On this Palm Sunday I think about my entrance back into
street life 12 years ago and how I could have been crucified 3 years ago. I don’t talk much about my reentry into this
life but I’ll open that door just a bit today.
July 2001 was a hot summer with lots of opportunities on the
rise I was hosting two people from the BBC here in Chicago for a documentary that
the BBC wanted to do on street gangs in Chicago. Brothers on top wanted something different
they were tired of the age old gang fights.
My voice within the Nation was growing stronger and several of the real
old timers were convinced that Peace was going to be headed by us, the Almighty
Latin King Nation.
Early June the head of another gang was released on parole
after doing over 15 years and the very day he is released he holds a meeting
out in the open and announces that he declares war on the Latin Kings
(LK.) This information was passed on to
our neighborhood because one of the older guys blood brother is a member of
that rival gang, not uncommon. So
everyone was out on the strip kind of enjoying the heat but watching the
street. Two vehicles come up the strip
and the first one a door opens and someone yells out that rivals street gangs
slogan and everyone turns to look at that vehicle. The second vehicle used the opportunity to
open fire and in a split second someone emerged from that vehicle and let loose
only one gun shot and that bullet found its way directly to the back of the
head of one of our Brothers. Both vehicles sped off and we were left with a
pool of blood.
Let me back track a bit…there was a young LK Brother that
had become a client of mine and my partner (at the time I worked for a youth
social service agency and hired one of the old Brothers) the young Brother was
wild and would do anything that no one else wanted to do. He was 16 dropped out of school his mother
would cry everyday worried that something would happen to her son but he ran
the streets running from his childhood pain.
It was tough to get him to settle down and for a time we felt as if we
couldn’t do much for him because it seemed like he was determined to end his
life on his terms. As the weeks went by
he would get arrested and beat up by the police, beat up by rivals, jailed a
couple of times for disorderly conduct, and other things. Then one day we couldn’t find him and we went
to his house the mother was crying saying that she had not seen him in a few
days and unfortunately in the hood that sometimes means you’ve been disposed
of. So we started looking around my
partner had sit downs with some other Brothers to make sure they weren’t the
ones that got rid of him and at the end of a couple of days we couldn’t find
him. Then the phone rings and it’s him he
said that he got away for a bit and needed to think about things and had
decided that he wanted to go back to school and wanted to step away from the
street for a while so he could get his life back on track. We were happy and my partner secured his safety
from the Nation to step away and gave him the steps he had to take and one of
them was to speak with one of the oldest Brothers around. That was key in all of this because that
Brother would guarantee that no one would touch this young Brother.
Back to the story line…minutes before the rivals came up the
street the young Brother was talking with his mother at home about how he was
going to step away from the LK’s and go back to school and she was very
happy. He told her that he needed to go
speak to someone about it and that he would be right back. He walked out of his house and walked half a
block to speak with this older Brother and as they were standing there the shot
rang out and that young Brother was shot once in the back of the head by this
rival gang. The older Brother was
standing face to face with this young Brother and saw life escape from those
young eyes as they left us behind to deal with the rage that would follow. The young Brothers mother heard the shot and
immediately knew it was her son. She began
to cry hysterically and people in the house were asking her what was wrong and
she kept saying that they killed her son and no one had come to the house to
say anything so everyone was confused. A
minute later one of the Brothers was at the door step letting them know that
the young Brother was just killed.
My partner and I were 20 minutes away when we heard the call
over the police scanner and when we heard it was right in the middle of our
hood we jumped on our Nextel phones and started to call the hood. We quickly learned of what had happened and
we drove quickly and silently into the hood.
Once there we take a quick look at what had happened and asked
questions. My partner asked me if I
wanted to take a ride into the rival hood and see what’s going on over
there. I knew that he wanted to exact revenge
and at that moment so did I so I said YES lets go!
We did not have a weapon on us other than our anger and
pain which sometimes can be more damaging than a bullet. I let him drive because he wanted to be the
one caught if something went down. As we
approach the rival hood he tells me about how one of our own is blood brother
to one of the main guys in the rival gang.
We start to zig zag in their hood and not a single person is out which
was weird because it was 330pm on a hot summer day…as we turn a corner we see
what we didn’t expect to see. The
brother that is blood brother to the rival is coming out of the house of the rival
gang leader and as we pass our brother noticed us and you could see the worry
in his face. The rivals start to grab
something and my partner drives off and says ‘we got this bastard now!’
Our brother was snatched off the street and questioned as to
what he was doing over there so soon after the shooting and he claimed that he
heard what happened and he was on their block so he figured he could resolve
the issue. I never found out anymore
because I refused to accept that answer and viewed him as an enemy ever
since.
A few weeks later the older Brother that was talking to this
young Brother was killed while trying to rob a house that was owned by a drug
cartel all the while the FEDS were across the street watching it happened and
NEVER called the police or ambulance for assistance…that’s a whole other story.
The older Brother had all of his family in NYC and was going
to be buried there so several of us hopped in a car and drove all night to NYC
to attend the wake the following night.
On this trip it was revealed that I was a lot more intimately involved
in the day to day communications for the Nation. Once in NYC I called the head of the city for
the LK’s and quickly we were flooded with about 100 LK’/LQ’s from all over
NY. My relationship with NYC was like
older Brother to younger Brother they loved me as much as I loved them making
NYC my second home. So what happens when
a younger Brother loves his older Brother?
They show a lot of respect and when the Brothers from Chicago saw that
they became very angry. Why you
ask? Because they were not being shown
the same overwhelming respect that was being given to me so they began to talk
among themselves. Once we got back to
Chicago I was given a choice to make either turn around and never come back and
stay out the way or come back into the fold out on the street. I had already made up my mind way before they
came to that point and I picked the street.
Why did I? At the time all of the
people that worked with me on the anti-violence stuff here in Chicago had left
and I had no other resources other than my physical self. I had made a promise to the LK’s that I would
be there for them as long as they wanted to turn over a new leaf and at that
time they did…I freely gave myself back to the streets after eight years of not
being out on the streets I went back.
I was told by my sponsor, yes there is actually sponsors
within gang life, that at the level I was coming in that there was no turning
back and that this would be for life and I looked at him and said “I will
change everything just give me time and support and I will end the shootings
and put people in school and we will be the strongest Nation in the country we
will bury our dead because of old age and nothing else!”
He was excited and so was I…September 11th 2001
two planes slam into the World Trade Center and a new world came upon us and
yes it even affected the gangs. Many
street gangs thought that the FEDS would be too busy looking the other way that
they wouldn’t notice them organizing a drug trade. What they didn’t know was that 9/11 gave the
FEDS more power to do what they do and an endless pit of money to throw at
people to create events that normally wouldn’t happen.
By 2009 my ability to control and influence positive
behaviors had diminished regardless of all the evidence of indictments and
snitches that I provided certain people were hell bent to keep going for the
negative. I’m not saying I hate the
Nation nor am I saying that the Nation as a whole is involved in the drug trade
what I am saying is that certain people with certain control within the Nation
are involved in the drug trade and are being paid to make sure it keeps going
that way.
How does this translate to Palm Sunday? It is easy to come in victory but if the
people are unwilling very few of us will sacrifice our lives for the change you
refuse to have in your life.
Will you sacrifice your own life for yourself?
Will you sacrifice your own life for others?
Who sacrificed their life for yours?
These are questions that require answers.
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
