“Hurt people, hurt people.”
My Grandma lived in the city of North Hollywood, on the borderline of Sun Valley. Naturally, that’s where I met my homies from my neighborhood. I had two sets of friends: 'regular' friends, like rockers, skaters, and gamers, who were diverse from all kinds of different ethnic backgrounds. Then I had my homies from my hood, and we grew up together all the way from elementary school to high school. We started out as a tagging crew called Gone Wicked, Gone Wreckless, and eventually, we began making a name for ourselves. We progressed from tagging to tag-banging, and eventually became a full-fledged gang. Eventually, taggers were no longer welcomed on the streets and were being green-lighted, so we did what was necessary to adapt and evolve. To do so, certain things are required, especially from a tagging crew or tag bangers, in order to transition into a full-fledged gang. There are prerequisites and mandatory requirements to fill that spot to become official. So, that's the route we took, and we ended up becoming what we're known as today: the Sun Valley Grumpy Winos Gang.
I was kind of a late bloomer. Most kids get jumped into a gang at the ages of eight to ten years old, but I got jumped in at the age of seventeen, maybe a couple of months before my eighteenth birthday. I had so much hate in my heart and needed an outlet. I wanted a sense of belonging and family. I wanted to be loved and respected, and what better way than joining a gang? They say, 'Hurt people hurt people, and violence perpetuates violence,' and I was born out of rage. Growing up, I was stripped of all those things; I felt powerless, and there was this sense of camaraderie and power that I had never experienced before. That was my mentality when I was younger, which is different from who I am today.
Where my Grandma lived, there were no gangs; it was a neutral zone, half-claimed by a rival gang. It felt like the perfect opportunity to start our own gang. The power and respect that I've seen in that sort of environment only came from gang members, and that was gravitating. I justified it because I was abused my whole life, bullied, and picked on; I felt worthless. So, I came to a point where if someone was going to get hurt, I made sure that I was the one doing the hurting, and I would no longer be on the receiving end. The power and respect were vital for my illness. I turned all my hate into an outlet and used it as fuel for my gang activities. That's what made me so prolific at my occupation of gang banging. In retrospect, and oddly enough, the anger and hate were the instruments of my damnation and, ironically, became my salvation. The determination with which I applied that anger and hate to my gang involvement, I now apply to my education and self-improvement.
“Every person has two wolves inside of them that are constantly fighting each other—one is good and one is evil. The one that eventually wins that battle is the one you feed the most.”
My 'normal' friends knew I was in a gang because of the neighborhood we were in. They weren't naive and definitely were not ignorant of it all. It's the 818 Valley, and gang activity was rampant. It was prevalent and permeating throughout the streets. I wasn't leading a double life; they knew I had decided to join GW. My friend Jesse actually tried to prevent me from joining. He said, 'Hey man, it's a life that will only lead you to death or prison.' And he tried his hardest to dissuade me, but I didn't listen, and I didn't hide it from him. Actually, some of my gang-affiliated friends and my ‘regular’ friends, we all went to the same school; it's just that some of us chose a different path.
I would do whatever I could not to endanger my regular friends. Whenever I was with them, I would let them know, 'Hey man, you know that I am a gang member. And if I'm getting into your car, there is a chance that something might happen.' I remember this one time, it was my cousin and one of my friends. We were driving from my Grandma's, just up the street to my friend's house. I decided to leave my strap at home. I told myself, 'Nah, I'm just going up the street, I'll be fine. It’ll only take two minutes in a car.’ And I kind of regretted that decision, but I left it. At that particular time, my neighborhood was in conflict with another rival gang. We were stopped at a red light, making a left-hand turn, and I had my window rolled down, with my arm hanging out. I am basically tatted from head to toe, and I had a shaved head with my neighborhood tatted on it. While we were sitting there waiting for the light to turn green, one of my enemies rolled up to the right of me. We recognized one another, and he banged* on me. (This means he claimed his hood by shouting it, or throwing up a gang sign), and that’s when he opened fire.
I knew the life I was living; the only outcome was death or prison, and I embraced it. Once you embrace something like that, you're not really scared of dying or anything. So, I knew death or prison was coming sooner or later, but at that exact moment, what was really eating me inside was that I tried so hard not to let it affect my family and my regular friends. All I could do at that moment was put my arm up to protect my head and my knee and my leg up to try to protect my vital organs. The clip was emptied, and I ended up getting shot, and my cousin in the back seat got shot. Thank God, I brought my knee up, because if not, I think I would've been hit in the lung, but it just hit my leg. My cousin still has the bullet in his leg to this day.
The number one rule is no snitching. ‘Snitches get put in ditches.’ So after that incident, all that was on my mind was reprisal.