hub gang unit talks about life on the streets.

Wednesday was extremely warm. Flip flops and shorts warm. Ice cream cone wram. “Everyone was out,” said Officer Mark Bordley, as he began another night on patrol. His partner, Officer Mel A. Steele, chimed in: “Castlegate, Warren Gardens, H-Block.”

They distribute their cell phone numbers to the young men, let them know that they’re watching and leave them with the same reminder night after night: “Stay safe.” “That’s the way you build relationships with them,” said Steele. “Believe it or not, no matter how much the kid needs help from people, he’d rather die than ask for it from someone he doesn’t know.”

Both grew up in Mattapan. Bordley, 40, is a disciplined veteran, who with 14 years on the force knows it’s time to start eating salads and running on the treadmill to shape up for another grueling summer. Steele, 29, is still trying to make sense of it all. But he’s already mastered the art of breaking the ice with opening lines like, “Any gangstas ’round here?” Works every time.

Indeed, it was hard to imagine that the affable 19-year-old they met up with at a Dorchester Burger King runs with the vicious Morse Street crew. He smiled like a mischievous boy as he admired Bordley’s vintage military cap and declared the two of them, “five-star Gs” - five-star generals. But this kid’s been shot, twice. And the parting remarks from his friends send a chill through your spine: “We gonna drop them Ls.”
Translation: They’re going to shoot up the kids on Lucerne Street.
“This summer’s going to be off the hook,” said another teen.

That night, Bordley and Steele rolled up to the pitch-dark Warren Gardens complex in Roxbury, a threadbare housing cooperative painted in pastels that have lost their luster. It looked empty until a pair of hooded figures came out of the night, one of them towering, eyes looking straight at the cops. But instead of blasting the sirens, the cops kicked back.
“What’s poppin’ cuz?” said Steele as he approached the pair, suddenly speaking a patois that only the officers and the young men understood. “Hey let me rap with you for a moment,” Steele continued. The tall kid pushed back his hood to reveal a hesitant, almost embarrassed grin while his companion silently looked away.

“They cool right here,” the kid says. “Ya’ll ain’t like throwing us on the car and all that. Ya’ll respectful. I don’t talk to no police,” he said, confounded by his own words for a moment. “They just associates, you know?”

Ironically, many teens have come to consider them less like cops and more like another gang - a gang for good. Said Bordley, “We just tryin’ to make sure you young brothers survive.”
“Hear that,” said the teen, walking off into the night.