How do children become drug dealers and murderers? Here’s one man’s perspective

Last year for Red Ribbon Week, I wrote a series of stories about Eugene Thomas, a local resident who squandered his youth selling crack on the streets of Columbus and then served 21 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter.

Since publishing those articles, Thomas has become my “go-to” person whenever I want a deeper understanding of the criminal mindset. He’s no longer entangled in that life and now spends his days working at a local barbecue joint. He’s also a boxer and fitness trainer.

Eugene is like a walking encyclopedia when it comes to street culture. So when I began working on this week’s Red Ribbon series, focusing on the connection between drugs and violence in our community, I called on him once again.

This time, I wanted to know why so many young black males turn to drugs for economic empowerment, wreaking havoc in their neighborhoods. Police officials say there have been 27 homicides in Columbus so far this year, I pointed out, and they attribute much of the violence to drugs.

At first, Eugene mentioned the vestiges of slavery as a factor, as well as the lack of jobs in many inner-city neighborhoods. Then he said something that really stood out.

“Nobody was born a criminal,” he said. “... When we look at children coming up, in their purest form, they see their Mama washing dishes; they want to help. They don’t know that it’s a chore, it’s a task, or something you really don’t like doing.

“Just like working a job,” he continued. “They don’t know that a job is something parents don’t really care too much about. We do it because we have to earn a living the legitimate way. They just want to be like the grown-ups.”

So what happens? How do children like that then turn into drug dealers and murderers?

“This thing needs to be tore up from the floor up, as we say in prison,” he responded. And then he proceeded to explain.

Eugene used his personal story as an example. He grew up in a good family with parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who loved him, he said. His uncles played high school sports, and he aspired to follow in their footsteps.

But he was exposed to drugs and alcohol at a young age.

“I did experience seeing people drink liquor,” he said. “Before I was even into crime, it prompted me and my cousins to start stealing our great-aunt’s liquor. She was a bootlegger, and we sat around watching the older people drink and laughing at them. And so, you know, we wanted to drink. So we’d steal her liquor sometimes.

“We’re doing two things — we’re stealing and we’re getting drunk,” he added. “But we were just imitating what we saw.”

Eugene also remembered going to a corner store that sold candy cigarettes as a child.

“That was just diabolical, and sick,” he says now. “Why would you have candy cigarettes? Why would you have something like this? But that’s what I started with, candy cigarettes, and they were perfectly legal for me to buy to imitate what I saw.

“I started doing that and just gradually grew into being brave enough to puff on that first cigarette,” he said. “Kids are very impressionable. And those grown-ups, they were so much bigger than us. And we looked up to them, literally and figuratively. We wanted to do things like them.

“We imitate things and that’s good because it’s natural,” he continued. “But if it’s not properly directed, it could turn real bad. And it did that with me, just imitating candy cigarettes.”

By seventh grade, Eugene was a middle-school dropout, associated with a gang and selling drugs in his neighborhood. His experience is far too common in this city and across the nation.

As we continue this Red Ribbon Week series, we will continue to explore the connection between drugs and violence and what we as a community can do about it. I invite everyone reading this column to join the conversation on Facebook.

Eugene shared his perspective. What about yours?

This story was originally published October 22, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "How do children become drug dealers and murderers? Here’s one man’s perspective."