by Jorja Leap
“Drugs.”
Nod.
“Guns.”
Nod.
“Robbery.”
Nod.
“Rape.”
A half nod.
Tray was shot several times. At nineteen, he wound up in the ER at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, where a nurse told Tray about a gang-intervention program that recruited active gang members and trained them to be paramedics. Tray emerged as the “Earn Respect” program’s success case. He was quoted in an LA Times article about his achievement, explaining, “It’s like going from hell to heaven, all we need is a chance.”
Less than a year later, Tray was back in hell. Arrested for the attempted murder of a police officer and a John Doe—an unidentified individual. A deal was struck.
“When I went to prison, I thought I was invincible, but I wound up with two strikes. I already had one strike when I was sentenced and then I got into a fight when I was in there and then one of the guys in the fight, y’know . . .”
“Died.” I finish for him.
I keep thinking, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know. I didn’t want to associate Tray with a cold-blooded killing. But I couldn’t ignore this. The cat had dragged the dead mouse in, and there it sat, in the middle of the floor.
There is no remorse in Tray’s eyes. And he is one of the good ones. He is at least trying to leave the neighborhood. I feel nauseated.
“I was bad. I was still fightin’ demons. I just kinda went into a nosedive when I got out of prison. I couldn’t find a job, so I started sellin’ drugs.” We continue walking.
“Everything feels hard,” Tray admits while nodding in acknowledgment at a group of homies. He is a promiscuous greeter, calling out to everyone he sees. Women like Tray, they are flirtatious. They wave their cell phones at him and say, “Call me,” or roll their tongues around their lips suggestively. Several make derogatory comments about me while miming how they will provide oral sex. One is less subtle. “I will suck your cock anytime, baby. White girls don’t know how to suck cock, baby. She too small for you, baby.” Tray puts his arm around my shoulders protectively. I repeat my internal mantra: It is daytime, I am safe. We are deep in Pirus territory.
After prison, Tray wound up at Homeboy Industries. He was unusual—one of the few African Americans working at the old office in East Los Angeles. And yet his physical grace and gregarious personality won everyone over. Tray fell in love, got his first apartment, and had a fiancée who had given birth to twins on Christmas.
“I loved workin’ at Homeboy but it took me a long time to settle down. I was still with my neighborhood. I’d lie—and still bang, pretend I wasn’t slangin’ when I was, pretend I wasn’t usin’ when I was. I started goin’ to AA. I said I wasn’t going to deal. And then, you get weak. You deal, and you say, I won’t taste, I won’t do it. Then I relapsed, everything was goin’ downhill, and finally I got it! You need to be sober—because when you’re not sober, everything goes downhill. I believe now. I pray. I wanna be a good father to my girls.
“I can be at home—and I hear someone’s gonna party—and I wanna go. Then I gotta say, ‘I’m grown.’ Reality sets in—I gotta think—I got the twins. At first, I wanted to do it for other people and now I wanna do it for myself. I kept thinkin’ I didn’t grow up in a messed-up home. I was denyin’ the truth. But I did. It was a crazy fuckin’ place. And it helped me a lot of ways—I know how to survive. That’s how I feel like I know I can relate to so many people. I came from the roughest situation. This has made me the person I am today. The streets will be me.”
Tray is wistful. He talks about the father he has tried to find. He wants his daughters to know their history. But he ends our visit telling me he has “business.” He can’t walk me back to my car.
I hold him tightly and tell him I love him. He smiles, his face goofily happy.
“Everything’s a fight in my life. I’m glad you’re here.”
One week later my phone rings. It’s Hector. “Tray is gone. He was shot and killed Saturday.” There is a silence between us that is long and filled with sorrow.
In the days that follow, the story of Tray’s death unfolds in a typical manner. He was shot during the day, at a Bloods reunion picnic. No, he was shot at night, after the picnic. It was because of a fight. No, it was because the shooter was high on a combination of four tabs of acid and a bottle of red wine. No, it was because his former gang had set him up.
“I thought you told me Tray left the gang,” Mark says to me later that day when we are out walking.
I shrug, because this is impossible to explain. You can never leave the gang.
I am standing at Tray’s gravesite at Inglewood Cemetery. My paternal grandparents are buried two “lanes” away in the same “memorial park.” There is a press of people surrounding a solid oak casket with brass handles. Tray is buried in his Homeboy shirt. His mother is high and crying, screaming, “Who’s gonna be the ball bearings? Who’s gonna be the ball bearings?” It takes several moments before I realize she is asking who the pallbearers will be. His fiancée is sobbing and it looks like there are at least a hundred people representing—wearing all manner of red, from red knit stocking caps to red sweat pants and sweat shirts. The men have their sleeves rolled up and bare their tattoos—menacing and proud. There are young women dressed in clinging red jersey dresses—attire for clubbing after-hours, not praying at a gravesite in broad daylight.
I am crying and feel as if I will never stop. The homies throw gang signs and chant, “Pirus, Pirus, Pirus.”
An unidentified woman comes forward and begins to hump the casket. She is in ecstasy and as she writhes I can hear her words.
“You can never leave never leave never leave.”
You can never leave the gang.
Fourteen. Intervention
We’re the ones in the street, riskin’ our lives every night. And no one respects us, no one understands that we are out there. If we weren’t, there would be blood runnin’ through the streets.
—Khalid Washington
Gangbanging is not limited to the streets: policymakers, foundations, and law enforcement all over California are arguing over the most effective ways to reduce gang violence. Many believe that “hard-core” street intervention is the answer. The Mayor’s Office funds these efforts to the tune of $6 million, while Homeboy Industries, focused on long-term intervention, continues to struggle. I am inadvertently drawn into the fight. The first year of the Homeboy study is under way, and the preliminary data is promising. But I am also completing an evaluation for the Weingart Foundation on the Unity Collaborative program of “ambassador” street intervention, and its outcomes are strong. At this point, I am completely confused over what—if anything—is the “answer.”
As the debate rages, Julio Marcial organizes a Violence Prevention Conference for the California Wellness Foundation, with an eclectic cast of characters. LAPD deputy chief Pat Gannon arrives to describe the department’s collaboration with the Mayor’s Office gang-reduction program. Blinky Rodriguez is there—ready to talk about Communities in Schools. Julio has tapped me to head up a panel examining the effectiveness of street intervention, asking, “Do you want to come out in support of hard-core intervention or are you gonna be completely critical?”
I don’t know.
To further confuse matters, the conference opens with its keynote speaker: Father Greg Boyle, who worked with gang members before it was fashionable. Over twenty years earlier, when he started the small storefront agency that would grow into Homeboy Industries, he received death threats, not invitations to symposiums. He was accused of “sheltering” gang members. But now even the cops want to hear what he has to say. Greg doesn’t discuss street intervention at the conference. He focuses on the need for kinship and the importance of job training and comprehensive services. He is funny, insightful, and restrained. But a week later, at dinner with Mark and me, Greg is anything but.
“I think the ideas guiding ha
rd-core street intervention are ridiculous,” Greg insists while we drink Laphroaig on the rocks. He is not like any priest I have known. “Go out to anyone in their community and ask them if they want a truce with the neighborhoods so they can ‘live with’ gang members and the answer is no! No one wants to live with gangs. They want them gone from their community. No one wants to negotiate with them. I don’t know why the police advance this point of view.”
He and Mark talk at length about the law enforcement mentality, and for once I sit silent. At the beginning of our marriage, I could never have imagined this scene. Mark and Greg, independent of me, enjoy a strong bond and a true friendship. I think about how my brother Tony recently reported, “When I tell people you’re married to a cop and work with a priest, they ask me if I have another sister.” However, Greg’s words snap me out of my reverie.
“I think the street interventionists operate like a SWAT team,” he insists while Mark laughs.
“Yeah, but you gotta remember, in places like South Bureau, the LAPD has grown to respect these guys. They’ve built relationships with the street interventionists over the years. They’re not snitches—they won’t betray anyone in the neighborhoods—but they help one another to try to stop the shooting. You gotta be realistic about this, Greg.”
“I am realistic. I think the police are settling for a short-term fix instead of a long-term solution. On top of this, don’t they realize that it’s the people who’ve worked with gang members over long periods of time who are responsible for the drop in crime—this hasn’t happened overnight. And it hasn’t happened because of the interventionists.”
Everything Greg is saying makes sense, but his is not a popular view. Following the lead originally set by Ron Bergmann, the LAPD has combined suppression with street intervention, and gang-related crime in Los Angeles continues to drop. Gang violence has not disappeared, but almost everyone agrees that things are under control. Overall crime is approaching a thirty-year low. It is hard to argue with such success, but Greg Boyle does. He insists that it is a mistake to attribute the drop in crime to the efforts of the LAPD and the street interventionists. Has the emphasis on street intervention worked against real change, I wonder? Greg does not.
“We had the opportunity for real change. Here we were on the brink of tearing this thing wide open and inviting anyone with a pulse who has their life together to be involved with these folks. Instead we create this rarefied group—the street interventionists—who claim that gang members will listen only to them. What are they talking about? We shouldn’t be telling gang members to listen to someone. Our task is to listen to them.”
There is an undeniable truth to this. I practically have ASK, DON’T TELL tattooed on my tongue. It’s probably one of the reasons people trust me. I don’t want to tell them what to do. No one can be convinced to leave the gang. This lesson appears lost on both law enforcement and the practitioners of street intervention who believe outreach will solve the problem.
“Oh, come on,” Greg laughs. “Just what is all this nonsense about possessing a license to operate? There’s no such thing. You need all hands on deck—everyone helping—that’s what makes the difference. From after-school programs to job development. And everything in between—including mental health services.”
“But you have people who say street intervention works,” I counter, still agnostic.
“I think it works, but it doesn’t help. Remember, not everything that works, helps. But everything that helps, works.”
Khalid, however, has other ideas. I meet him in South LA a week later. We spend the afternoon together, kicking it, while I wait for two homies I’m supposed to interview. They never show up. Instead, I ask Khalid why he thinks street intervention is the best way to deal with gang violence.
“Whether it’s Greg Boyle or the LAPD, they don’t know what we’re really dealing with,” Khalid begins. “We got real trouble in the neighborhoods—and the only thing that is keeping the peace is the intervention goin’ on in the street. We’re the only ones these gangbangers listen to. We’re stoppin’ the violence and gettin’ the neighborhoods to practice mutual respect.”
But the exact meaning of mutual respect between gang members remains unclear. I suspect it’s the street version of a non-compete agreement. Several people from the neighborhoods have offered me their opinion that truces aren’t negotiated to keep the peace; they exist to allow gangs to sell drugs or “product” in different areas. But Khalid never mentions drug dealing. Instead, he talks about rumor control and violence interruption. But I think, Why is it that no one who practices street intervention is discussing how to help people leave the gang?
While we talk, Rashad Davis walks in and Khalid announces, “Here’s who you wanna talk to.” Rashad was once a shot caller for a Bloods set and still looks the part. Beyond this, he behaves like someone who is still active. He never wants to be photographed and rarely appears in public.
“Rashad is the real deal—he’s not one of those Hollywood interventionists—they wanna work for the mayor and get their picture in the paper. Fuck that. Rashad has taught me, y’know, operate below the radar.” While Khalid chatters away, Rashad barely speaks. I ask Rashad what he thinks, but he remains noncommittal, telling me only, “What keeps the peace are the truces.” I leave, still confused.
That night I call Celeste Fremon.
“All I hear about are the truces, the truces, the truces,” I tell her.
“What I want to know,” Celeste sighs, “is where are these truces? Has anyone seen them?”
She was right. We constantly heard about the peace treaties and truces—who negotiated them and who agreed to them. But there was never a witness, never an outside observer. The interventionists would announce that different neighborhoods had made agreements, drafted treaties, and entered into “the truce” or “the understanding.” And these agreements lasted as long as they lasted, until the violence started up again.
The next night, I spend six hours with Kenny Green, who promises to explain more about street intervention and the truces. We hang out in the Harbor—a place that sounds like a naval destination and is pretty much unknown outside the neighborhoods. Before leaving home, I tell Mark where I am going.
“That is one of the most violent parts of LA, and no one knows about it.” Sometimes it helps immensely that Mark is part of the LAPD. We share a shorthand about gang hot spots and problems.
“Did you take your BlackBerry?” he asks. When I start laughing, he becomes irritated. “You need to take your BlackBerry and you need to take identification. Am I gonna have to tell you this every time you go out?”
Every time you go out. At last we have arrived at this.
“Why do I need identification?”
“In case something happens to you.”
“I’m gonna be with Kenny.”
“What if something happens to him?”
Mark is right, but over the past few months I’ve noticed that he no longer tries to stop me from going out. He tries not to be controlling. At the same time, I am actually beginning to delight in life at home. We have finally left Westlake Village and moved back to West Los Angeles, actually turning a healthy profit when we sold our house in the gated community. Shannon is settled into an overcrowded but diverse and lively charter school. And I am now “Mom,” not Jorja. But the streets still call me. Tonight that call takes me to somewhere I have never been—the southernmost tip of Los Angeles.
Kenny is my guide, as he has been for so many years. He is over six feet tall, with high cheekbones, copper-colored skin, and an arresting presence. His charisma is matched by his intellectual curiosity. The latter leads him to routinely travel beyond the hood, to cultural events. Two nights before, he had texted me from Royce Hall: “@ UCLA listening 2 Deepak Chopra.” Kenny was once an active gang member, but he talks very little about his former life in the Harbor area. Occasionally his rage flares and I witness traces of the past. “Kenny was a badass,” a te
n-year-old homie once told me. “I wonder why he left the neighborhood.”
But Kenny and I rarely talk about the past. He is consumed with changing the lives of the “little homies” that he sees. While he left his neighborhood a decade ago, he lives in the same area, working as an interventionist and all around go-to guy for social services. If someone has a job interview or needs tattoo removal, Kenny delivers them to their appointment.
We drive around late at night, through different areas, stopping occasionally to talk with homies. Prostitutes flirt with Kenny shamelessly. There are also more reserved figures—including Pelham.
“You’ll find out that people go around sayin’ that Pelham is responsible for most of the product in the area—and his family has been doin’ this for a long time,” Kenny says as he introduces me to a nondescript African American man in his early forties who could pass for a thin, wiry basketball coach. Kenny doesn’t talk but I already know that Pelham sells crack cocaine, and “special” customers can drive down an alley and pick up their order at an open window. A little after 11:00 p.m. on this particular night, I watch the In-N-Out Burger of crack. While I sit with Kenny, three BMWs make the trip down the alley, and I think of my cousin Nick. The scene lends new meaning to the term “drive-thru.”
“That’s for the large orders,” Pelham tells me. “For the smaller orders, I have runners.” The runners are young, and on cue, one walks up to Pelham, Kenny, and me. He eyes me suspiciously.
“We don’t like outsiders here,” the little homie warns. “We steal their money, we beat them up.”
Kenny starts laughing. “Listen to this youngster. He sounds just like me. I used to do the same thing when I was his age.”
“Quiet down, boy. She’s a friend. She’s coo’,” Pelham explains.
There is an unspoken question and it’s always the same: Is she police? Kenny, just like Big Mike, vouches for my credibility. He knows I will never reveal anything I hear on the street, with one exception: child abuse.