That evening, in bed, I stared at the ceiling thinking about how much fun I had running with the boys and drifted into sleep knowing I’d do it again, even if they pushed us and tried to send us back to the girl side of the playground. It would’ve been such a soft and lovely ending to a nice summer day, but then I heard the sounds. First, just two pops, then several—people were shooting in the playground again.

We lived three stories up, but somehow, on yet another night of gunslinging, a bullet found its way into one of our window frames. I flipped onto the floor and heard Mama call to check that we were okay. I yelled back, but Meechie was a deep sleeper. I heard Mama push open his door so hard that the knob banged against the wall. When she closed it, I knew that he was okay.

Those gunshots summoned a predator that seemed to hunt the entire neighborhood constantly. When the block was in war, you had to first evade flying bullets. Then, if you were still alive, it wouldn’t be long before the cops showed up.

In 1988, they called it Operation Clean Sweep. It was the brainchild of the CEO of the CHA at the time, and the sweeps were conducted by CHA security guards and Chicago Police. They pretended to have the tenants’ best interests in mind, sweeping the buildings, looking for wanted criminals and weapons. They did not bring warrants. They just pounded on the door, and if tenants didn’t comply with these inspections, they could be evicted.

Mama was young, in her twenties, and me and Meechie were so small back then; I was a year old and Meechie just four. These men would knock aggressively, and Mama would open it, and half of them would rip through our place, searching. The others barked leading questions like “You’ve got a man staying here who’s not on the lease?” or “Where are the drugs?” and my young mom, alone in her apartment, terrified because it was now full of strangers yelling at her, sometimes with dogs, would plead with them while we cried, sensing danger from her reaction and the violent noise coming from sometimes seven different intruders.

The sweeps used to be random searches orchestrated by the CHA, but by the summer of 1999, the cops were in charge, and they decided when to sweep and who to lock up. They didn’t pretend to search for fugitives or act on behalf of the CHA. They came to our door, and Mama, still afraid that noncompliance meant eviction, always opened it.