July 15, 2002: Violent deaths plague family

One by one, young men from the Milon family of Minneapolis migrated to the Bloods gang.

They weren't all hard-core members, police say. But the violent deaths of one brother or cousin after another weren't enough to scare them into quitting.

Jermaine Milon, 20, was the latest to be killed. Stabbed in the liver on a street corner last month, he died July 7 without regaining consciousness.

Since 1994, Jermaine Milon had seen his brother Torrey buried, and later, cousins Don Milon and Tommie Milon, who were brothers.

All three street killings happened within a few blocks in south Minneapolis.

After 15-year-old Torrey Milon was shot as he stood with his bike on E. 37th St. between Portland and 5th Avs. S., neighbors put up a wooden cross inscribed, "Please, we must stop killing each other."

Nicole Milon, Jermaine Milon's older sister, said last week that the procession of senseless deaths has overwhelmed her to the point that she struggles to move forward with her own life. She wonders whether they died because of the people they hung with or whether they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"This is the last Milon that should be laid to rest because of violence," Nicole Milon said.

"I don't know how it got to four, but this is it. Something has to change."

The change may start with the 26-year-old mother of two moving out of the Central neighborhood of south Minneapolis, where many of the Milons have lived for years. It's also the unofficial Twin Cities home of the Bloods, a violent gang with Los Angeles roots, said Kevin Lazarchic, a police officer who was with the Minneapolis gang unit for five years.

Torrey, Don, Tommie and Jermaine Milon all were Bloods, Lazarchic said. That claim angers Nicole Milon, who said that her relatives may have associated with gang members but that that doesn't mean they belonged to the gang.

"They're going to run into and be friends with these guys because they grew up in the neighborhood and went to school with them," she said. "If you hung out with skinheads or punkers in Uptown, would police say you were part of their group?"

Nicole Milon said her brother, Jermaine, had had a baby boy with a longtime girlfriend less than a month before he was stabbed. He wanted to straighten out, finish his education and take care of his son, she said.

She said she doesn't know what her brother was doing the night he died. But he didn't have an enemy in the world, she said. "He was funny, outgoing; everybody loved him," she said.

Jermaine Milon wanted to make sure he would never forget Torrey, so he named his baby, Jurtorrie, after him.

When Torrey Milon was killed in April 1994, he was doing what any normal teenager could have been doing - heading for a neighborhood youth center, Nicole Milon said. Gang violence was on the rise, and she believes he got caught up in the middle of a gang war.

"He knew gang members," she said. "I think it was mistaken identity. A gang wanted somebody, and he was it."

She said that police and relatives know who killed Torrey and that she is frustrated that nobody has been charged.

"He never towed a gun," she said. "He was an innocent kid."

A 15-year-old member of the Black P-Stones gang was charged with murdering Don Milon, who was fatally shot in April 1998 in front of his apartment building in the 3900 block of Clinton Av. S., in the Central neighborhood.

The 17-year-old was a junior at Robbinsdale Cooper High School in New Hope. Cory D. Edwards of Minneapolis pleaded guilty to second-degree unintentional murder.

A group of people including Milon, his sister and Edwards had argued at Phelps Park before the shooting. Milon went home, but others showed up there on bicycles, cursing and yelling.

Milon, who was unarmed, was shot at close range in the chest and collapsed on a sidewalk. His mother, Cynthia Milon, cooking in their upstairs apartment, heard the shot and ran to his side.

"My son, my son," she cried. "Help my son. They shot him."

Tommie Milon, 18, was killed in October 2001 after he was shot repeatedly while being chased by at least three men in the 3900 block of Oakland Av. S.

It's not unusual to see several branches of a family involved in the same gang, said Lazarchic. In turn, it becomes difficult to charge people involved in gang-related homicides because those in the know are friends, relatives or gang members who won't talk to police, he said.

During his years in the gang unit, Lazarchic said, he ran into Tommie Milon "tons of times" and was familiar with others in the family.

Gangsters join for many reasons - bad home life, to build confidence, a chance to make easy money, he said.

But he doesn't think it's hard for them to break the cycle.

"They can make their own choices," he said. "Eventually gang members will meet their demise because of the lifestyle."

The Bloods established themselves in Minneapolis in the early 1990s. The gang has a strong membership but lacks leadership, and it isn't considered one of the biggest gangs in the Twin Cities, Lazarchic said.

"They do have a reputation of being ruthless and taking care of business," he said.

That characterization doesn't match what Nicole Milon says she knows about her brothers and cousins. But the family is in crisis and looking for a way deal with the hurt, she said.

"Our family is scared to death, but we're focusing on stuff that takes us away from thinking about it," she said. "We get over one tragedy, and then something happens again."

"It's hard to cry any more," she said. "We just have to decide the next best move for our family."