'Texas in Queens': Junior wranglers find refuge with black cowboys - CNN.com: NEW YORK (CNN) -- Boney D and Rabbit come from rough parts of Brooklyn, places that could be unfavorably compared to the Wild West.
You wouldn't expect that they'd escape their environments at a rugged 25-acre ranch in nearby Queens, riding horses and hanging out with cowboys.
'I've seen a guy get shot dead, point [blank] range, right in front of me -- dropped him, boom,' D'vonte 'Boney D' Jemmott, 15, said of the neighborhood where he grew up. 'I've seen dudes get beat up, chased home, all sorts of things. I've seen all sorts of different drugs being ran around.
'If I wasn't down here,' he said, 'I'd probably be involved with things like that -- robbing people, probably hurting people -- because I've seen a lot of that stuff done around my way.'
Jemmott's mother has been taking him to Cedar Lane Stables since he was a toddler. The Federation of Black Cowboys, founded in 1994, has called Cedar Lane home since 1998.
