Roxbury shooting leaves 2 dead

The son of an antiviolence street worker was one of two men fatally gunned down early yesterday on a small Roxbury street, where residents said such deadly violence is rare. A third victim, who drove bleeding from gunshot wounds to a nearby Boston police station, is expected to survive.

When police arrived on Williams Street about 2 a.m., they found a 28-year-old man, identified by law enforcement sources as Jesse Calhoun, lying on the street, dead. A second man, Robert F. Turner, the 20-year-old son of veteran Boston street worker Lorna Pleas, was transported to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The third victim was not named.

City officials said yesterday that they grasped the cruel irony in the fact that Pleas, who has spent 12 years trying to dissuade young people from lives of violence on the streets, has now lost her own child to street violence.

"This one's personal," said Robert Lewis Jr., head of the Boston Centers for Youth and Families, which oversees the street worker program. "This one hurt."

Pleas said last night that Turner was a big teddy bear with a quick smile who loved to swim and fish and often gave piggyback rides to his older sister. He traveled to Ghana a few years ago to learn about slavery and returned a changed youth.

"He looked at life differently," said Pleas, surrounded by family and friends as she tearfully recalled the tragedy she has seen so often on the streets but prayed would never befall her family. It was Pleas's 40th birthday last week when the family, including Turner's 11-month-old daughter Autumn, last gathered as a group. The child's mother, Amissa Walker, 26, of the South End said of Turner: "He's in my heart. I am going to miss him."

As a street worker, Pleas's job is to find and form relationships with gang members and try to steer them from lives of crime. Lewis, who helped start the street worker program in 1990 and oversees it today, said Pleas took the job after her nephew was killed by a shotgun blast to the head in the early 1990s.

"Lorna took this struggle on and decided she wanted to do what's right in the community," he said. With 12 years under her belt, Pleas is one of the longest serving street workers and is known as "the mom of the group," Lewis said.

The street worker program has faced criticism recently from some parents and community leaders who say it has stagnated and lost much of its effectiveness.

The program's ranks have been cut nearly in half; the workers spend a lot of time at events and in meetings, rather than doing street outreach; and city officials say union rules all but preclude their working late at night, when gang activity is high.

But Pleas is out there every day, program leaders said yesterday, doing whatever it takes to help stop the bloodshed that has now swallowed her son.

His death has hit the program hard, they said. "It's devastating for our program, for our organization, our staff, even seeing some of my workers," Lewis said.

Calhoun's relatives declined to comment yesterday when contacted at their home in Roxbury.

Williams Street is one block long and runs between Washington Street near Dudley Station and Shawmut Avenue.

A bloodstain marked the spot where the men fell, in front of an apartment building near the Shawmut Avenue end of Williams Street. One resident who asked that his name not be published for fear of retaliation, said he was awakened by five to eight gunshots. After police arrived, he looked out his window and saw two bodies in the street. "They were just sprawled out, lying on the ground," the man said.

Police said the survivor drove away from the scene in a small white car and rushed into the Roxbury police station. Officers summoned emergency medical workers, who took him to Brigham and Women's Hospital for treatment of multiple wounds. He was in critical condition, police said.

E. Barry Gaither, president of the Williams Street Homeowners Association, said yesterday that the block is usually quiet. While residents have reported some problems with drug dealing, he said, the block has not seen gang activity or violent crime.

Yesterday, a street worker assigned to the area where the shootings occurred told Lewis he was hitting the streets.

"He says, 'Listen, I'm heading out. . . . I need to be out there for Lorna, for these young people,' " Lewis recalled the worker saying. " 'This is what Lorna would want us to be doing.' "

Maria Cramer of the Globe staff contributed to this report.