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POINT AFTER
Respect Me, Respect My
Heroes
From the streets of Philadelphia, a deadly tale of fans
living vicariously through sports
stars
by Steve
Lopez
Posted: Tue November 18, 1997
It must happen a million times a day. At the office, at the gym,
in a bar. You say something about an athlete you like, and
someone else says forget it, he's nothing
compared to my man so-and-so.
And there you are, passionately defending athletes you haven't
met and never
will.
That's how it all began on the night of Nov. 9, when
friends
Montrell Washington, 25, and
Hasan Mitchell, 20, went to see their hometown Philadelphia
76ers play the visiting Seattle SuperSonics.
Washington likes Allen Iverson of the Sixers. Mitchell
likes Gary Payton of the Sonics. Both are point guards,
both are terrific. Plenty there to argue
about.
"Hasan said he couldn't wait to see them play, to see
what Payton was going to do to Iverson," says
Washington, who works in a meat processing plant. "He
was making a bunch of noise about the Sonics at the game,
and I said it just doesn't matter,
Iverson's going to put up his
numbers."
After the game they ended up outside the Southwark Plaza
public-housing complex in South Philadelphia, where both
men have friends and family. The great sports debate
continued. "He was still making a bunch of noise, and
I was, like, Man, that's all
over with, I don't wanna keep hearing that," says
Washington. "He was, like, I told you Iverson can't
mess with Gary Payton, and like that there. Then he went on
to his other words, disrespecting me. I said, 'You say that
again, we
fight.'"
Washington says friends stepped in to separate them, but
the police say at least one punch was thrown before
Mitchell left the scene. When he returned about an hour
later, he was with his father, Isaac, and his 18-year-old
brother, Yusef. Homicide detectives say that Isaac, 46, had a gun
and that as soon as he saw Washington, he opened
fire.
At that moment, Montrell's
brother Derrick, 21, and his cousin Jameka Wright, 22, had just
come out of nearby apartments. Wright was on her way to get
some butter pecan ice cream. A bullet entered her left
shoulder and came out her back, and she crumpled. Derrick
was hit in the
chest and back and went down six feet away, near a tree. Both
were
dead within minutes, innocent bystanders snuffed out over a
silly sports debate gone mad. Montrell, who had turned to run, went down, too. A bullet went clean through
his left arm, but he would be fine. Physically, he would be
fine.
"He's grieving, and it's going to take some time,
because he never knew a simple argument about basketball
would lead to this," says Montrell's mother, Ada, 47.
Of losing a son, she says, "I'm still numb."
Montrell says he wonders what Hasan could have
told Isaac that would have induced a rage so destructive.
Philadelphia police say they have no evidence yet that other
issues played a role in the killing. They have arrested
Isaac, Hasan and Yusef, charging all three with two counts
of murder.
Just a few miles from the site of the shooting, University
of Pennsylvania sociology professor Elijah Anderson is
finishing a book entitled
The Code of the
Streets. People who feel alienated from "wider society"
create identities for themselves through money, a girl,
"or in this case a basketball player," Anderson
says. Sports is like an opiate, because it transports you
out of the world you live in. "But it's
not about the player. You identify with someone and you
become him, whether it's Iverson or anyone else. There's an
insecurity that has to be defended because your self-esteem
is often on the line." Anderson says that it's all
about respect, and that it isn't uncommon to round up a
posse to defend a family's
honor. Respect us by respecting Gary Payton. Or
die.
"Stop this chain of stupidity," says a
handwritten note on a tree near where the shooting took
place. Jameka's father, James, 49, came out of his
apartment on a recent morning, retracing his daughter's
last steps, and a tear filled his eye but didn't
fall. "So senseless," he
said.
Lionel Simmons, 29, who grew up in Southwark and went on to
play seven seasons in the NBA (he retired a few weeks ago),
knows both families involved in the tragedy. Isaac was his
barber. The Washingtons are his friends, and he has stopped
in to see how
Montrell is doing. Eight years ago when he had the chance,
Simmons refused to leave college early for the NBA. He had
promised his mother a diploma, and he went on to graduate
from La Salle with a degree in criminal justice. Growing up
in the inner city,
he says, "you want to be a part of the solution."
But he has no easy one, because there is none. He does,
however, know the answer to the question of who's better,
Iverson or
Payton?
"Who
cares?"
Issue date: December 1, 1997
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