Into the streets

The Triangle: A Year on the Ground with New York’s Bloods and Crips by Kevin Deutsch (Lyons Press/Globe Pequot, $16.95).

Kevin Deutsch is an experienced criminal justice reporter with Newsday, and The Triangle: A Year on the Ground with New York’s Bloods and Crips is the outgrowth of some long-term reporting he did on street gangs.

The Triangle is an area in Hempstead, Long Island; once a very nice neighborhood, it’s gone far beyond “blighted” as drug-running gangs shoot it out for dominance while their customers try to score and the area’s residents try to fight back. Deutsch’s reporting chops are evident, as is his willingness to immerse himself in the neighborhood. The stories he tells aren’t limited to shooters, drug dealers and users; instead, he gets inside the neighborhood to show us the range of people affected by—and, in many cases, determined to stop—the violence. The Triangle is excellent reporting and engrossing reading, with insights into how troubled neighborhoods become that way.

This story takes place in Long Island, Hempstead. The streets are Linden Avenue, and Linden Place. These make a triangle that the two street gangs the Bloods, and the Crips, have turned into a drugged infested war zone between these two gangs. The author give you a behind the scenes look at the people living in the neighborhood who can’t leave and the pain it has caused them in their lives. He also talks to a returning vet who with his PTSD, feels like he is still in the war especially after his wife leaves him. A women who has lived in the neighborhood since it was the place to be and does not want to move because she is hoping for a change. She passes away. This is not a feel good book by any means this is just a little look at what life is like for anyone throughout the country living in many neighborhoods like this one. Murder, rape, drug addiction, and many other crimes are committed but go unreported for many reasons. The author explains this in the book. This is a very graphic but true life story that has taken away a generation, and now is working on another one with no hope for change and not being able to leave the hood even when they have it planed accept for an ambulance. Be ready for a good story about real life on the streets and the author does not pull any punches when writing. A very good book that actually members of Congress should be force to read. Won’t happen. Very good book!