Thursday, 4:30 PM
Mayor, ministers vow to keep gang truce going
(George Rizer/Globe Staff)
Jamhol Norfleet was fatally shot Tuesday night near his home on Holworthy Street.
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff
Mayor Thomas M. Menino and key architects of a fragile truce between two of Boston's most violent street gangs vowed today not to let the shooting death of a former gang leader unravel the ceasefire.
Ministers, youth workers, and others are working to preserve the truce between the Heath Street gang in Jamaica Plain and the H-Block gang in Roxbury -- a pact finalized in late July after months of intensive, secretive negotiations.
Tuesday evening, Jamhol Norfleet, a 20-year-old leader of H-Block who had been helping keep the truce, was gunned down in front of his grandmother's house in Roxbury. His sister was grazed by a bullet. Police are looking for the shooters.
The shooting came on the one-year anniversary of the slaying of Carl Searcy, a 17-year-old leader of the rival Heath Street gang.
The Rev. Jeffrey Brown, one of the truce's architects and cofounder of the anti-violence Boston TenPoint Coalition, said he feared the two killings were linked. Police increased patrols near the Bromley-Heath public housing development to deter potential retaliation.
But Brown said today it's not clear that Norfleet was killed by a Heath Street member.
Menino said Norfleet was working to improve his life and life for his friends by working with ministers on the truce for the past 14 weeks.
"They are more determined than ever before to rid our neighborhoods of violence," he said at a press conference, accompanied by Brown and police officials, at the Egleston Square Peace Garden.
Norfleet's grandmother and sister also said today they don't believe the killing was directly gang-related.
