Drive-By

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

On July 9, 1990, three teenagers killed a 13-year-old boy and wounded two others in a drive-by shooting in Oakland, California. The shooter, Tony (Fat 'Tone) Davis, was accompanied by John (Junebug) Jones III and Aaron Estill. The shooting was the aftermath of an incident the day before, when a bicycle Junebug had borrowed was stolen and he was set upon by a gang of younger boys, one carrying a length of pipe; the shooting victim, however, had not been in that gang. Here Rivlin (Fire on the Prairie) presents a full picture of the families of the three killers, all now in prison for various terms, and the Oakland ghetto during the 1980s and early '90s. All three teens came from broken families, were involved in drug trafficking and hoped for better lives. But the economy of the city was a shambles, their schools were inadequate and, in the absence of parental guidance, the force of peer pressure was insurmountable. Unlike many youthful murderers, the three were remorseful. Rivlin gives human faces to juvenile offenders who are often portrayed as stereotypes. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Rivlin, a reporter for an Oakland, California, newspaper and author of Fire on the Prairie (LJ 3/15/92), delves behind a drive-by killing of one teen by three others during the summer of 1990. Using the murder as an example, Rivlin intends to throw light on America's epidemic of youth violence. In spite of his great investigative reporting and a sympathetic portrayal of the murderers' lives, the murder is still inexplicable. The killers did not know the murdered 13-year-old or the others they wounded; they did not at first realize anyone was shot. Instead, the three boys had a case of hurt pride against another kid about a bicycle, but they never intended to murder him. How did it all happen? Rivlin piles up incriminating factors. All the principals lived in East Oakland's "killing zone," where police term murders during drug deals "victimless crimes." The public schools had failed the boys. Their families, beset with overwhelming burdens, could not prevent their boys from becoming drug dealers. Rivlin suggests that this combination, along with a setting where poor housing, violence, drugs, liquor, guns, and a lack of escape routes is endemic, makes a drive-by killing or some other tragedy inevitable. For general social science and criminology collections.Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. Lib., New York

Lillian Lewis

In a convincing portrayal of the human side of random violence, Rivlin investigates a specific drive-by killing in East Oakland and delves into the history of the four families of the young people involved. The common thread that connects the families is poverty, and Rivlin skillfully analyzes their entangled existence as a result of it. Rivlin's compassion forces readers to look beyond the crime and recognize some of the causes and effects of urban living--single parenthood, absentee fatherhood, teen idleness, guns, drugs, an inept and racist legal system, and the distorted perception of academic excellence among African American youth. Painstakingly, Rivlin exposes the circumstances leading up to the drive-by and the consequences, for the accused and the victims, of an otherwise anonymous, random act of violence. Rivlin has done a superb job of examining the many players in this drama, including the accused, who are so often left out.