I Make Them Understand That This Ain’t It
Told by Dimitrius Nunn
Written by Laurie Grobman
As a kid in Philadelphia in the early 1990s, Dimitrius Nunn spent a lot of time getting chased out of two parks he loved because they were in different territories than where he lived with his family. His older cousins would see him running and they knew what was happening: “They’d come towards us to protect us and then a clash would happen between both sides.”
As he got older, the neighborhood got more violent. People were getting shot regularly. It became clear: “This is what it is. This is what’s going to happen.” Often, he’d hear an older cousin yell from two blocks away, “Get the kids in the house.” Then he knew a shooting was about to happen.
He was 11 or 12 when an older cousin, his idol, was shot in the heart. A bullet pierced through his heart, his lung, and came out of his back. He survived. But Dimitrius broke down in a friend’s arms the next day. It was grief, but it was something else: “I want to make everybody pay for this. It was something like it was like an unspoken rule. That’s just what it was. Somebody that hit you, you hit them back.” That was the moment when “the streets really got a hold of me. This is the only way I’m taught, and I know how to handle the situation. You had to do it.”
In his early teens, Dimitrius, an honors student, was admitted with seven of his friends to Furnace High School for high-achieving students. But Furnace High School was in another territory. So that meant he and his friends were jumped by other teens every time they “crossed over.” They always fought back. They were suspended four times back-to-back
before the school administration told them they were suspended for a month. The school knew what was happening. Dimitrius had been arrested for fighting but the charges were dismissed in court because he’d been jumped. Still, “that really fueled the fire” for Dimitrius: “Why am I being arrested for being the one that was jumped?”
Soon, knowing what was coming when they “crossed the threshold” into the school territory, Dimitrius and his friends started the fights before they’d get jumped: “If we see you, we’re coming at you.” It snowballed from there into Dimitrius’ first “street war,” and shots were fired. He and his friends started carrying guns to protect themselves. And from there, “life just kept going and kept going. Things got a little darker.” Many, many people in his life, friends and family, were dying, some left for dead in the middle of the street: “It was just an ongoing thing in our life that we wound up normalizing. A casualty of war.” His trauma intensified.
Dimitrius worked in Philadelphia hotels. At the end of his shift, he’d “leave work and go to the streets. We’re just out there doing everything from smoking weed, selling narcotics, carrying a firearm, just the life.” They’d watch for anyone who came down the block but didn’t belong. They would do what was needed to protect themselves: “This is our block. This is our life. You’re out there with friends, and we’re just doing us. And you’re waiting in case someone comes and got weapons.”
But when his son was born, things changed: “So it was like I got to make a decision. Like I have a child to raise. And I always said that I would never be the father to my child that my father was to me.” It was also “a rule that we had growing up. It was like, ‘Once you have a
child, you’re out. You still may be in, but you’re out. There is no standing out here.’” Dimitrius knew that staying in Philadelphia meant “pretty high chances that I’m going to be spending the rest of my life in jail, or I’m going to be dead.”
With an older brother living in Reading, Dimitrius moved there in 2008. He was ready to change his life and lifestyle. He began working at the former Abraham Hotel followed by the Crowne Plaza. He had another son, and he and his wife were raising their children together.
But it didn’t last. He started selling drugs in Reading. He knows that that it “was an immature decision,” although at the time, he justified it: “I got to get the bills paid. I must take care of my kids. I wasn’t selling drugs to go party.”
Dimitrius was also visiting family and friends in Philadelphia, though he knew the dangers of going back. About six years ago, he was arrested and convicted for carrying a gun on the highway coming back from Philadelphia. He brought the gun with him “just in case.” He was not “going to go look for somebody or anything like that.” He always carried a gun to Philadelphia because a gun had been pulled on him twice while in his car in his neighborhood. Once, his car was hit by seven bullets on the side door and front windshield: “So you know had I not moved over, I would have been shot in the neck, twice in my left side, and once in the head. I mean, if you’re going to go at me, then I got to do what I got to do. It’s for protection.”
Dimitrius won an appeal and was released from prison after six months. Now, Dimitrius goes on quick visits to his Philadelphia family every now and then, so quickly that no one else really knows he’s there. And he never carries a gun. He hasn’t been in any trouble since.
Dimitrius works at the DoubleTree Hotel in Reading. He was hired in 2018 even with the gun crime on his record. He saw it as his “chance to turn things around and get back to what I know.” He loves his job: “I can’t stay out of the hotel. Even on my day off, I’m always here. It’s became a fixture of my life and I love doing what I do. I’m a banquet houseman setup. I’m the manager. We do all set-up catering. And we also help offsite a little here and there.” Since he’s been there, his mentality and lifestyle has changed. He’s also a homeowner.
Dimitrius’s two sons are 13 and 16. The 16-year-old works at DoubleTree, and the 13-year old will do so when he turns 16. Dimitrius is completely honest about his past: “I make them understand that this ain’t it.” They shared that pain. When he went to jail, “it broke them.” But he’s now an active dad. He’s raising them to be good men: “I can’t tell my kids not to do something if they don’t see me carrying it that way. I had to become the man that my kids should be.”
Not wanting to sound naïve, Dimitrius says he 90% certain his kids are not in the streets in Reading. They go to school, and they come home. His youngest son goes out a lot with the football team or his friends to the movies and the Rec Center. He plays for the Reading Youth League. His oldest son played ball for Reading high school, and now he’s going out for track team. His sons “are not involved in street life because they understand that there is a consequence.” He tells them “You don’t live by the street standards. You live by the standards of me and your mother and how we are raising you to be men.”
This is the advice Dimitrius gives to lots of kids. He cares a lot about all youth and is determined to be a positive role model in his community. He’s been involved with youth football for the past four years. He can’t officially coach due to his record, but he’s a mentor who has built bonds with kids and their parents. He sees kids out on the street. He goes to practice and checks in on the kids. He’s not allowed on the field, so he stands behind the gate and kids and parents come up to him to talk. They ask why he’s not coaching, and he tells them in age-appropriate ways. And he tells the kids they should not do what he did: “What do you want to be that guy for? The people that you see doing this stuff now, I did it when I was your age. You’re 12 years old. What grade are you in? I’ve been around this all my life and telling you it’s not the way to go.”
Dimitrius knows what’s going on in Reading. The kids “are getting so wrapped up in trying to be tough and you got to be a gangster and all of that.” But he tells them, “You don’t have to be that. At the end of the day, it’s not going to get you nowhere, but that jail cell or dead.”
Dimitrius loves being out there with the kids. And when he’s missed a game or practice, they ask him “where was you at?” He makes it a point not to miss a practice or a game if he can help it. When the kids see him and say, “Oh, that’s coach right there,” Dimitrius feels
great. Kids need mentors, and he will continue to be there for his own kids and many others.