Return to the Poconos

William Blankenship, a research chemist working in New York City, often thought of moving to the country for his sons' sake, but instead he took a calculated risk: he stayed in The Bronx and tried to do something practical about juvenile delinquency. He became a member of the Bronxwood Community Council, which campaigned for street lights on dark corners, provided recreational equipment for teenagers. Blankenship lost: on a Bronx street his own son was shot to death in cold blood by another youth, a total stranger. "We're whipped," said Bill Blankenship last week. "We've been caught and crushed."

Ride of the Navajos. His son, William Blankenship Jr., was 15: a handsome, blond six-footer who played football, did well in Mount St. Michael Academy, wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. He was walking to an evening movie with a friend when a gang of leather-jacketed toughs called the Navajos swarmed around, yelling: "Do you live around here? Aren't you in the Golden Guineas?" The Navajos and Golden Guineas are rival gangs; young Bill Blankenship belonged to neither. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. One of the Navajos pulled a pistol.

"Don't you point that thing at me," snapped Blankenship, bristling. The pistol was snatched by another member of the gang, Frank Santana, 17, a dark, undersized youth who yelled at his buddies: "Don't chicken out."

Santana fired one shot. Young Blankenship fell dying, a bullet through his heart. The Navajos fled, some riding away on their bicycles. Santana hid the pistol at his home and went to bed; when his mother returned to their shabby apartment, he was hungry. "Give me some coffee and something to eat," he said. At 3 a.m. the police, after questioning many youths, came to arrest him, and he confessed readily.

The Clean Dirt. Frank Santana, his two younger brothers and his widowed mother came from Puerto Rico; they lived on $158 monthly relief. Often truant from school, he was never truculent, simply baffled. His I.Q. score: a very low 69. He stayed four terms in the same class, but his teachers never considered him a disciplinary problem. A neighbor said that he was considerate: "The woman next door has a baby, and Frank would take the carriage in for her without being asked." He went three nights a week to a nearby Police Athletic League center, designed to keep boys out of trouble. He liked to box, but he was small: 5 ft. 4 in., 126 Ibs. He hoped to be heavyweight champion of the world, and he wanted to be called Tarzan. Recently, he had been insulted by a member of the Golden Guineas gang; the murder was intended to avenge his honor.

When booked by police, Frank grinned cockily; later, he was moody and scared. He said that he got the gun originally because he was afraid of damaging his fists in street fights. When he and another youth were moved from the station house, three waiting girls, about 14 years old, waved and cheered. "I'll always love you, Tarzan," one shrilled. Another one of the girls speculated that Frank might be sent to Warwick reform school. "Everybody we know is at Warwick," she pouted.

The victim's father said: "We're going to take the boy to Pennsylvania, to the blue Poconos, where he was born, and we're going to put him into clean dirt."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.