November 18, 2001

The Brutal Ins and Outs of a Local Gang;
Crime: Gabriel wants to build a new life for himself, but his street family would rather see him dead. 'A kid like this can't just get up and go,' one expert says.

BYLINE: TINA DIRMANN, TIMES STAFF WRITER

BODY:
Gabriel didn't flinch at firing shots at street gang rivals. He beat them bloody. He robbed his enemies, his neighbors, his own family.

But now he says he wants to walk away from the gang life in Ventura County, and that decision has turned him into a target in the neighborhood where he was raised.

After five beatings that have left the husky 18-year-old with a broken nose and bruised ribs, he is constantly looking over his shoulder. The attacks, his former friends tell him, are just a warning. They would rather see him dead. Now, Gabriel, whose full name is not being used to protect him, is scared. And he has already learned a fearful lesson: The way out is even tougher than the way in.

His efforts to break old ties dramatize the dangers and the hardships that confront many young gang members struggling to build new lives. Faced with the loss of friendships, beatings, and threats of death to themselves or loved ones, it often is easier to succumb to the peer pressure than to overcome it.

Of an estimated 5,000 gang members and affiliates who live in Ventura County, experts say only a small percentage leave the gangs while in their teens or as young adults.

"I'm not sure what's more dangerous," said Juvenile Court Judge Brian Back, "being a gang member and facing a rival or getting out of a gang and facing your own friends."

In the face of such odds, Gabriel--once the toughened street soldier--breaks down.

"They have dark secrets that they don't want me to tell," he said, wiping tears with the white, long-sleeved shirt he wears to hide the gang tattoos covering his arms.

"People they've stabbed, their drug dealing, I know it all . . . I'm in too deep."

Gang members often talk of quitting the gang life, however. But, like drug addicts vowing to quit, they often fail. Gabriel? Only time will tell how serious he really is, experts say.

So how does someone such as Gabriel break free of gang life? The best option may simply be to move, officials say. But poverty, probation terms and concern for the safety of family members left behind can make that a difficult choice.

And what can the criminal justice system--which experts say is geared more toward punishment than protection--do to help?

"Legally speaking, there's not really much we can do to assist them," Back said. "We can't protect [someone] from his former associations and it's very sad and very scary for these guys."

Often it comes down to sheer determination on the part of the gang member.

Adds Deputy Probation Officer Tony Machuca, who manages gang cases:

"People say, 'Just walk away.' But what people don't understand is that the gang is his family. And they don't take kindly to someone just turning his back on them."

The Young Men on the Corner

Gabriel was born in 1983 in one of Ventura County's toughest gang neighborhoods.

His parents, who had recently moved from Mexico, spoke little English and struggled to make ends meet. His father was restless and sometimes disappeared for weeks at a time. But he helped support the family by repairing and selling used cars.

His mother continues to work at a minimum-wage job in a restaurant kitchen. She was 18 when she gave birth to Gabriel, the first of five children.

When his father was away, Gabriel would stand in the doorway of the family's public housing apartment and wait for him to come home. From the front stoop, he could see the young men who regularly gathered on the street corner. They had new clothes, cool cars and money.

Gabriel was only 6 years old, but he knew he would be one of them.

By the fifth grade, he joined them on the street corner. He assumed the same look: baggy polo shirts, baggier pants, shaved head and brand name tennis shoes. He went to their parties, smoked their marijuana, and jumped into their fights. They called him "Little G," short for "Little Gangster."

"It was like a family," Gabriel said. "They were the friends I didn't have. Sometimes you just want to hang around with someone, and they let me."

A later skirmish in middle school with a schoolyard bully sealed his allegiance. When Gabriel came home with bruises on his face, his new friends quickly came to his defense.

"This is for Gabriel," they told his attacker the next day, blackening his eyes and busting his lip.

Gabriel pledged to do anything for his adopted family. At home, his mother saw the change. At night, she scoured the neighborhood looking for her then 13-year-old son.

"I would go to their houses asking for him," his mother said. "And they would get after me and tell me to go away."

When he did come home, his father was sometimes waiting. A large man, he expressed his frustration with his son's behavior the only way he knew how.

"He'd hit me with a belt," Gabriel said. "And those wire hangers. I remember getting hit with those wire hangers."

But Gabriel continued to build his reputation with the gang.

As he slipped deeper into the gang culture, he began carrying a .38-caliber handgun. He was 14 years old.

His actions became more daring. He once drove through an enemy's neighborhood dressed in the colors of the rival gang. Explaining they were new to the area, Gabriel and a friend lured two rival gangsters into their car, only to beat them bloody.

The gang laughed out loud and slapped Gabriel on the back when he told the story. "It just felt like love," Gabriel said.

He was about to graduate to another level within the gang hierarchy.

Until then, he was simply a "gang associate," as police call it, not an actual member. Membership was reserved for the toughest, for the most respected. And that is what Gabriel wanted--the gang's respect.

During a party, Gabriel was shoved into the middle of a gang circle. He was drunk and could barely stand as a barrage of fists came down on him until he blacked out. It was his initiation. He became one of them.

But the bar to prove himself was constantly being raised.

His first drive-by occurred after a rival gang blew through his neighborhood and fired several shots. No one was hit, but the shooting demanded a response.

From the window of a friend's car, Gabriel closed his eyes and squeezed several rounds into the air. It was his 15th birthday.

He is evasive about whether anybody was hit that night--or the half a dozen times afterward. "All I know is, those bullets went out," he said, "and they had to land somewhere."

By this point, he had to watch his back. Once, caught off-guard while eating at a neighborhood food stand, a rival plunged a knife through his hand.

Gabriel retaliated by slashing the tires on a truck he thought belonged to his attacker. But it was someone else's truck and he ended up in juvenile hall on a vandalism charge.

Police inspected his face, neck and arms for gang tattoos. There was no denying his affiliation.

"He was doing all the typical things gang members do," said Machuca, his probation officer. "The partying, graffiti, congregating on a corner, terrorizing the neighborhood."

Vicious Cycle of Payback

One of Gabriel's mentors was 17-year-old Nino, who had a reputation for violence. Nino once used his fists to nearly bludgeon to death a man rumored to have fatally shot a fellow gang member.

Another influence was the gentler 22-year-old Dog, who was growing tired of gang life and preferred hanging out and having a good time. Gabriel spent many nights watching TV at Dog's house and confiding problems he had with his father.

"You just stay here," Dog would tell him. "Any time you need a place, you have one."

In the summer of 1999, Dog was shot in the face by a rival gang member as he stepped outside his apartment. He would never walk again. Gabriel was stunned.

When Dog regained consciousness days later, he reached for his friend's hand. "Leave it alone," he whispered, knowing Gabriel wanted revenge. "Either get out of this and live, or stay here and end up in a coffin."

The next time, Gabriel was the target. Shots rang out as he walked to a local convenience store. He jumped behind a car, but not before a bullet cut into his thigh.

At home, he sterilized a spoon with a candle flame and tried to dig the bullet out. To dull the pain, he sprinkled cocaine into the wound. Three hours later, he still hadn't reached the bullet and decided to go to the hospital.

A doctor told him he was lucky his leg wasn't paralyzed.

"It was all getting out of control," Gabriel said. "Just some stupid game. I hit them, then they come back and hit us. I didn't want no payback this time."

A few weeks later, he was arrested after he walked down a street with a rifle tucked into a pant leg for protection.

His arrest--a violation of his probation--landed him in a Santa Barbara boot camp. While there, Gabriel began to rethink his life.

"I started realizing all the stuff I lost," he said. "They took all my freedoms. I couldn't go anywhere, see anyone. And my homies didn't even write me. That hurt. And I realized, they never came through for me. Not when I got shot, not when I got sent to the camp, not ever . . . I wanted out."

He returned home three months later, determined, he said, to quit his gang but frightened at what that could provoke. He couldn't just walk away. He had made a life pledge.

Ventura Police Lt. Ken Korney, who has worked with county gang members for more than a decade, has seen the struggle up close.

"If you are a gang member for five years, you don't wake up one day and say, 'I'm not a gang member anymore,' " Korney said. "It takes as much time getting out as getting in. They brought themselves into the circle of violence and they can't just turn a switch and walk out."

But Gabriel, then 17, persisted.

He spent most of his time at home. He grew closer to his girlfriend, who came from a respected family and begged Gabriel to break away from the gang. "The way he talked, the way he was thinking, I knew he could change," she said.

His friends also noticed the difference. He didn't return calls. He missed parties. "What's up with you?" one demanded after confronting Gabriel on the street. "How come I never see you any more?"

"I'm done," Gabriel recalled saying.

"You might want to think about that," his friend warned, "and you might want to watch when you're in the streets."

But Gabriel said he had compelling reasons to change. His girlfriend was pregnant. And his 14-year-old brother was becoming interested in the gang.

"I saw everything starting all over again," Gabriel said. "And it made me sick.

"Sometimes I feel so stupid," he added. "My own homies beat me up. These are people I hung out with when I was a little kid, and now they want me dead."

Possibility of Relocating

Concerned for his safety, Gabriel's father sent him to Mexico to live with relatives. But the move was a violation of his probation and he soon returned home to avoid arrest.

Juvenile justice officials argue that relocation may offer the best chance for a gang member wanting a new life. In most cases, probation terms can be transferred to other areas. And under special circumstances, arrangements can be made for someone to move out of the country.

But it requires a judge's permission.

Gabriel is unsure whether moving is the answer, even though it would distance him from danger. He has no money to support himself. And he is reluctant to leave behind his family, including his 17-year-old girlfriend and their newborn son.

Judge Back has seen many young men in Gabriel's predicament. Their situations are so complex, he said, that he is at a loss about precisely how to help them.

"We are dealing with income levels here and external obligations where a kid like this can't just get up and go," Back said. "He's got two parents working their tails off just to put food on the table. How are they going to move, or help this kid move?"

Authorities said there is little they can do if a person under attack doesn't reach out to them. Korney noted the paradox. Gang members spend their lives running from the police, convinced their gang will provide protection. But when the gang turns on them?

"That's a scary thing," Korney said. "Where in the world do you turn? There is nothing like a witness protection program, no relocation assistance. There's really nothing to transition someone who just says, 'I'm tired of this.' "

The only reason he is still alive, Gabriel said, is that his former gang colleagues are showing respect for his younger brother, who is serving time in juvenile hall on a weapons possession charge.

His brother was with gang members when police picked him up. The authorities consider him to be a gang associate.

Through letters, Gabriel said the two brothers dream of a future without gang pressures. "When I get out, I'm going to start being good so that I won't be locked up any more," his brother wrote.

Gabriel's probation officer said he believes Gabriel has a chance at making it. He said Gabriel talks about getting his tattoos removed and getting a job in construction or as a reserve firefighter.

But Machuca wishes Gabriel would find a way to move.

"Eventually, he'll have to leave, because someway or another, he'll always be in danger of getting back in the gang," he said. "Or getting hurt by them."

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: (2 photos) Ventura Police Lt. Ken Korney, left, has worked with county gang members for more than a decade. Deputy Probation Officer Tony Machuca manages gang cases, including Gabriel's. PHOTOGRAPHER: STEPHEN OSMAN / Los Angeles Times PHOTO: Gabriel, shown reading a letter, says the only reason he is still alive is because his former gang colleagues are showing respect for his younger brother, who is serving time on a weapons charge. PHOTOGRAPHER: CARLOS CHAVEZ / Los Angeles Times