Death of a Warrior

In November when police attributed several killings in Liberty City to gang conflict, headlines announced a gang war. Three people were murdered after police arrested the reputed head of the John Does, Corey Smith, on November 13. By mid-December, a series of drive-by shootings left one woman dead, one man paralyzed, and a third person in critical condition. Police believed that in the power vacuum following Smith's arrest, a former John Doe member named Anthony "Little Bo" Fail began feuding with his former gang mates.

The violence didn't scare Jarvis. He still worked the streets. Christmas Eve was the last time any of Jarvis's friends saw him alive. He left home during the day with his supplier, and he worked through the night.

Mark Silas, visiting from North Carolina for the holidays, spent Christmas morning praying for his life. He was splayed on the ground outside his sister's house on NW Fifth Avenue and 46th Street, yanking on a gold ring that wouldn't budge. Four men in ski masks stood over him with guns. Around 3:30 a.m. Silas told police he was returning to a relative's house from a club when the men jumped him while he was parking his car. "Hurry up," one of the carjackers hissed as Silas struggled with the ring. Then the robber whacked Silas's head with the butt of a gun. They took his $250 gold Bulova watch, four gold rings worth a total of about $500, and $130 in cash. They jumped in Silas's four-door 1998 green Ford Expedition truck and sped off. It wasn't the last police would hear of the men in ski masks.

At 6:00 a.m. Jarvis stood at his spot. He had worked all night. His supplier was supposed to pick him up, but police believe the man got drunk and passed out. When the green Ford Expedition pulled up, it didn't take Jarvis long to figure out what the men inside wanted. As they exited the vehicle, Jarvis started running. One of them pointed a weapon that a witness told police looked like an assault rifle. He fired one shot. The bullet tore through Jarvis's back and exited his abdomen. The men ran up to the body, rifled through Jarvis's pockets, and took what was probably his proceeds from the night's work. Then they sped off.

Jarvis was alive when the paramedics arrived a few minutes later. He died at 6:37 a.m., after they reached Jackson Memorial Hospital.

When the call came in to homicide, Sgt. Everett recognized the name of the cocky kid in the number 23 Bulls jersey, so he headed up to Opa-locka. "I was thinking to myself, What a hell of a Christmas present," he recalls.

Two hours after Jarvis's shooting, a pistol-wielding gunman in shorts plugged a 30-year-old drug dealer named Mark Couch at point-blank range inside the Fast and Friendly convenience store on NW Seventeenth Avenue and 52nd Street. Police at first thought the two shootings were related, but now they're not so sure.

Three days after Jarvis died, Miami police launched Operation Draw the Line, which involved massive police presence in Liberty City. Eight days later, on January 5, a team of FBI agents busted into a Days Inn in West Palm Beach and nabbed Fail, who was eating pizza and watching TV when they burst in. On January 7 the U.S. Attorney's Office indicted 26 members of the John Does and Cloud Nine. The feds announced the seizure of a cache of weapons, including machine guns and hand grenades.

These days the city is struggling to cope with the legacy of its murdered children.

On January 16 politicians and prosecutors gathered for the groundbreaking of a memorial: a black granite wall similar to the one erected in Washington, D.C., as a tribute to those killed in Vietnam. This wall, however, contains all the names of those younger than age eighteen killed by gunfire in Miami-Dade County since 1980. It was the idea of Wazirah Brown, a Florida State freshman, who lost an eighth-grade friend to a bullet. There were 446 such deaths through June 1998.

On January 18 the Martin Luther King Day Parade was held on NW 54th Street, not far from Jarvis's spot. Politicians rolled by in shiny convertibles, followed by police cars and fire trucks. Then a van bearing the placard "Stop the Violence" appeared. A photo of a young girl was posted on its side. It showed Judy McCollum, who was crippled by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting in 1996, when she was nine years old. In the crowd a fleshy woman with long braids comments, "Aren't they ever going to let that poor girl rest? Every time they have a parade they drag her out. Let the poor child rest." From the back of the van, Judy, strapped to a wheelchair, waves to the crowd.

The makeshift memorial remains at the spot where Jarvis was killed. The flowers are dried stalks. The teddy bears are still there, but the T-shirt, drawings, and balloons are gone.

Hilbert can't find a photograph of Jarvis. "He didn't like pictures much," she says. "I was meaning to get a photo taken at Christmas." At his funeral the only photograph displayed was his mug shot.

The family plans to visit his grave in Dade Memorial Park on Valentine's Day. By then Taccara hopes to have paid off the $115 gold chain she has on layaway. It was to have been Jarvis's Christmas present. Now she'll wear it in his memory. "I want to throw him a sweet sixteen," she adds.

J-Bo intends to graduate high school and get a job as a longshoreman. Loco is thinking about joining the military to earn money for college tuition. Low-So works after school at a Burger King.

Police have changed their minds about some of the Liberty City killings. Although they at first blamed Fail's feud on the John Does, they now believe that an unknown group was robbing drug dealers. Police are not sure whether the robberies were related to the John Does.

Not long after Jarvis was shot, Det. Orlando Silva drove by Jarvis's spot on 48th Street. One of the boy's friends was doing business there. "He said he needed to work the corner to make money and help pay for Jarvis's funeral.