It was a huge sweep back in 1995 in Columbus’ Short North district. The neighborhood was cleaned up.
The court documents said after about six years, an investigation of the Short North Posse came to an end in March 1995, when the federal grand jury sitting in Columbus, Ohio, returned a 185-count indictment against 41 defendants on March 23, 1995, the linchpin of the indictment being a conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute crack and the distribution of crack.
Jason Reed was one of those charged and indicted. He served five years in the Maryland Cumberland Federal Prison for an indictment of gang conspiracy. Later, Reed went back to prison for nine months on a parole violation.
At first glance, Reed looks like any average young black man in his late 20s. Dressed in just a T-shirt and jeans, the young man is not sporting any bandana or other colors representing a specific gang. Most would not even guess he had been a member of a gang. But as soon as he smiles; his two golden front teeth reveal the rough and tough times Reed survived during his past.
Sitting for an interview in the back of an unmarked police car about a block from his house, Reed said he first moved into the Weinland Park area in 1975.
He had been nervous getting into the vehicle, as he kept looking behind him in the back window of the car at the unusual stares he received, and the laughter he heard from his family and friends. He became a little calmer, once he asked Columbus police officer Thad Alexander, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, to move the car a little down the road. Alexander is an officer with the Strategic Response Unit, the section of the Columbus Division of Police that deals with area gangs.
“This used to be a nice neighborhood once upon a time,” Reed said. “You can look out and see the grass used to be greener in some spots.”
That was before crack hit the streets.
The Short North was a big base for crack dealing, Reed said. Therefore, it was easy for one of the kids like himself to take to the streets, Reed said. With four children, his mom found it difficult to keep control of everyone.
As a teenager, Reed started in on the drug dealing trade. He saw all his friend making money, and he wanted to be like them. Instead of going to school to get an education, his friends were pushing drugs in the street.
The big drug dealers in the streets were making about $10,000 to $15,000 a day, Reed said. The large sums of cash were enough to influence any young child.
The children’s eyes are on the money, Alexander said. Then, as soon as they get the money, they spend it, because they don’t know if they will be around to see the next day.
During Reed’s drug years, he made a profit of $1,000, the officer said.
For Reed, drug trafficking was the life of the rich and famous; it was the one way he could get out of the neighborhood.
“Out on the streets you’re not striving, you’re striving to be glamorous. Live in the fast lane,” Reed said.
But the fast lane didn’t work for Reed.
Instead, Reed ended up in prison.
“That was pain man – six years of pain,” Reed said.
It wasn’t easy getting on the straight path. Although Reed attributes faith as part of the reason, he said he knew he had no other choice.
“The family was just really facing reality,” Reed said. “This was a must. This is what I had to do. And there was no other alternative.”
Now that Reed is out of prison, he said there’s no way he’s going back.
“I learned from it,” Reed said of his time spent behind bars. “It’s not getting back out and doing the same thing I did to jeopardize my future and get back in … can’t do it.”
Reed’s lifestyle isn’t the only thing that has changed. His views have as well. Reed may have been trying to follow the get-rich-quick scheme as a child to leave the Weinland Park area, but now Reed doesn’t want to move. He said he loves the neighborhood too much.
“I’ve been a part of this neighborhood. I still feel a part of this neighborhood,” Reed said. “No matter what you took away from me.”
Although Reed has learned from his past, he sees the neighborhood children following his trail up to the steps of another prison.
“I’ve seen the Short North go from good to bad to all right and back to bad and now it’s getting worse,” Reed said.
This time, he said, those involved in gangs are even younger. Children are starting to join at ages 11 and 12, Reed said.
“The kids are not ignorant or stupid,” Reed said. “They know, they pick up and they see. They imitate, and it’s getting bad.”
They’re looking at the same choices he encountered, Reed said, and they’re making the same wrong mistakes.
“They’d rather sit out here and just watch and get street educated instead of going to get that education,” Reed shook his head as talked. “Me? It took me loosing six-and-a-half years of my life to sit down and get my GED.”
Reed knows of the harsh consequences of a gang life, but he is not standing back and watching. Instead he’s taking some of the children underneath his wing to give them some guidance. According to Reed, one of the best alternatives is to offer the children some kinds of activity programs.
“I try and round them up, go shoot basketball,” Reed said. He’s even wanting to organize a Short North Little football team.
If someone in City Council or the community took an interest in the children’s future, something might be achieved, Alexander said.
“They can renovate, tear down, build up, but if they do something to have these kids see some hope – a ray of light at the end of the tunnel – it’s just going to be one generation repeating another generation,” he said.
