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Former gang leaders now comrades in violence prevention

Daily Press - 12/27/2019

Dec. 26--In the mid-1980s, Paul Taylor and Vonley Thompson were fierce adversaries and had one top priority: to hurt each other.

Barely adults and members of rival gangs from different cities -- Taylor from Wickham Avenue in Newport News, Thompson from Hampton's north Phoebus neighborhood -- everything was about protecting their "guys."

Sometimes the groups overlapped and found each other in opposing territory. It created friction, violence and other criminal acts that cost both men a trip to prison.

Now both in their 50s, they say their mission is to save the neighborhoods they once terrorized.

"We've changed. We're not the same individuals from the days ago," Taylor said. "You know, both of us left prison, you know, incarceration, and are trying to come back and eradicate some of the social ills that we ... help create."

The former gang leaders, joined by another friend and former gang member Weldon "Prince" Bunn, met at North Phoebus Community Center recently to talk.

The men reminisced, sharing missteps and regrets. But mostly they spoke about what they can do now to help an emerging generation, many who seem to idolize them and the violence they did.

"Just think if our 'ah-ha' moment would have happened back then?" Taylor said. "Let's you and me meet in Norfolk ... think of what we could have done from that time? Just think how many lives that could have been saved ... not from death or malicious wounding, but from prison?"

The men had not seen each other for dozens of years. But they saw each other recently at the funeral of Thompson's family member, Jamari Sanders, a Phoebus High School football player who was shot and killed in 2018.

Thompson, 53, said he was moved to see Taylor at the funeral and speaking to everyone there.

Thompson served five years at St. Brides Correctional Center in Chesapeake and another five years in a prison in Staunton. He was convicted of crimes including unlawful wounding and aggravated assault, he said.

Since getting out in 2014, he has started Generation Next.

His organization does gang prevention and gang awareness workshops to show youth what to look out for and what tactics gangs use to recruit young people.

Thompson said gang groups will try to sway you to join them if they believe you owe them a favor.

"Don't do it," he said.

At a criminal justice camp last summer where he was a speaker, Thompson told teens that being in a gang will only lead to two places -- the penitentiary or the grave.

"The biggest things that I think he does is when he speaks ... a lot of these kids look at being in a gang as glamorous," said Twala Thompson, his wife who also came to the meeting. "He tells them (about) the not so glamorous parts."

Taylor says the best place to reach the youth is not always at the gun prevention forums or workshops -- which the men attended recently in Hampton and Newport News.

A lot of the young people they want to reach, who are involved with guns or shootings, likely aren't coming to these events, he said.

What may work is to catch them where they all will show up -- like at a fallen comrade's funeral.

The recent death of Taylor's nephew Andre Grady, which police ruled a homicide, is a cause of concern for the men because of possible retaliation by rival groups, they said.

It's also an opportunity, Taylor said, who planned a eulogy for his nephew's funeral.

"It's the perfect opportunity to deliver to the demographic that we trying to target right now to not be like us," Taylor said. "You know, we sort of try to seize the moment to try to change that way of thinking, even if only a brief moment."

Taylor, 51, was sent to prison on a life sentence for the shooting death of Julius "Old Lou" Jegede, according to Daily Press archives.

He served some 23 years straight of that sentence and was paroled from Greenville Correctional Center in 2017, he said.

Taylor since has moved to Richmond and is involved in a few programs designed to help foster greater rapport among rival groups and help youth stay away from gangs.

One such program he started is the "RVA League." It's an unorthodox basketball league, with players from all over Richmond who come together under one roof to play a basketball game, he said.

Taylor also was named in September to the Virginia Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice until 2024.

The committee advises Gov. Ralph Northam's office and localities on matters related to the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency and the administration of the juvenile justice system, according to state department of criminal justice's website.

Taylor and Bunn also are instructors of a re-entry program sponsored by the Alliance for Unitive Justice, based in Richmond.

Lisa Vernon Sparks, 757-247-4832, lvernonsparks@dailypress.com

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