Are home invasions likely to be the next copycat crime on American streets? A group of young black ex-convicts think not and tell why. PNS youth affairs reporter Charles Jones reports for New California Media and YO! (Youth Outlook), a monthly newspaper by and about Bay Area teens published by Pacific News Service.

OAKLAND -- Imagine yourself at home around the dinner table with your family saying grace over mashed potatoes, and your door gets kicked in. Suddenly your wife and children have guns in their faces and someone's making you give them directions to any and every thing of value.

It's a home invasion, and usually you hear about them in the Asian communities, Asian criminals invading Asian homes. You can't say it never happened or would never happen in black neighborhoods here, but it's not so likely, as I heard from my acquaintances, a circle of young, black convicted felons.

I asked "Dame," a 19-year-old "thug" with robbery and weapons convictions under his belt, whether home invasions was the next big criminal trend, a trend like car-jacking. Aside from being laughed at, I got a chilly response. "First of all ain't nobody in the (murder) dubbs got sh*t to take," he chuckled. "If you gon' to rob somethin' over here, it's gon' be the store or the dope spot."

Dame flashes a pistol and a smile he bought from the tooth-guy. "If I'ma rob a house it's gon' be up in the hills," he said, then assured me that he wouldn't.

Then enters "Pops," who got the name after he had his first child at age fourteen. Now twenty-one with robbery and drug convictions, Pops works honestly, but says he'd do the robberies all over again to feed his five children. "O.G.," who is with Pops and says he's eighteen but has the face of a thirty-year-old man at least, stares at me warily for a long time as I talk with Dame and Pops. Then O.G. abruptly interrupts, stating that he'd "never just run up in somebody's house," and "dares some fool to try and hit his spot."

So I asked them directly whether they thought home invasions was something black criminals would do. They didn't say it wasn't, but they did say it also wasn't something they or their friends had ever done.

"Busting in people's houses is for police," Dame says. "They're the only ones can come through my door without getting blasted." The group nods in agreement.

His sentiments were also shared, apparently, by Mr. Feng, the man who was killed after gunning down someone breaking into his home in Alamo in a well-publicized case a few weeks back. Dame, Pops and O.G. said they'd seen the story on the news. Here's what they said: "He did what he was supposed to do...It was cold but that's how it's gotta be...You gotta protect what's yours."

So these young black men were saying they have enough fear of what's unknown behind these doors, or enough respect for the sanctity of home, to know it's going to be fiercely protected.