After 11-year-old killed, rival gang members unite to urge healing in Detroit schools

Darnell Canady put his arm around Michael Rogers' shoulders. He had a message for students at Pershing High School in the aftermath of a brutal drive-by killing of an 11-year-old boy.

"His brother got charged for killing my brother," said Canady, 41, referring to another drive-by shooting, the slaying of his best friend Djuan Page in 2014. Rogers' brother, Corey Bailey, is currently behind bars serving two life sentences related to Page's death and a slew of other charges.

"You ain't got to be that. We're trying to help you. We're trying to do nothing but help you," Canady said.

The students grew silent.

Canady identifies as a "4" — a member of an east-side gang south of Six Mile Road. Rogers identifies with Canady's rival gang, the "5s," which includes the Seven Mile Bloods. Their territory is also on the east side, between Gratiot Avenue, Kelly Road, Seven Mile and Eight Mile roads.

Canady and Rogers are among over a dozen members of rival gangs in Detroit — 4s, 5s and 6s — who have made it their mission to come together and promote peace in Detroit schools with violence intervention programs Ceasefire Detroit and Detroit Friends and Family.

They started on the east side, where 11-year-old Latrelle Mines was shot and killed Jan. 7 while Rollerblading near Beaconsfield and Courville streets. No arrests have been made in the case. Community leaders believe his killing was related to gang violence. In 2020, Latrelle's father was also killed in a dispute between 4s and 5s.

Weeks later, just 4 miles away, another 11-year-old, Lamara Glenn, was struck by gunfire fired into a residence near Pennsylvania Street and Interstate 94 on Feb. 20. She died of her injuries Feb. 26. Four suspects have been charged in that case.

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It was the heartbreak of Latrelle's death that first brought the rival gang members together in hopes of curbing the bloodshed. On Feb. 1, the group was at Pershing. They visited Osborn High School the next day.

The rival gang members held moments of silence and had impassioned messages for students: You deserve peace; have the heart and the courage to do the right thing; chase your dreams and goals; aim high; put pride and ego aside and surround yourselves with positive influences.

"You all are destined to be great," said David Daniels, who identifies with the 5s.

The messages to students, at times, grew intense, with speakers emphasizing the seriousness of the consequences of their own actions in the past.

"This is not a game. I just left the prison yard," Thelonious Searcy, 44, told students at Pershing. Searcy is associated with both the 4s and the 5s.

"When I got to the penitentiary, I was forced to face myself. I was faced to deal with the realities of the things that I did in my community."

Searcy spoke of the trauma he created in his own community, and the trauma he faced as a child, like witnessing a murder at 7 years old, which contributed to his actions later in life. He spoke of missing years of his daughters' lives while in prison, years of not seeing his mother.

"We've got to be better than that. We've got to want more for ourselves. We've got to want more for our people. I'm here because I destroyed my people. I played God in the streets. I did that. And I'm man enough to face my actions," Searcy said.

And when Rogers, 41, and Pierre Knight, 25, spoke at Osborn — where they themselves had gone to school and were kicked out — they became emotional.

When Rogers began to speak to the crowd of Osborn's male students, he paused for a bit.

"Killing each other ... this is wrong, we've got to do something different. We're strong," Rogers said.

Knight told Osborn students that he walked away from the 5s last year.

"Too much Black blood," Knight said. "I don't stand for that."

'We don't always have to fight each other'

Students at both Pershing and Osborn were receptive to the messages the rival gang members relayed.

Dozens of students at Pershing and Osborn stayed after the program to speak with members of the group.

Daniels told students at Pershing he'd provide his phone number to keep the discussions going — and at least 12 students took him up on that offer.

Daniels said one student who was about to get into trouble messaged Daniels and asked him to intervene.

It worked, Daniels said.

"I'm just keeping my word with them, that's all," Daniels told the Free Press.

Student Heaven Martin, 17, a junior at Pershing, said hearing how the speakers went from some of the lowest points of their lives to trying to do better for their communities "was really a beautiful thing."

"There's a lot of kids dying of gun violence because they want to be in gangs, because they are trying to uphold a certain image in front of people that they don't have to uphold," she said.

And seeing rivals come together was powerful for students like Khron Payne, 15, a Pershing sophomore.

"They had to come together and give that speech as one. Us, as the children — we can all do that too. We don't always have to fight each other," Payne said.

"I know a lot of people (that are involved) in gang violence. I tell them to mind their own business, get out the way. Make your own path in life."

'We lead by example'

The rival gangs have been at odds with each other since the early 2000s. Members said displays of unity are unprecedented.

“This is history you’re writing on," Deonte Morris, 35, who identifies with the 4s, told the Free Press. “We can come together after we went to war with each other.”

Morris and the others walked out of Pershing with huge smiles across their faces.

Rogers didn't think he'd be alive at 41 years old, let alone working together with 4s. He said he'd been shot 21 times due to gang violence.

He thought working with his former rivals would feel different.

"It’s new to me still, but it don't feel bad. You get to know things about people," Rogers admitted.

He wasn't the only one who expressed reluctance at first. Not everyone in Detroit's gangs are accepting of what this group is doing.

“In due time, everybody will be on board," he said.

Knight, too, holds out hope for better times.

"We lead by example. A lot of these kids look up to us," he said.

“There’s healing to this.”

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. She can be contacted at 313-264-0442 or asahouri@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit rival gang members unite to urge peace in Detroit schools