Keenya Alexander wishes he could
go back in time. If he could, he
would listen to his mother. He wouldn't take up life on the streets,
or deal in guns and drugs.
Maybe then, he says, he wouldn't find himself a young man who is
partly paralyzed and forced to get around on crutches.
Alexander, 21, of Harrisburg, was shot in the chest two years ago
by another youth in the city's Hall Manor section. The teen-agers got
into a fight over rap music.
While there is nothing he can do to change his past, Alexander
hopes to change someone else's future.
He's telling his story to young people throughout the midstate in
hopes they will choose a different road. He's telling his story as
part of a production on nonviolence being staged by Corbin-Frye
Productions, founded by former Steelton-Highspire High School and
Lock Haven University wrestling champ Craig Corbin.
Corbin's shows feature youths who have been victims of violence.
He also presents rappers and singers who have experienced violence,
or whose loved ones have.
`I'm witnessing a lot of devastating things in the community, not
just in Harrisburg, but throughout the nation,` Corbin said of his
reasons for organizing the show.
Corbin has staged three productions in the last year and is
contacting schools, youth centers and churches about doing more. The
show is free, but Corbin accepts donations.
One production was held recently at Steelton-Highspire Junior and
Senior high schools, where Alexander told students about growing up
in Hall Manor, robbing people and selling drugs.
`Anything to get some money,` he recalls. He wanted sneakers, gold
jewelry and designer clothes. `Things I wanted, my mother couldn't
get for me, and I wanted to get it myself.`
To be accepted, he says, he committed crimes. He considers himself
lucky in one way, because he never got caught.
But he urges other young people to put their
energy elsewhere, maybe joining a Little League team or singing in a
church choir.
`I wish I could go back and stay out of trouble,` he told the
Steelton-Highspire students.
James Ritter and Ricky Banks, other young gunshot victims who take
part in Corbin-Frye Productions, tell similar stories.
Ritter, 24, says he had no fear of death until the February
morning he lay on the ground near Fifth and Emerald streets, a
gunshot wound in his stomach.
As he collapsed, Ritter had pulled out his own .38-caliber handgun
and fired three or four shots at the man who shot him, according to
police reports.
`I was prepared for this. I wasn't really scared to die,` Ritter
said. `Speaking from the street, that's how it was.`
But those feelings are definitely in the past. `I thank God for
letting me be here,` said Ritter, who had to be resuscitated at the
hospital after the shooting.
Ritter admitted to the Steel-High students that
he's done some `dirt` in his lifetime. These days, he says, he's
trying not to do any more, but his path has not been untarnished.
Earlier this year, Ritter was arrested on charges of carrying a
firearm without a license and drug possession, according to court
records. He has spent time in the county prison and currently awaits
a trial. The district attorney's office is asking for a mandatory
state prison term.
Ritter tells his story because he wants to help youngsters who may
have lost things because of his choices.
Banks, 20, wants to serve as a positive role model, a figure
missing in the lives of too many teen-agers.
He was still a teen-ager four years ago when he
was shot and left blind at 17th and Sumner streets in the Hall Manor
housing project. He says it was simply a matter of being in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
While Banks admits he wasn't a `good kid,` these days, he wants to
be a positive person for some child to respect.
He said his outlook on life has changed. He wants to finish
classes at a Middletown school for the blind.
`What I'm going through is hard,` Banks said, but he has hopes for
his own future, too. He'd like to go to college to study criminal
justice. `I'm sure enough going to get it.`
When a few students at Steelton-Highspire laughed and joked,
Alexander corrected them.
`Life is short,` he said. `I'm trying to show
you all a better way.`
Alexander never thought he would be a victim.
`I thought I was invisible. I thought I was Casper,` he said.
Alexander told of his three-month hospital stay and of his
mother's long hair falling out in patches because she was frantic
with worry about him.
He doesn't want other youngsters to put their parents through the
same pain.
`Get out and get something for your family, and don't make your
mom cry,` Alexander said.
Many said they got the message.
`Going around starting stuff will just get you in trouble,` said
Natasha Arnold, a seventh-grader.
Seventh-grader Krystal Bond was amazed by the young men's stories.
She said youngsters often don't listen to adults. But in Alexander
and Ritter, they saw people who were close to their own age. That
link created a powerful message, she said.
`The stories really shocked me,` she said.
`It teaches us to stay off the street,` said another student,
10th-grader Jamie Boulware.
`I know I don't want to die.`
Most parents wouldn't want
their children pinning one another to
the ground at day camp, but Karen Baker of Dauphin was actually
encouraging her son.
`Come on, Dave,` she yelled as Dave, 10, rolled on the mat with
his opponent. `You can do it.`
Dave and 30 other kids at a wrestling camp at the Camp Curtin YMCA
were learning new moves from two Harrisburg wrestling coaches.
But coach Craig Corbin,
31, said he didn't want the kids to leave
the final day of his three-week camp yesterday with knowledge only of
headlocks. He wanted them to leave with more respect and
self-discipline.
When two boys began punching and hitting each other, Corbin put a
stop to it. He didn't make them go home or separate them in two
different corners.
`You wanna wrestle?` he yelled out to one of the boys, his son.
`You know you aren't allowed to fight in here. You wanna fight? Get
in the circle.`
Corbin said he and his co-organizer, Mahlon Chase, had to break up
about 10 fights a week. By taking their aggressions to the mat, the kids
burned off the energy that made them want to push and shove, he said.
The camp, started by Corbin and Chase last summer, cost $50. But
that fee was waived for any boy who could not afford it.
The coaches said they want as many boys as possible to give
wrestling a try. It's all part of their plan to expand the elementary
wrestling program at Camp Curtain Elementary to
every school in the Harrisburg School District.
`Every boy loves to wrestle, but not every boy has the opportunity
to do it in a formal setting, let alone the college level,` said
Chase, 27, an assistant coach at Harrisburg High School.
Chase and Corbin started the camp for their team, but opened the
session to the public. Last year only one boy not on the team
enrolled. This year, about 10 boys were from outside the city.
One mother, Julie Kaylor of New Cumberland, said she was amazed at
the change in her 5-year-old son, Kirby.
`He was crying and petrified in the beginning and didn't know what
was going on,` Kaylor said. `He watched matches with his father
before but he had never wrestled.`
At 40 pounds, Kirby Kaylor couldn't take down many kids. During
the first week he would barely try to go on the mat with anyone.
Yesterday, each time he was knocked down, he got right back up --
with a little help from the coach.
`Kirby,` Corbin yelled out after he was pushed down. `I know
you're tired. Let's go and do it again.`
Harrisburg High School head wrestling coach
Jesse Rawls Sr. watched yesterday with a big smile.
`You don't know how good you all look,` said Rawls, a former
collegiate All-American from the University of Michigan. `If you want
to be a champion, stick with it. I hope one day, one of you will be
sitting on the sideline and I can push you on the center of the mat
and you'll win your state championship.`
Several former wrestlers from the area spoke to the children
during the three weeks. They talked about what wrestling meant to
them, but also tried to send out motivational messages.
Fri, 3 Jul 1998; THE HARRISBURG
PATRIOT, Angel Brownawell
Patriot News
Tue, 17 Nov 1998; THE HARRISBURG PATRIOT,
"Street stories-Victims hope to steer teens from road to ruin",
Angela P. Swinson
Patriot News
