Red Bandana
Marlow’s Coastal Empire

Vintage grade school maps

When they were children, Marlow and W looked with wonder at their 4th grade classroom, pull-down geography maps and their unknown places as full of mystery. Savannah had ceased to be one of those ambiguous yet pure patches for them to dream and scheme gloriously over. It had revealed itself in part as a place of darkness.

Marlow’s discovery of the “red bandana” phrase led him to ever more focused research and discoveries about Savannah. Their new home town appeared on the surface like a picture postcard of idyllic Southern charm. Outside of its tourist core you couldn’t walk the streets safety. They had known this. Their self-proclaimed Hostess City hometown had bloody bloomers that no one wanted to air. This they had not known.

Violent crime had plummeted from its all-time highs during the early 90s. Back then, drug gang violence between rival eastside and westside crews made Savannah the American murder capital for midsized cities. In twenty years, murders and murder rates had dropped by 2/3’s by 2010. The city experienced the same fall in overall violent crime incidents.

Then, something happened. Violent crimes spiked upward in 2014 and then again in 2015. Murders started going up once again and precipitously so last year. 2015 saw homicides spike at 53 and come within hailing distance of the 1991 record of 60. These figures once again put Savannah onto the top ten list of murder rates among cities over 200,000 — higher than the rates for Oakland, California; Miami; Cleveland; Washington; and Chicago.

Three quarters of the way into 2016 the city has recorded 42 murders. Regaining the top spot on this dubious list cannot be far off.

The “red bandana” shouted to Marlow that Savannah was seeing a rebirth of gang unitin, representin, recruitin, feudin, fightin, and killin. Red was and remains the color of certain eastside Savannah gangs due to their long distance admiration of the Los Angeles based Bloods of Compton neighborhood renown. Keith Reid’s killers may have been eastside gang members/initiates.

While gangs in Savannah may not be as organized as those in larger cities, the results are no less deadly. Local law enforcement agencies have long recognized that African-American street gang activity was and remains a problem. One apt observation from the 90s captured the essence of Savannah’s street gangs – “cliques that shoot each other.”

A long ago Savannah gang banger once said: “East boys stay in the east and west boys stay in the west. If westsiders don’t come east, everything’s fine. If they do, hom-i-ciiide.”

Faint hints that things were changing were seen as far back as 2008 and 2014, when disconnected and episodic newspaper articles reported a rise in graffiti in the downtown area. Each of these reports had the obligatory mentions that gang related graffiti was photographed and analyzed. Sadly lacking in all but one article were any mentions of trends over time.

2008 gang graffiti removal in Savannah

These modern day Savannah gangsters seemingly style themselves as noble 19th century imperial conquerors. They need only brute force – nothing to represent boastfully of having, given that their advantage is purely accidental, arising from the situational weakness of those whom they take by surprise. They grab what they can get for the sake of what can be gotten.

It is just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a small yet horrific scale, and those going at it do so blindly – quite proper for those who tackle the darkness. Their conquests in the donut hole and of their donut hood mostly mean a taking away from those who have slightly fatter wallets, is not a pretty thing when you ponder on it too much.

If you don’t know your history, you likely won’t have a future. They do now. They will modify their ways, since it’s either that or the hospital and the grave.

Copyright © 2016 From My Isle Seat