A Lonely Fight Against Lawlessness

OAKLAND —  Patrick McCullough says he’s no violent vigilante, keeping the peace on his inner-city block with a bad attitude and a baseball bat.

He’s just a hardworking homeowner tired of watching young gangsters take control of his tree-shaded neighborhood in north Oakland. He’s weary of seeing drug buys in his own driveway -- cocaine dealers from gangs such as the North Pole, Stone Cold Gunaz and Bush Rod Boyz “throwing bones,” as the street parlance goes.

For a decade, the 50-year-old Chicago native has waged a lonely and often dangerous one-man battle against the lawlessness he sees outside his 59th Street home. He’s faced off against street hoods and dealers, calling police on his cellphone as the youths have stood there open-mouthed, watching, before scattering.

“I don’t go bothering people,” he said. “And I don’t get bullied.”

Yet now McCullough has gone too far, critics say. He admits that in February, he shot and wounded what turned out to be an unarmed 16-year-old Oakland youth who McCullough says reached for a gun and threatened him.

Melvin McHenry, who was shot in the arm and torso, was described by his mother, Stacy Hegler, as a normal kid and aspiring rapper who was now unfairly portrayed as a drug dealer.

The Alameda County district attorney has decided not to charge McCullough, a licensed lawyer who works as an electronics technician. But authorities are still considering charging McHenry with assault, police say.

Meanwhile, Hegler is seeking $300,000 in damages from McCullough’s insurance company.

“I’m just trying to get my son’s name cleared,” said the stay-at-home mother of four. She wants to move from her home, a block from McCullough’s. “This man shot an unarmed child.”

In a city of 400,000 where urban crime is a key concern, the case signifies more than a violent street encounter. It has spurred a highly politicized debate over how far a citizen can go to protect himself and his property from would-be criminals.

Compared to Goetz

Residents have compared McCullough to Bernard Goetz, the so-called subway vigilante who in 1984 shot four teenagers who he said had threatened him on a Manhattan subway car. Others say the self-proclaimed community watchdog has been given special treatment by the city of Oakland, which among other things is paying for a $5,000 security camera to be installed outside his home.

McCullough’s supporters include his next-door neighbor, whose son was killed a decade ago by neighborhood thugs in a case of mistaken identity. Numerous Oakland police officers and even Mayor Jerry Brown are also on his side.

“The guy’s got guts,” Brown said in an interview. “It’s darn hard when you get these kids who act as outlaws. He stood up to them.”

After news accounts of the shooting, McCullough received scores of calls and e-mails from residents, most of which applauded him as a gutsy urban crusader.

“My neighborhood community is outraged by what happened to you,” one wrote. “We are fighting the same battle with you. You are not alone and have many friends and supporters.... You’re a good man, Patrick.”

A woman who identified herself as a “fellow gun owner” wrote: “I am sorry you are under so much pressure right now for doing the right thing.”

Many sent donations, and a resident in a nearby upper-class neighborhood threw a party in McCullough’s honor. People offered to drive past his house at night to check on the homeowner, his wife and their 8-year-old son.

But not everyone is supportive.

“No guns!!! Not in my neighborhood,” wrote a resident on McCullough’s block. “Prosecute fully all who use them. McCullough’s tough-guy fantasies endanger all others [here].”

John Burris, an Oakland civil rights lawyer, likened the case to that of Goetz.

“I don’t like the notion that he’s perceived as a hero,” Burris said. “You can’t let people with a hair-trigger temper take the law into their own hands.”

McCullough remembers how much he liked the shady block when he moved there in 1994. But his problems began soon afterward when gang-related gunshots left a hole in his car fender. Over the years, instead of closing the curtains and ignoring such activity, he’d call the police.

McCullough described how in 2003 a youth approached him in his driveway and accused him of summoning officers. The teen, a former football player, moved closer, he said.

“He told me, ‘I’m not selling in front of your house. Why do you care?’ There was this sense of entitlement he could do what he wanted,” said McCullough, whose version has been corroborated by Oakland police.

Drawing on his Navy training and experience growing up in Chicago public housing, McCullough said, he watched the man’s hands. When he thought the youth was reaching inside his pocket, possibly for a weapon, McCullough punched him. Three youths then beat up McCullough, sending him to the hospital.

The incident didn’t deter either McCullough or his wife, Daphne, a lawyer who runs a small family business. Both still call police whenever they see illegal activity.

The couple’s tenacity inspired a group of neighbors, who helped evict two homeowners who had allowed drugs to be sold from their homes.

In an e-mail to supporters, McCullough explained: “If I see dope dealers plying their trade or just hanging out, I KNOW I have the right to stand within a few feet of them and take their picture while I wait for [police]. I know most people won’t consider such a thing, but I have never thought or acted like a coward either. It may be unsafe, but being a coward whose life is directed by thugs seems an awful way to grow old.”

He asked residents to understand the difference “between a lawful-acting man and a vigilante. I’m a MAN, not a mouse nor a vigilante. I’m not looking for medals, just a safe neighborhood and a peaceful existence.”

Walking his block one recent morning, McCullough is deceptively easygoing. He shouts hello to a passing teen. “Hey, good to see you, brother.” Then he says: “He’s one of the good kids on the block.”

‘That Tunnel Vision’

Known as “Smiley” as a youth, McCullough has his limits when people make him angry. Years ago, said his wife, he chased a motorist who had flipped him off. “He can get that tunnel vision,” she said. “Things can go haywire.”

One night last fall, things went haywire. Someone threw a chunk of mortar through the couple’s living room picture window. Then, in February, as he was leaving his house, McCullough was approached by about a dozen youths, one of whom shouted: “There’s the snitch!”

McCullough told police he was surrounded and that he then saw one of the youths reach for a gun in another’s waistband. That’s when he fired a single shot from a handgun that he said he had carried under his arm that evening.

Police say that at the time of the shooting, McCullough did not have a concealed-weapon permit. Though such a permit is not necessary for a weapon used inside a resident’s home, McCullough fired the gun in his front yard. After considering such evidence, prosecutors still decided not to charge McCullough, they said.

In an e-mail to friends, McCullough later appeared to brag: “I’m not out here trying to be a bullet stopper.” He referred to McHenry as “the guy who now has a fresh hole in his flesh.”

Now drug dealers have warned McCullough to move, police say. The city has stepped in to help the watchdog.

“You’ve got a citizen who will stand up to these people the way ordinary citizens won’t,” said Oakland Police Lt. Lawrence Green. “He was doing his part and then the situation got messy. We needed to back him up.”

As authorities weighed whether to charge McCullough, police used a community website to encourage residents to call Oakland prosecutors on the homeowner’s behalf. The city manager approved the installation of an Internet-based security system outside McCullough’s home, Green said.

Police increased patrols in McCullough’s neighborhood, and he is being represented free of charge by lawyers who regularly work with the Oakland police union.

City officials also agreed to remove a clause from the McCulloughs’ first-time buyer’s agreement if they moved by the end of May. Under the contract, which they signed in 1994, the couple would have had to forfeit half their equity if they sold within 20 years.

After investing nearly 11 years in his neighborhood, McCullough now wants to move. And police agree. Said Green: “Sometime -- tomorrow, in two months or two years -- somebody will see opportunity and act on it. There’s too much riffraff and hardened criminals with chips on their shoulders.”

Neighbor Melvin Simpkins, who lost his son to gang violence, wants McCullough to stay.

“If I had a son his age, I’d want him to stand up for his rights,” said the 65-year-old grandfather. “If he left now, it would be very sad. It would be disgusting.”

But Daphne McCullough said she was “not going to be evicted by a bunch of drug dealers. These kids don’t even pay taxes. They don’t know what hard work it is to pay a mortgage.”

For weeks, the McCulloughs fought over whether to move. Then Daphne hung a message in her front window: “I am not moving.”

But residents are continuing their war of words.

One woman criticized Oakland police for advising McCullough to move.

“The drug dealing goes on at 59th and Shattuck all afternoon and into the night, and it’s always the same group of scum,” she wrote in an e-mail. “One civilian has the guts to stand up to these punks and now HE is in trouble, and the cops are advising HIM to move out of the neighborhood.... If I had a dollar for every time I have fantasized taking an Uzi and mowing down the drug-dealing creeps on the corner, I’d be rich.”

Last week, a dozen African American activists picketed on McCullough’s block, calling him a police informant and a lackey for white home buyers in the neighborhood.

As police looked on, one activist held up a sign that read: “Patrick McCullough: Judge, jury and executioner. Snitch. Sellout. Uncle Tom.” From across the street, McCullough filmed the group with a hand-held video camera.

Later, Hegler’s lawyer, Ivan Golde, left the rally and approached McCullough. The two began bickering.

“You want to hurt me, don’t you, Patrick?” Golde challenged.

“Yeah, I’d like to do something you wouldn’t like,” McCullough said.

The lawyer shook his head: “You’re a sick man.”