Research Summary Essay - Death of a Warrior

Violence and homicides have decreased since the 1990s. Miami crime statistics report an overall downward trend in crime based on data from ten years with violent crime decreasing and property crime decreasing. Based on this trend, the crime rate in Miami for 2012 is expected to be lower than in 2009. This improvement has been seen ever since the terrorist attack of September 11 on the twin towers of New York. Laws and violence control got stricter ever since this tragic attack. In the late 1990s, the crime rate was much higher and many tragedies were seen. One great example is the death of a fifteen-year-old boy by the name of Jarvis Hilbert in the year 1998.

Jarvis Hilbert was born in Jackson Memorial Hospital on August 16, 1983. He was the second youngest in a family of five siblings. He attended Charles Drew Middle School and played on the 110-pound Liberty City Optimist football team, called the “Warriors”. Jarvis’ life was mostly surrounded by violence, and as he grew up, he never had a role model in the family, he could look up to. He did not know his father (Robert Lee James) well enough since he went to prison due to desperation of financial need. Korten (1999) interviewed Jarvis’ mother Eva Hilbert, who stated, “He [Robert] started saying there wasn't enough money in the house and he wanted to get the kids presents,” (p. 5). The article continues with Korten (1999) describing the chain of events, “On November 21 at 2:00 p.m., James held a gun to the head of New York tourist Humberto Perez in a parking garage at SE First Street and Second Avenue. James, along with his brother Ralph, took $500 in cash and $9200 in jewelry from Perez, and then fled in the tourist's rented Lincoln. Ralph drove. Fifteen minutes later, when two Miami police officers spotted the car and gave chase, Robert James popped up out of the passenger side window and fired two shots into the police car's windshield. Neither officer was injured. On December 8 police tracked down Robert James and arrested him.” (p. 5).

According to Miami New Times writer Tristram Korten (1999), “An older man recruited Jarvis into the trade when he was just fourteen years old.”(p. 4). This type of business is something that always ends up in one of two ways; imprisoned or murdered. In the article, Sergeant Willie Everett gives Jarvis a lecture in regards to the drug dealing business. When Korten (1999) interviewed Miami Police Sergeant Willie Everett, he stated that, "He kept denying he sold her [Dunevant] drugs…. But we had surveillance on the place. I told him, 'If you don't straighten out, if you don't stop selling drugs on the street, you're going to get killed.' I've been in this business long enough to know that a fourteen-year-old or fifteen-year-old out on the street selling drugs is going to wind up dead sooner or later."

Frustrated over the