw police conducting raids
in the neighborhood Tuesday morning.

In recent months, Syracuse youths were shot on the street and around the
corner, Chryst said. He was glad to see police taking action. Most people
don't want to live terrorized by the few, he said.

"Anything we can do to remove guns and violent people will enhance the
neighborhood for the majority," Chryst said.

He said a house next to the church was struck last summer with bullets.
"They have kids living there. That's outrageous," he said.

But in the long run, indictments are not the solution to the neighborhood's
crime problems, Chryst said.

"The long-term solution is providing jobs and education and motivation for
the people standing around on the corners," he said.