Two streets in the grip of violence

Even when it's hot out, Shemel Wilkins, 23, can be found inside her third-floor apartment on Hamilton Street in Dorchester. She keeps her 6-year-old daughter close by, though the girl sometimes pleads to get out.

It has been that way since last summer, when Wilkins and her daughter went outdoors one day and a young man came out of nowhere and started shooting at a truck passing by. Someone in the truck fired back. Mother and daughter rushed back indoors.

''I'm tired of it," said Wilkins, as she sat on the couch in her apartment. ''I'm so petrified every day."

Violence has sharply circumscribed life on Hamilton Street, and nearby Wendover Street, in the heart of Boston's Cape Verdean community. A relentless, bloody rivalry between young men tied to the two streets broke out 11 years ago, when 23-year-old Bobby Mendes was fatally stabbed on Wendover Street, police say.

The feud has frustrated police. The reasons behind it seem elusive to many residents. And living amid the bloodshed is beginning to sap the hopes of the people here.

''When I tell my friends I live on Wendover, they say 'Oh my God, it's a shooting range.' " said Isabel Andrade, 37, who said that on a recent trip to Florida she thought about sending for her things and never returning. ''I hear the shots all the time, and all I can do is stay away from the windows."

Boston police Superintendent Robert Dunford said the police have spent years trying to understand the patterns of violence between the two groups. They have struggled without much success to get information from young men in the neighborhood about who is responsible.

A week ago, Luis DoSouto, 25, was gunned down on Hamilton Street, setting off fears that there would be retaliation on Wendover Street. Then 20 hours later, Mendes's young brother, Alex, was killed on Wendover.

Some residents say it's too simplistic to blame the feud for all the killing, noting that the man charged with killing DoSouto is not Cape Verdean or from the neighborhood. Others prefer not to talk about it.

Dunford described the 1995 killing of Bobby Mendes as a triggering event, which set off more than a decade of back-and-forth battling. Police say Bobby Mendes's cousin, Arnold ''Nardo" Lopes, stabbed Mendes in the chest after an argument, then fled. Lopes has never been caught.

Until the 1995 slaying of Mendes, police say, no Cape Verdean here had attacked another in such a brutal manner with such violent consequences. As word of the killing spread in the neighborhood, people flooded the streets. And then some people took sides.

While the two sides roughly claim two territories -- Hamilton and Wendover, the feud has splintered onto other nearby streets in north Dorchester. And the alliances are hard to track, loosely formed and regularly shifting.

Police say shootings in the area are driven by revenge, sometimes for shootings that happened years earlier. The young men -- even when they are victims -- don't expect police to apprehend those responsible. They expect to respond themselves, Dunford said.

''It's a very difficult situation," Dunford said.

Hamilton and Wendover Streets are less than a mile apart, and are similar to other streets in this part of Dorchester: triple-deckers, toys in the yard, leafy trees.

''Same houses, different shingles," observed one longtime resident.

Neighbors call out hello to each other and preteens chat loudly as they walk home from school.

But there are subtler signs of mistrust and fear. Some homes are guarded by chain-link fences, posted with signs that say ''Beware of Dog" and ''No trespassing." At night, on Wendover, teenagers sometimes gather in the middle of the road, refusing to let any car they don't recognize pass by.

Nivea da Veiga, 32, of Hamilton Street, allows her three young children to play only on the porch. On a recent evening, she watched from the doorway as 6-year-old Joselyn and her 8-year-old brother, Jonathan, kicked a ball back and forth.

''I'm always with them," she said. ''I don't leave them alone inside the house. If I'm going out, even if it's for one minute, for one second, they come with me."

One Hamilton Street resident, who identified himself only as Jamal, said he has friends on both Wendover and Hamilton Streets. The killings happen when one side feels the other is encroaching, he said.

''It's street versus street," he said as he stood on his porch, dressed in an Army fatigue jacket and do-rag. ''It's always going to be like that . . . It's a cycle. The little people see the big people do what they're doing, and they want to do the same." The violence here is a sensitive subject for many Cape Verdeans, who point out that most people in their community are peaceful, and feel stigmatized by the media attention to crime.

''People just want to let it go," said Denise D. Gonsalves, executive director of Cape Verdean Community UNIDO.

Dorchester is among the largest communities of people from Cape Verde, an island nation off West Africa. There have been ties between New England and Cape Verde since the 1800s, when whaling companies from Cape Cod and New Bedford hired Cape Verdeans to sail with them. Cape Verdeans settled in Dorchester, drawn by jobs in Boston and the strong presence of Catholic churches in the neighborhood.

Many here, as they work for peace, say repeatedly that violence is not solely a Cape Verdean problem.

''It's not just these two streets," said Roxbury resident Dawna M. Thomas, a Cape Verdean and assistant professor of Africana Studies and Women's Studies at Simmons College. ''It's a problem that is widespread. By focusing on these two streets, we lose the depth of the issue that affects our country. This is not a Cape Verdean issue. This is not a black issue. This is an issue of crime that is in our cities."

Isaura Mendes, the mother of Bobby and Alex Mendes, said she does not see a connection between Bobby's slaying and the ongoing violence in the neighborhood.

''I don't know why people are getting shot, but it's not because of Bobby," she said yesterday.

But for some who live on Hamilton or on Wendover, getting at what's causing the killing is a secondary concern. They simply would like to feel safer.

David French, 34, a waiter at a downtown restaurant, hears snickers when he tells people his family bought a condominium on Hamilton Street. He finds the architecture beautiful here, and likes the neighbors he has met. But he acknowledges being jarred by what he called ''the other aspects" -- the violence. He refused to stare out the window when DoSouto was killed about 20 feet away from his building.

''I didn't want to be the new person in the window gawking," French said.

He recalled walking home from work late at night when an unmarked police cruiser pulled up and officers seemed incredulous when he told them he bought a condo on Hamilton.

''Well, it's still my neighborhood," French said, sounding partly resigned and partly resolute.

Wilkins worries about the summer, when the young men will spend more time outdoors and become potential targets for would-be shooters.

''What will happen the next beautiful day?" she asked, her hands covering her face.

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.