The Jersey City Independent "

Jean Carlos Cano, 11, a 5th grader at PS #12 darts passed opponents at a recent practice en route to a “try,” or a goal.

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With city unemployment at a 14-year peak, and against the backdrop of the sweltering sun, all you keep hearing in streets of Jersey City is how this is going to be a “long, hot summer.” In the ghetto, that’s an omen for untold gang violence — the gravest one in years, advocates say.

“People are hot, miserable, and they ain’t got no money,” says Annette Joiner, executive director of Friends of the Lifers. “It’s going to run rampant out here.”

Gang-related violence has steadily increased over the past five years, according to Michael Lyons, a police officer in the city’s gang unit. To some community leaders, addressing the current gang situation is such a broad issue that it evokes finger-in-the-dam hopelessness.

Jersey City is currently home to about 40 gangs, including every major “super gang,” such as the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings and Dominicans Don’t Play. They are fewer in number than in years past, but the networks are larger, more organized and cast a far wider net for recruitment, according to Lyons.

Gang leaders are also younger in age than ever before. The current “suppression approach” in law enforcement — not just in terms of gang activity, but for minor criminal acts as well — focuses on strict enforcement of all laws and throwing offenders in jail to keep them off the streets. This has knocked off a generation of older members, and the reins are left to kids, according to Ben Wilson, director of the Gang Awareness and Intervention Network.

“Insanity,” Wilson says, describing the current randomness and volatility of gang violence.

City residents meanwhile are held hostage to the streets.

“These corners,” says a 68-year-old Greenville resident, ominously, sitting in Audubon Park at 3 pm. “At night, I don’t come out. If I need anything, I get it during the day.”

And kids are wracked with adult woes.

“At school you’ve got frustrations, while you’re at home, while you’re outside,” says 8th-grader Jonathan Cano. “Everywhere.”

Over the course of this long, hot summer, we will take a closer look — story by story — at some of the tragedies, triumphs and issues resulting from the current gang epidemic in Jersey City.

Chapter 1: A Crack in the Pavement: How the City’s First Youth Rugby League Was Born

School kids are counting the days. Summer break — the great freedom — is almost theirs.

But summertime is a mixed blessing in tough neighborhoods, especially for young people trying to stay out of trouble. You can’t throw a rock in the summer and miss mischief, and there are plenty of rocks to try.

“It’s really tough out there,” says the 13-year-old Cano. “At times you can’t avoid gangs because you have friends involved in them.”

The trick is to stay busy or lay low at home, he adds.

But that’s easier said than done. It’s hard being cooped up in some oven-hot apartment. And a lot of summer programs don’t occupy kids in the late afternoon, or the “witching hours,” says Sgt. Frank Williams, executive director of the Police Activity League of Jersey City, and a 15-year veteran of the city police force.

For the past five years, Williams has battled juvenile delinquency and gang recruitment with a stunningly simple tactic: exhaustion.

“Completely exhaust them with some sort of extracurricular activity,” he says, standing in a hallway of a darkened, sneaker-squealing YMCA gymnasium on Bergen Avenue.

But Williams had a problem on his hands only a short time ago.

This same time last year, his roadmap for keeping kids on the straight and narrow had a pothole in it. From March to August, during those long, hot days, there was a gap — a sinkhole, really — in youth sports offered by his organization.

He’d seen kids in his program slip through the crack, but the stakes had just gotten higher.

The haunting text he received last month from a PAL coach is still fresh in his memory.

“Did you see Anthony Alvarado?” the message read.

Williams had already seen the news. An alleged killer — only 16 years old at the time — was on the run, and the gruesome homicide was linked to local gang activity, the Jersey Journal reported four days before Christmas. In May, Alvarado was finally caught, his face slapped on the front page of the tabloid.

“He played PAL football for me,” says Williams about the standout athlete, who at 12 years old, lured by the streets, had stopped coming to practice.

It was the “worst-case scenario.”

Youth activities aren’t the end-all solution to solving the gang problem, says Williams — only “a piece of the puzzle.” But he was bent on sealing the crack he saw in the pavement. The only question was: what would he fill it with?

The answer he ultimately reached, today, makes him chuckle amusedly.

On a late Wednesday afternoon, young Jonathan Cano and 17 of his school-age peers run drills in preparation for their first tournament in a sport they barely heard about before, let alone played. Together they are partaking in an odd slice of history, becoming members of the city’s first ever youth rugby team.

“Nobody was expecting us to play,” says Luis Guzman, 11, in the 7th grade.

The thought of naysayers — “what could inner-city kids possibly know about an import sport like rugby?” — seemed to motivate the team.

“We’re just coming up,” says Evan Wade, 12, an 8th grader.

Their stutter steps, the distinct way they cradle the ball in the crux of the elbow in transit — you can see hints of the NFL in their rugby game. The way they shoot layups with the oblong rugby ball between whistles reveals kids who grew up honing wicked jump shots.

But raw athleticism and competiveness are part of a universal language of sports, according to their coach, Dominic Wareing of Play Rugby USA.

And this team has both — which helped contribute to their successful debut earlier this month at the Mayor’s Cup on New York City’s Randall’s Island. Battling 56 teams — many of which have played in an organized rugby league for the past three to four years — the team reached the semifinals.

Wareing, an ex-pro rugby player from England, describes the sport as a cross between football and soccer. He hopes that press from the 2011 Rugby World Cup, as well as the Olympic revival in 2016, will finally help the sport take root in the United States’ playgrounds.

“You don’t need a lot to play rugby,” says Wareing. “You need a rugby ball.”

And Williams, too, is a believer.

“Kids carrying a basketball, kids carrying a football … a kid might be carrying a rugby ball,” says Williams. “That might not be uncommon in a couple of years.”

For more information about how to participate, contact the Policy Activity League of Jersey City at director (at) jerseycitypal.org or 201-434-3366.

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