Yesterday marked the funeral for the sister of one of Jamal Coates' old friends. The deceased was 21-year-old Ashley McRae, and the 11 a.m. ceremony to mark her passing, held at a funeral home at 13th and U Streets, brought out a lot of crew members from nearby communities.

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Tensions among the attendees started heating up, and Coates decided to do something about it. According to longtime Ward 1 activist Bryan Weaver, he asked people to take it easy, "to knock it off."

The appeal didn't work. The commotion merely intensified, changing U Street from a hip lunch destination to a crime corridor. In fast succession, the gang hostilities produced a shootout and a Hollywood-caliber car accident. They also claimed the life of the 21-year-old Coates.

In venturing down to 13th and U Streets, Coates was about a mile from his home base. He used to run with what's known as the 1-7 crew, a group of toughs who hover around 17th and Euclid Streets NW.

Coates grew up not far from that intersection, in Jubilee Housing, with his mother and sisters. His father wasn't a part of his childhood. Into the resulting vacuum stepped the boys from 1-7. "It's easy to see why the 1-7 had such a tremendous pull," says Weaver. "Their history and influence ran deep. A lot of his closest friends were 1-7."

And Coates did stuff that gang members do. In the words of a D.C. police officer with experience handling 1-7: "He's been shot at, he's been caught with a gun, he's done robberies," the officer says, referring to Coates' teen years. "He just didn't care. His whole attitude--catch me if you can, nothing that you do is going to make me change." Another cop recalls all his interactions with Coates being negative.

One thing is for sure: Coates had trouble hiding from the cops, or anyone, for that matter. He was an outsize kid from his early teens. At 13, he was without a doubt the biggest kid on the corner. He was known as "Big Pun."

"His size, of that younger generation---he was not going to take any shit from the older guys. He had a certain degree of backbone to him. If it manifested in something positive, it was great. When it was petty, he just couldn't let stuff go," says Weaver.

I first encountered Coates around the time he had completed his growth spurt. I was doing a story on the 1-7 crew and sought out the youngster as a source. At the time, he was a runner, a hanger-on, the wide-eyed fat kid under the stop sign. Maybe he ran errands for the crew, fetching them sodas. His main job seemed to be cussing me out when I arrived on the corner. He loved calling me a "faggot."

At 15, Coates grew a beard. "The beard had a life of its own," says Weaver. "It was pretty phenomenal. For [a video], he shaved his head so the beard could have more prominence."

Five or six years ago, Coates begged Weaver to let him on the Adams Morgan Boys and Girls Club basketball team. He was out of shape and a horrible player, but his enthusiasm won over his teammates. He became the team captain, the team's "emotional leader." The team won the club tournament.

The two personas---street ruffian and team player---baffled Weaver and others in the community. "He's absolutely the most frustrating kid that I ever came in contact with," says Weaver, who took Coates and other kids on an eight-week trip to Guatemala. "He did everything to get on this trip. He went to every meeting on time---he got his passport. There was four people we took to one passport meeting; he was the only one who did what he was supposed to do."

On the trip, recalls Weaver, the other kids "all looked up to Jamal. He was the disciplinarian. He bought the kids candy after practice." Mike Taylor, a cousin, recalls of Jamal praising the trip as a turning point. "He said it was one of the best experiences of his life," he explains. "It was one of the cornerstones to him that changed his life."

Weaver insists that Coates started looking for ways to turn his life around, an initiative that started with employment. After the trip, Coates secured internships with the city's Department of Parks and Recreation. Here was a chance to get out of the neighborhood, to steer clear of his 17th and Euclid cow path.

Trouble was, DPR placed him at the Marie Reed Recreation Center---just blocks from 1-7's epicenter. Coates had requested to work at a Southeast rec center, anywhere but Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights. Back to the life. He later completed a GED program and recently volunteered for Weaver's campaign. "He was really sort of looking for something, something for him to do outside of just hanging out on the street," says Weaver.

"He went to a funeral. He just went to a funeral. You're going to be remembered as just another victim of D.C. crew violence. For him, it's more of a complicated story than that."