Hunters Point, Gangland.

The events you are about to read took place 3 years ago while I was working on the set of an HBO gang series by famous producer Spike Lee. The show was never broadcast. We were working in San Francisco, in a African American community by the name of Hunters Point. To get an idea of how dangerous this place is, I will give you the information I received from the cops I was working with the day before, while working in a much safer neighborhood in San Francisco. In the safer neighborhood, the only excitement of the day was a few hispanic gang banger's knifing each other up the street, basic stuff, haha, right. The Caucasian police I work with claim they never so much as drive through Hunters Point, due to fear of being shot by, well, everyone. The production company let everyone know that they had the choice of working the next few nights, as it would definitely be life threatening. We were also informed not to wear any colored clothing. The next day we went to work at around 6PM. Not only are we in one of the worst neighborhoods in the US, but we are working nights, all night long. We finally arrive at Hunters Point, which is a community on top of a hill. We start the climb in our work truck, driving past many gang cars, getting eye fucked by everyone. Were not talking the good kind either, It's not the kind of glare you would get from a cute girl who wants to get down and dirty. Its the kind where they want your middle / high class citizen ass to bleed out on the curb from their ghetto shank or gat. I mean this literally, they wanted us dead just for driving into their territory. As we drive further to the top, we approach scenes strait out of a movie, ten gang bangers blasting rap in low riders sitting on the hood and all around the car rapping and calling each other niggers. Driving up there the first time and seeing this was one of the gnarliest things I had ever experienced. I had been in some extremely bad neighborhoods in my life, but this was the frosting on top of a Gothic weddings black frosted cake. To put it in simple terms, it was the ghetto version of Iraq. We arrive to the filming location, only to realize we are the first to arrive. We wait for about 5 minutes, and get eyeballed by everyone nearby. We decide its not safe enough to wait, so we drive out of the neighborhood to safety. When we return, we are escorted by 8 police officers with some of the crew. I feel a little bit safer until one of the cops tells me the locals might shoot someone just to say they shot someone who works in Hollywood. I laugh and tell the officer to shut the fuck up I don't want to hear that shit, as Im already fearing for my life. We get a few scenes off at the top of the hill, when a black muslim mafia group arrived that were hired to protect us. I think to myself ''the fucking mafia is protecting me, rad.'' They are packing some serious heat, illegally of course, but the officers don't care because they know their role is to protect everyone. As it begins to get dark, the tension rises, as all the nightly activity starts to become apparent. The majority of the neighborhood live nights and sleep days. Luckily, most of them are amazed and pretty excited we are there, a hollywood production in the ghetto of all ghettos. They had never seen this kind of thing, so they were very intrieged. At one point, I was wandering around, and found myself nowhere near set, and with no cops, or mafia. I was walking down the street when a young black girl approached me, around 16. I was surprised, because she was extremely hot, a beautiful girl. She was not dressed slutty at all either. We talked for a bit, and I told her to come with me back to set to check it out, she declined, as it was ''out of her territory'', and she ''can't wander over there or she would be killed''. I was shocked. So I walked her as far as she could go, and we stayed and watched from a distance, but close enough to see what was going on. As were watching, a few thugs approach us, my heart beat picks up, but its her brother and some friends, and they were cool to me. After 20 minutes or so I left after talking and telling the girl she should get the fuck out of this shit hole and become a model, because she was beautiful. She was super excited. I wandered back to set, looking at the houses, as I passes, noticing at least 30 bullet holes in each house, mostly on the doors. Literally, AT LEAST 30, and most windows were broken or boarded up. It mind fucked me. Once I reached the set, I stayed on the other side of the street, with the local onlookers. I began to talk to one of the gnarliest looking gangsters around. The scene they were filming was one dude shooting another, so after every take, the gangster would tell me, ''No no, that shit ain't how you done it, ya fuckin hold the piece like this, and ya fuckin cap that bitch nigger in the chest, fuuuuuuuuuuuck.'' Whatever bullshit he said, I always agreed with him. Who the fuck wouldn't? Meanwhile, all through the night we heard gun shots, tons of fucking gun shots, some were pretty far away, and some seemed very close. It was a war zone in there every night. The crew was freaked. So gang task force was called in to keep and eye on us as well. Now mind you, there are only about 6 guys on the crew that are white, including me, so I felt extremely out of place. If someone's going to get capped that night, I had a 1 in 6 chance of it being me. Great. Luckily, no one shed blood, at least no one on the crew. Hearing those gun shots all night though, some getting frightiningly close, I was starting to debate if working on this was actually worth the money. It turns out it was, because after 3 nights working in Hunters point, I walked out of there alive. Im one of about 15 of the only white men in existance that can say that. I know for a fact that I would not be alive today if we didn't have so many Police Officers, as well as Gang Task Force and Mafia up there with us each hellishly gnarly night.



Here is a Picture I found that gives an example of what I explained near the beginning of the story. Believe me though, this is just an example, as this picture is nowhere near as gnarly as the gangsters I saw, these look like wana be tools compared to the raw gangsters of Hunters Point.