Death of a Warrior

The man who sauntered up to them was a drug dealer who saw opportunity in the cluster of kids riding beat-up bikes. He made an offer. "He told us he wanted to help all of us get money," J-Bo recounts. "He wanted to see everybody happy. And everybody was down with it, you know what I'm saying, 'cause we young, we needing to get money. And that's how Jay saw it."

Jarvis, according to his friends, had a fierce drive for profit. "None of us got into it like Jay got into it," J-Bo remarks. "Jay got into it for the money, because he was less fortunate than the rest of us. He couldn't go to his mom -- she had to pay out to everybody."

"Jay, he act like he need that money bad," says another friend.
Indeed there was no spare money in the Hilbert household. Eva Hilbert's income was a patchwork of welfare, benefits related to Jarvis's father's death, and child support from the father of another of Hilbert's children. In all she received between $800 and $900 per month. Hilbert paid $450 in rent for the three-bedroom house she lived in with four children.

In the summer of 1997, all of Jarvis's friends wanted money. The dealer would supply them with $100 worth of the three big sellers: powder cocaine, rock cocaine, and marijuana. Each $100 amount was called a bomb. The boys would divide up the work. J-Bo says he and one of the other older boys acted as lieutenants, bringing bombs to the crew and relaying money to the dealer. Jarvis was the bomb man; his job was to divide the drugs into five-dollar amounts and distribute it. He resupplied the kids who made the sales, an act known as reupping. Other boys acted as lookouts and gave warning when the cops showed up.

Mimicking bigger gangs such as the John Doe Boys and Cloud Nine, who marked their product so clients would develop brand loyalty, the boys bought a stamp imprinted with their group's name, Warriors, crowned by three stars. They stamped each of the light-blue paper packets that held drugs with that insignia.

And, the boys say, they had guns: .38s and .45s. They didn't carry them every day but usually kept them close, especially while clocking (selling). Jarvis started calling himself "Young Thug." Yet the boys did not consider themselves a gang. For outsiders the difference may be subtle, but to them it was clear: They were a group of friends who had carved out an identity; gangs had initiations and a strict hierarchy.

The boys owned NW 55th Street and Thirteenth Avenue. As long as they kept to a small area, they figured they wouldn't disturb the gangs. "There weren't no other street," J-Bo attests. "We wasn't no big-time organization, so we didn't really worry about John Does or Cloud Nine coming down."

The Warriors also respected the gangs' boundaries. West of NW Fifteenth Avenue was a group called DND, Doing Niggers Dirty. "And they looove to jump people. I mean they will beat yo' ass," J-Bo says. "It got to the point where they couldn't beat us, though. They had that much respect for us." (Miami police investigating Jarvis's death have heard of DND, but had not heard of the Warriors.)

Eventually the supplier moved and the Warriors' stock dried up, according to several boys. They maintain they stopped selling drugs on the street. "All I can say is, to be honest, it ain't for me," J-Bo professes. "That's why I was a lieutenant or whatever. I just made sure the dope was right and the money was right. I didn't need it. I got peoples. I got a grandma I love to death. She'd do anything, anything for me. I got a strong family. They back me up with anything. That's why I love my family and don't need to do this."

The homicide cops investigating Jarvis's death don't believe the boys have stopped selling. Such changes of heart don't come easily. "It's hard for them to give up making money," comments Det. Orlando Silva. "The incentive is very strong."

Jarvis certainly didn't want to surrender the money. He hungered for cash. He had a girlfriend named Taccara, a pretty petite girl, who says she met Jarvis in October 1997 when they were both fourteen years old. These days Taccara regularly stops by the Hilberts' home after school. She wears silver bracelets on one wrist and an anklet with her name on it. On the long, painted nail of her left middle finger, Jarvis is spelled out in flowing script.

"Jarvis wasn't bad," she utters, her little-girl voice rising. "He was a sweet little boy. He used to call me 'Boo.' He gave me money every two weeks to get my hair done. He would buy me lunch in school, and walk me to my class."

Jarvis kept Taccara away from the street crowd, she says. That wasn't hard because she was busy most days after school helping baby-sit her cousin's child.