No More Kid Stuff

By RON STODGHILL II

In the heat of summer, amid the steady thump of rap music, the folks on South Parnell Avenue like to sit on their stoops nursing cans of Old Milwaukee and watching the cars go by. There's not a whole lot else to do on Parnell, a dead-end street tucked away in the blighted neighborhood of Englewood on Chicago's South Side--especially when you're out of work and out of patience trying to find it. So residents spend their time sitting outside and getting the lay of the land by scoping out passing cars. They see somebody in an old clunker and know the rider's just scraping to get by in another low-wage gig. They spot somebody in one of those jazzed-up numbers, a sport-ute or a low-riding classic, and it's a good hunch the occupant is a roller in the drug game. In the end, of course, it doesn't really matter much how passersby earn their keep. So long as they slow down a bit when they cruise Parnell and watch out for all the kids ripping and running about.

Most cabbies don't venture down Parnell anymore. They say it's too deadly, a place where their chances of getting beaten or murdered for money outweigh the chances of driving away with a good tip. Somehow, though, the Blue Bunny ice-cream truck seems to enjoy safe passage. Every few hours, the old-fashioned white van graced with a goofy baby-blue rabbit comes rolling up playing Pop Goes the Weasel. But the trip is mostly in vain. Kids have long ago learned that a nickel in their pocket is hardly enough to purchase a Popsicle, let alone a toasted-almond bar.

Just over a week ago, seven-year-old "R." was trying to gamble his way into some extra money. The 4-ft. Jordan wannabe challenged his 6-ft. neighbor to a pickup game played with a makeshift basketball hoop fashioned from a milk crate and plywood. "R. said, 'Put your 15 up,' and he threw 15[cents] on the ground," says Demetrius Tulloch, 20. "R. was always saying, 'Put your money up.'" And as always, Tulloch let the boy win his loose change. Just around the corner at the Wash Factory, R.'s eight-year-old buddy "E." was hanging around in hopes of earning some spending money. More soft-spoken than R. but no less ambitious, E. made a routine of dropping in to help manager Shirley Blanton keep the place clean. "He was always willing to pick up a broom," Blanton says.

While the two boys were hustling up change that afternoon, Chicago police were out canvassing the neighborhood for a killer. And when they were finished, R. and E. (their real names have not been released because they are minors) would get the rap for the murder of 11-year-old Ryan Harris, whose body had been discovered in the high weeds of a vacant lot, her head smashed with a rock, her mouth stuffed with her panties. There were signs of sexual assault. Police officers had brought R. and E. in for questioning as witnesses, and when the two boys were called back, their stories changed. Under interrogation, they told on each other. The two are now among the youngest murder suspects in the U.S.

Beyond the shock that seven- and eight-year-old boys might be capable of committing such a crime, there was much hand wringing over how justice should be dispensed. "These kids have no idea what's happening to them," says Cook County public guardian Patrick Murphy. "Kids this young have short attention spans. They would tell the police anything in hopes of getting out of there to go watch TV."

For now, the boys will be watching plenty of TV--under house arrest. After two child-psychology experts testified at a six-hour court hearing on Aug. 14 that neither boy was a danger to himself or others, R and E were released but required to wear electronic monitoring bracelets around their ankles. As one neighbor put it, "They're not a threat to society. They're only kids." The judge was less positive. "These boys are charged with murder," he declared, but said Illinois law constrained him to release the minors to the care of their parents. Later that night, as neighbors thronged the street, R. was brought back home to Englewood by his parents. E.'s parents, wary of all the media attention, sent their son to relatives far away from Parnell Avenue.

While the community would mourn the death of any child, the death of Ryan Harris seemed especially tragic because she appeared to possess the drive, grace and smarts to rise far beyond Englewood or even the working-class suburb of Lynwood, where she lived with her parents and five younger siblings. She often acted as a protector and guardian for her four sisters and one brother. "If a note needed to be relayed from home about any of her sisters, she would handle it," says principal Justin Brink of W.C. Reavis Elementary School in Lansing, about 10 miles south of Chicago. Ryan was spending part of the summer with relatives in Englewood and attending a local day camp. "She was a quiet kind of leader," says Brink.

A diligent student, Ryan was also a gifted athlete and aspired to play pro basketball. She didn't hesitate to step in on behalf of others when confronted by bullies. "One time this kid was calling me names, and she stood up for me," recalls nine-year-old Wendell Brown, a former neighbor in Ryan's old apartment complex. "She chased him around the cars in the parking lot. Then she banged him against a car and twisted his arm. The boy was almost crying. He apologized to her and to me." On the football field, where she was often the only girl, she could be just as physical. But, says Wendell's 11-year-old brother Scott, "when she had her nice clothes on, she wouldn't play tackle."

Though both suburban towns where Ryan and her family resided in recent years are predominantly white and working class, the apartment buildings they lived in were occupied primarily by poorer black tenants. Still, the comparatively tranquil environs and well-maintained property are a far cry from gang-ravaged Englewood, where she was spending the summer with her godmother. Ryan, say people familiar with the situation, was comfortable hanging out on Parnell Avenue. Perhaps it can be said she had become too comfortable, too complacent in a neighborhood known for violent crime. The past few months have been particularly brutal in Englewood. In April, a four-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in a housing project. The following month a 21-year-old woman was shot on her front porch by a neighborhood thug. There is also the constant threat of druglord violence. "The bad here outweighs the good," says a cop who works the Englewood beat.

It was into this climate that Ryan pedaled her shiny blue Roadmaster bike on the afternoon of July 27. According to detectives' court testimony, Ryan joined E. to ride bikes around Paul Robeson High School and instead wound up in an alley where R. was waiting. He began throwing rocks, striking her in the back of the head, knocking her off her bike, apparently leaving her unconscious. Detective Alan Nathaniel testified that the seven-year-old confessed to moving her bicycle to a nearby wooded area and dragging Ryan there as well.

There, the assaults continued, Nathaniel testified, and the boys said they "began to play with her." He said they yanked down her panties and put them in her mouth. They also began rubbing branches and leaves around her nose and mouth. Police found pieces of leaves stuffed in Ryan's nostrils. Nathaniel testified that a half-inch gash around Ryan's genitals was believed to have been caused by a "small tubular object," later identified as a twig. According to Nathaniel's testimony, the boys admitted stashing Ryan's bicycle in a weeded lot and returning later that night to discover that it had disappeared. It has never been recovered.

Folks in Englewood generally believe that the cops have nabbed the wrong people. They are not only having trouble imagining little kids committing an act so violent but say it's downright implausible that such featherweights--the boys weigh 50 lbs. and 56 lbs.--could drag Ryan more than a foot or so. "Every kid gets a little mischievous to get a little attention," says Blanton of the Wash Factory. "But something like this--no way. Not these two little kids." Echoes Cedric, a 15-year-old neighbor: "They got the wrong two people." Family members at the crime scene say that they were initially told by police that there appeared to be semen on Ryan's corpse--which, if corroborated by the autopsy report, would argue against prepubescent boys being the perpetrators.

But there are less than saintly stories about one of the young suspects. Archildress Byrd, a neighbor, describes R., known for his neatly cornrowed hair, as a terror to other kids in the community, an intimidating force who always wanted his way. "He'd throw bricks and stuff at people," Byrd says. "I just walk past him 'cause he was just too bad." Says another: "R.'s been around adults all his life. If you heard him over the radio, you'd think he's a man. He has a real bad mouth." Neighbors told TIME that R. is a gang-banger with the notorious Black Disciples.

On the day R. and E. were confined to their homes, two detectives returned to the scene where Ryan Harris was found. "People don't want to believe it's babies [that committed the crime], but it's babies," says Detective Stanley Turner of the Chicago police department. "We don't want to believe it, but if it's true, it's true." So what were the detectives doing back in the neighborhood? "We're making sure it's airtight, that's what we're doing," he said.

For R. and E., the summer has come to an abrupt end. It's likely, though, that one day they'll again ride bikes and shoot hoops--even if it's inside a locked facility. This fall Ryan Harris was headed for sixth grade, a time when kids go to their first school dance, join in team sports and play in the band. And she probably would have continued to rush to the defense of friends. Now those friends are wishing they had been there for her.

--Reported by Wendy Cole/Lynwood and Julie Grace/Chicago

With reporting by Wendy Cole/Lynwood and Julie Grace/Chicago