I've seen many fights start in the hood over eye contact and other nonverbal dominance cues. Funny story-- once when my friend (white like me) intentionally made prolonged eye contact with giant homeboy with two of his crew in East Cleveland outside of store like this,who then took a sucker punch at him immediately. Of course we were very good mixed martial artists, so friend slipped the punch, and 300 pound homeboy went down quick and painfully while being taunted and cursed for good measure. Cop showed up, was afraid of major riot, took my friend aside, and quietly told him, "He said you started it by staring at him, I should take YOU in, you know better-- you don't ever stare at these guys". My friend said, VERY loudly "I'm gonna call my lawyer and tell him a cop just told me it's against the law to look a (N-word) in the eye in Cleveland" --the perp and all his homies could hear him and started going nuts. Cop said, to my friend, "Get the H*** out of here and don't come back, because I will be looking for you." Found out where police loyalties lie, with covering their rear end. I thought the homies were going to burn the store down, but I will say that having lived in hoods during college and grad school, I feel like I developed an understanding of the "rules" these tribals live by.
Same here... different tribe (Newark), but still... they is all the same.