IMMEASURABLE LOSSES Social inequities, drugs snuff out Marin City's future -- a life at a time, Febuary 22, 1999 Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

IMMEASURABLE LOSSES
Social inequities, drugs snuff out Marin City's future -- a life at a time
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, February 22, 1999

(02-22) 04:00 PDT MARIN CITY -- In Marin City, the name Ronnie Small is synonymous with grief and disappointment.

It represents the torment of a father who lost a son and namesake and the wasted talents of his dead boy.

But the name Ronnie Small has come to mean even more for this unincorporated town of 3,000 people living mostly in public housing on the northwestern edge of Sausalito.

It is a reminder to everyone of how bullets can snuff out dreams, ruin lives and steal part of a community's soul.

Ronnie Small Jr. was shot seven times at close range shortly after midnight on Jan. 9, 1997, as he sat on a couch talking with friends during a birthday party in an apartment at 59 Cole Drive.

The strapping 20-year-old victim, known to his friends as ``Buff Ron,'' was a star athlete who, according to his father, was taking a year off before going to college and playing football. He was a kid who seemed to have a future in a town with few opportunities.

But the story of Ronnie Small Jr. is also

a story about the lure of guns and drugs and the isolation of a minority community in wealthy, sophisticated Marin County.

It is about a promising young man who, like so many other disadvantaged youths across the country, got caught up in a destructive lifestyle that led to his death.

As prosecutors and three suspects in the slaying prepare for a murder trial in September, community leaders are struggling against the forces that led to the tragedy.

``He had promise, but he chose dope rather than to go on to school,'' said Royce McLemore, who runs a family resource center in Marin City called Women Helping All People. ``You would think after his death that guys wouldn't want to sell this poison in their community, but it's still happening. That is what's sad.''

Some two dozen people were at the party when the shooting occurred. Investigators said four or five men burst into the apartment, yelled for everybody to get down and opened fire as Small apparently reached for a gun.

One suspect, Darrell Hunter, 24, of San Francisco, was arrested a week after the slaying, but it took Marin County sheriff's investigators and the district attorney's office nearly two years to build a case against his alleged accomplices.

Although many of the people at the party were friends of Small's, most of them refused to talk to sheriff's investigators. Some of the party-goers later revealed that they had been threatened not to talk.

Word, however, finally leaked out and the alleged killers were identified.

Last November, a grand jury indicted Iman Kennedy, 20, of Richmond; Rodwell Cutkelvin, 25, of Vallejo; and Joseph Michel, 26, of San Rafael on murder charges. Kennedy and Cutkelvin were arrested within a week, but investigators believe Michel fled to Europe, where he is probably still hiding out.

All the suspects once lived in Marin City. Kennedy and Ronnie Small Jr. had known each other since they were babies and once considered each other friends.

The elder Small's eyes well up with tears when he recalls the night it happened. He and his son were about to go to the hospital together to pick up his wife, Carolyn, who suffers from a condition that causes spasms. Suddenly the phone rang. It was an invitation to a birthday party.

``I was sitting right where I'm sitting now,'' the elder Small said recently, as he sat in a blue sweatshirt and jeans on the couch of his Drake Avenue home. ``He threw me the keys and said, `Daddy, I got somewhere to go. You get Momma.' ''

It was the last time he saw his son alive.

Small had been a sweet, gentle boy and later ``a big teddy bear,'' as several people described him.

As a 6-foot, 240-pound defensive lineman, he helped Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley to a share of the Marin County Athletic League football championship in 1995. He was the Marin Athletic League's defensive player of the year.

He was, by all accounts, a likable kid and the opportunities came flying his way. Fresno State had offered him a scholarship to play football, but to qualify he had to first go to San Francisco City College. He was also offered several jobs, according to his father.

But somewhere he took a wrong turn.

``We all loved that boy,'' said Karen Ashby, a neighbor of the Small family, ``but there's some kind of thing that makes these children feel they will miss something if they leave for a while and better themselves.''

That ``thing'' apparently was drugs and gangs.

There were early signs. During his junior year in high school he stole a Raiders jacket from a boy waiting at a bus stop and spent three days in Juvenile Hall, according to his father. Neighbors said Small began hanging around with a rough crowd, took on his new ``Buff Ron'' persona and began selling drugs.

About a month before the killing, Michel accused Small of stealing crack cocaine and up to $2,500, according to witnesses and investigators. Backed by several ``associates,'' Michel confronted Small and hit him in the face with a pistol.

Then, on Jan. 8, 1997, Small allegedly fired several shots as Michel walked out of an apartment with his girlfriend and her 5-year-old child. Nobody was hurt, but the rivalry had turned deadly.

The four suspects allegedly plotted Small's murder in an apartment across the courtyard from the party and then marched over and kicked open the door. The fatal shots were fired by a .40-caliber Glock pistol, the kind Michel allegedly owned.

Several shells from a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun were found near Small as he lay dying on the back balcony. He either walked to the balcony firing the gun after being shot or was dragged there.

Small's rise and sudden fall is an all too familiar theme in Marin City. Built in 1942 to house wartime shipbuilders, it has always been one of the poorest communities in Marin County.

The unincorporated town is separated from its closest neighbor, Sausalito, by Highway 101. But the sense of isolation isn't merely physical. Made up mostly of the descendants of shipbuilders from the South, Marin City is the only primarily African American community in the county.

While film executives, lawyers, actors and other professionals are driving up housing prices and turning nearby communities into havens for the privileged, Marin City struggles alone against problems associated with poverty.

Community leaders have tried hard to bridge this cultural divide, but the drumbeat of unemployment, substance abuse and crime keeps pounding.

``We have here a sort of museum of isolation,'' said George Stratigos, the vice mayor of Sausalito, which shares some services with Marin City.

``Just the fact that we call it Marin City shows we look at it as a different place. Conversely, there is a perception in Marin City that Sausalito businesses won't hire black kids.''

Stratigos, who is one of the few Sausalito politicians to actually campaign in Marin City, said the recent construction of a discount mall -- ``a shopping center for poor people'' -- was an insult and added to the feeling of isolation.

``When Marin City no longer has that feeling of isolation and its people begin to feel like equals,'' Stratigos said, ``then maybe we won't have any more tragedies like Ronnie Small