Shooting punctuates anti-gang efforts

When Bruce Lightner decided to launch a major gang prevention program in Raleigh earlier this year, he had no idea that he would soon get an unwanted lesson close to home.

Too close to home.

It was a reminder of how insidious the gang problem is becoming in Raleigh - and how hard it will be to eradicate.

Last month, Lightner's youngest son, Nicholas, 20, was shot four times while walking with a friend on Davie Street, near Ligon Middle School.

Two men accused in the shooting are being held in the Wake County jail on $1 million secured bond, each charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Police told Lightner the men are involved in gangs; Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue said this incident is more personal.

Lightner said his son apparently was shot in retaliation for an incident that began with a heated exchange at the Black Tie nightclub near WakeMed. The younger Lightner said one of the men accused in the shooting followed him and his girlfriend to a convenience store in Southeast Raleigh, where Nicholas claims he decked the guy in the parking lot.

The next day, by Nicholas' account, the two men charged in the shooting came looking for him on Davie Street. They stopped their car, stepped out and shot Nicholas twice in the arm and twice in the midriff before driving away.

Lightner got a call from police and hurried to WakeMed. Lightner didn't know the incident was thought to be gang-related until he asked for his son and was told there was no one under the name Nicholas Lightner at the hospital.

Lightner learned that this is a precaution the hospital takes when someone is brought into the emergency room and gang activity is suspected.

Now Nicholas is back at home. He was lucky. The two bullets that passed through his abdomen didn't hit any organs. The two bullets in his arm remain embedded there. Nicholas still wears a bandage.

But was this a wake-up call for the son of a man now described as an "anti-gang activist?"

Not exactly.

Lightner noted that his son comes from a loving home, with a father who is involved in his life. Yet gangs still hold an allure.

Lightner said his son is not part of a gang. But he's friends with plenty of guys who are.

The effort, dubbed Project Ricochet, is envisioned as an action-oriented effort to thwart gangs.

"There's been too much time talking," Lightner said. "We need boots on the ground."

Ricochet will be modeled after Homeboy Industries, a program in Los Angeles that tries to help gang members start their own small businesses, such as bakeries, car detailing and silk-screening T-shirts.

"We want to divert them from the gang life and give them an alternative," Lightner said. "If you want to avoid jail and the cemetery, and make money without selling drugs, there's a way to do that."

Of course, all of it will require the support of local government - and money.

Lightner, whose father was Raleigh's first and only African-American mayor, was the founder of the city's Martin Luther King Memorial celebration. This year, the weekend will include a Gang Awareness Town Hall Meeting sponsored by the fledgling Ricochet group.

"I got some blowback on that from some members of the committee who didn't think we should do it on the King weekend," he said. "But stepping up and solving problems is what King was all about."

At the end of our conversation, Lightner led me by car a few blocks from the family funeral home on MLK Boulevard over to Bragg Street, one of the most drug-infested neighborhoods in the city.

In an old Greyhound Bus Maintenance facility, Lightner envisions soon-to-be former gang members starting their businesses.

Getting there, he knows, won't be easy. Lightner doesn't have to look far from home to see that.