From dealing to healing: Decades later, he’s stopping violence on streets where he was once notorious for selling drugs (original) (raw)
Clay Marquez sold drugs on Norfolk’s Fremont Street. That ended with a decade in federal prison.
Upon returning, Marquez has sought to turn the influence he said he once misused into a force for ending violence.
The now-54-year-old founded Guns Down, one of the city’s most prominent violence-prevention groups.
On most days and on many late nights, Marquez, partner Anthony Clary and their teammates — clad in blue vests — man tents set up on vacant lots. They walk the surrounding blocks of Huntersville, Young’s Terrace, Norview, Calvert Square and Diggs Town — petting dogs, sharing hugs and dapping up neighbors.
Members of Community 1st walk the streets of Huntersville to interact with neighbors and visitors in Norfolk on Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot)
They’ve been doing this since 2020 – when the pandemic kept kids out of school and drove some to the streets, leading many to face guns and drugs. And Marquez knows those influences shape kids’ decisions today. Because years ago, that’s what shaped his.
Marquez remembers moving from Norview to Huntersville when he was 13, and watching those older than him gain money and respect by selling drugs. So he did the same.
It started with skipping school and selling weed a dollar a joint for people older than him who bought marijuana in bulk. The money led Marquez to stand out as a teen and feel proud.
He helped his mother and four siblings with the rent, and for families who couldn’t afford a car, at 15 years old and without a license, he drove kids to school in cars he’d rented to evade police.
Selling weed became selling heroin. He started carrying a gun, not only to protect himself from attempted robberies, but as a symbol of what he could be capable of.
The gun changed how people viewed him — fear from those he sold drugs to, and admiration from those with which he sold. But the gun also changed how he carried himself.
By 19, Marquez said he was making at least $25,000 a day. The income allowed him to pay the difference in neighbors’ water and light bills, in the mortgages on their houses and to post the bails of friends.
“I thought the good things I did outweighed the bad,” Marquez said.
In the late 1980s, Norfolk Sheriff Joe Baron was a rookie officer in Huntersville, and Marquez was notorious.
“I used to chase him,” said Baron.
He would attempt to catch Marquez selling drugs on street corners notorious for the drug trade, but “Marquez was very fast,” Baron said with a chuckle.
“He was not healthy for the community at that time in his life when he was very young,” Baron added.
When Marquez returned to the same streets to change them for the better, Baron was surprised.
Only after serving 10 years in federal prison on drug-related charges — beginning in March 1994 — did Marquez realize the effect dealing drugs had throughout Hampton Roads.
He’d traveled to California to broker a $150,000 heroin deal with a Drug Enforcement Agency informant and was arrested in Norfolk on the morning of his son’s fourth birthday party. A week into his incarceration, Marquez’s cousin was gunned down at a gas station. He said police never found the person responsible.
“My mother told me she’s happy I’m in here (prison), so that she wouldn’t have to worry about me being out on the streets,” he said.
He still can’t shake the time a 13-year-old boy asked him for heroin. Nearly six years older than him, Marquez said he “gave the kid $100 and told him to never come back.”
In August 2008, about five years after his release, Marquez’s 21-year-old son, Monte Branch was fatally shot outside his mother’s home off Ingleside Road by a gunman in a passing car. He said police never captured the killer.
“It struck a cord,” Marquez said. “I started seeing more young men dying back to back.”
Soon after, three of his nephew’s friends, ages 13, 15 and 16, were killed in Young’s Terrace. It terrified Marquez’s family, who helped his nephew move to Charlotte, North Carolina, for his safety.
“Enough was enough.”
The spike in murders led Marquez to a 2018 meeting with then-Norfolk Police Chief Larry Boone who was pursuing relationships in the community that could help stop the violence. From then, Marquez said he “went from dealing dope to giving hope.” “You got to turn your pain into passion and keep doing the work.”
He erected 4-by-8 foot signs at every intersection that read “Guns Down” and “Stop the Violence,” with his phone number beneath.
“I wanted to be the older man on the block I didn’t have growing up,” Marquez said.
“The life you save might be your own,” read some of the signs. And Marquez said he began receiving several calls a week from people who were contemplating hurting or killing someone.
“No one else in their life would let them just talk about what they were thinking,” Marquez said. “Especially from someone who could understand what they were going through at that moment.”
Members of Community 1st take time to say hello to neighbors in a passing vehicle in the Huntersville neighborhood of Norfolk on Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot)
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Members of Community 1st take time to say hello to neighbors in a passing vehicle in the Huntersville neighborhood of Norfolk on Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot)
Seven years later, he said, he still gets calls several times a week. Many people are seeking retribution — someone they love was stolen from, killed, beaten or disrespected.
“I try to get them to understand that if they pull the trigger, there’s two lives lost,” he said. “And one is their own.”
That’s what Marquez will tell young people — he’ll take them through his own story and share accounts of what prison is like or the many things that could get them killed.
“It’s not in your best interests to be in the streets.”
He said about 10 young people are responsible for much of the community violence in Norfolk.
“The majority of the kids are their followers, looking to belong” he said. “They want to do the right thing but the pull is too strong.”
If nothing works, Marquez’s “last resort” is to “make their future real to them,” by taking a young person to a funeral home or cemetery.
“It’s your decision,” he tells them. “I can only help show you the way.”
Russell Branch, boys basketball coach at Booker T. Washington High School, grew up in Norfolk as Marquez’s neighbor and has known him since he was 7. Monte Branch was the son of his aunt.
“He always kept me sharp,” Russell Branch said. “He knew I had a chance.”
When Branch tried to join men at a street corner as a teen, Marquez would tell him to do his homework or play basketball.
“If he saw me doing something wrong, he’d tell me you know better. That kept me out of trouble and in focus.”
He said Marquez helped pay for summer training and classes while he attended Voorhees College. A decade later, Branch was returning to Huntersville after playing pro basketball in Madrid and finishing his masters in psychology and counseling.
As a basketball coach, Branch said he has seen over two dozen of his students go to college.
“Your environment and who you hang around is important,” Branch tells his players. “Who’s your mentor is more important. You need mentors not only to tell you right from wrong but to guide you.”
Marquez was there for him every day, he said. And growing up in the projects and making it out are crucial to his credibility with young people.
“When all you see are guns and drugs, you can get convinced that it’s the most important thing in life,” Branch said. “You can’t help a kid if you don’t first understand where they come from.”
Community 1st members Voscoe Daniels, left, and Randy Woodhouse share a moment with neighbors sitting on their porch while walking the Huntersville neighborhood of Norfolk on Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot)
It’s the same premise behind Community 1st.
The program was started by Marquez and Anthony Clary in 2020 to interrupt violence by supporting Norfolk youth and adults at the highest risk. The work is credited with helping Norfolk reach its lowest homicide rate in 40 years.
When asked if he would ever leave Norfolk, Marquez said “never.”
“I would be letting other people down and myself down. I’m duty-bound to make a difference while I can.”
Nori Leybengrub, 757-349-3523, nori.leybengrub@virginiamedia.com