Street Roots • May 6-12, 2016
Special Report
Page 7
------------------------------------------------------------------ IN TOO DEEP
LUIS
“I started changing. I started getting
more (material items), and my grandma
would ask me, ‘How you doing this?’ and I
wouldn’t say nothing, and as I got older,
she figured stuff out.
“She’d always speak her mind, but there
was nothing she could really do. She would
say, ‘You gotta move out!’”
“I always wanted nice things, but I didn’t
like to ask, so I just started doing my own
thing so I could get it myself.
“The idea of working a job wasn’t
appealing at that time and age. You’re
young, so you want to have fun.
“I was raised around all the gang stuff,
all my uncles, everyone in prison. Honestly,
the only reason I never joined one was
because they were all locked up. We just
started getting into drugs, selling and stuff.
In 2010, when he was 16, Luis and his
accomplices robbed three other youths, taking
their marijuana at a public park. The incident
came out later as a bargaining tool when one
of the three youths they had robbed got into
trouble, he said.
Luis was arrested when he was 18 and was
found guilty of first-degree robbery in
Multnomah County.
“I didn’t really have a big circle, when
events like this took place, it was a small
circle, it was all about loyalty, understanding
that if this is the type of lifestyle you want to
live - a fast lifestyle - this is what comes
with it.”
Back then, he said, he didn’t see any other
paths he could take.
TREI
“I just had a baby. I got a kid, you know,
times was rough. I was doing everything in
my power to provide, and my mom, she
wasn’t really the open arms (type). She
gotta get out; she gotta get it too. She got
like six kids, not counting me, so it’s like, ‘I
can’t take on another one.’ So I was like,
whatever, shot her the middle finger and
went about my business, selling dope. It was
just the way to go - robbing people, it was
just bad. At the time, my life was pretty bad.
“All I could think about was like, I was a
baby that had a baby. I was 15 turning 16.
“I didn’t know what to do, and then I
found out I had a warrant, and I was like, I
gotta go. So I got me a Greyhound ticket,
and got on the first Greyhound to Oregon
(from Texas).”
According to Multnomah County court
documents, Trei had two active arrest warrants
for robberies he committed in Texas that same
year, 2012.
“Told my auntie I was on my way. Within
a week of me getting to Oregon, I moved out
by myself. Stayed with a girl. She knew I
had a kid and it wasn’t forever, and I was on
the run. It was like, let’s party.
“I came down here with quite a bit of
money, so I wasn’t like mooching. Then my
pockets was running dry, so I clicked up
with some of the homies out here, because
I’m known all over, and I just fell right back
into it And one day, nothing specific, we
was all getting drunk, and me and one of my
co-defendants - I’m the only person that got
radshaw said gangs are often not
lucrative, despite expectations.
■
She said at the time, she thought she was
getting that respect.
"There’s the intent sometimes
that you're going to go into this
and have yonr
yens Mer
cedes and have al! this fancy
staff. In reality, that's not Irne lor
most people. There might be some
financiai gains, hut it's pretty
limited, and half the time it seems
like some of the girls they're
hanging out with are the ones
who are actually paying for their
phone, baying them clothes, and
giving them some money here and
there. Most of them aren't really
making St financially from doing
this."
“But looking back, probably not I guess I
thought people looked up to me, since I
didn’t have anyone to look up to. I wanted to
be that person that people looked up to and
wanted to be like. I was a bit of a show-off. I
had a big ego, and I still have a big ego. But
now that I look back, I don’t see it as
respect I don’t think I got what I wanted
out of it
“In 2009, when I really started getting
involved in gangs and stuff, I had this
boyfriend and we were tagging on this
school. We were stupid and we put our
nicknames on it, and the cops knew us.
They saw me and took me downtown
Gresham* and I got on probation for a year.
“In 2010 I was in (rehab) for four
months.”
caught Long story short, we went to the
store - I’m only 17, and he’s fairly older,
he’s like 24-1 gave him some money for
the drinks, and started walking up the
streets, and . seen the opposition, and he was
like, ‘Let’s kick it,’ and I’m like, ‘Fuck it, we
banging right? Why we gonna stop now?’
“I just rah up ón him, ended up stabbing
the dude eight times. But that’s just the
price of gang banging. It’s like if I chose this
lifestyle, then I’m eventually going to have
to do things I don’t want to do. But since I
been doing it for so long, I became equipped
- it’s almost just Mke an instinct to just keep
doing it. It was weird - you get a gun in your
hand, you shoot You get a knife in your
hand, you stab. That’s just the way it was.”
Josefina said she started using drugs and
alcohol at age 10. She started using
methamphetamine occasionally at age 13.
Court documents tell a slightly different
story. According to reports, Trei, with an
accomplice, committed two robberies within
minutes of each other late one night in July
2012. One victim suffered a cut on his hand,
and another was stabbed in the chest, deflating
his right lung. At first he thought he’d been
punched.
JOSEFINA
Josefina said that as a teenager, the most
important thing to her was respect.
“That’s what I thrived off of, like having a
bigger reputation for myself, for like fighting
or whatever. I wanted to be known like
that”
uvenile offenders can be granted a
second-look hearing halfway through their
I
sentence to determine if they are
rehabilitated and can be released early All
four of the youths interviewed for this story
were denied this hearing, and have no
chance of early release.
Multnomah County District Attorney’s
Office recently changed its policy regarding
second look hearings Before May 2014. the
district attorney’s office unilaterally asked
youths charged with Measure 11 offenses to
waive their right to a second look hearing
during plea negotiations. Now, if youths are
charged with certain Measure 11 crimes -
there are five out of the 21 crimes that are
eligible and they plead down to a crime
that is not Measure 11. they are eligible for a
second look hearing, dependent on a list of
uentes said most of the gang-
involved girls incarcerated at Oak
Creek are there because they did
something under the influence of a
boyfriend.
■
"It wasn't something that they did
on their own. At least the ones I've
worked with. I can't think of one
girl who had gang issues who did it
on her own."
“When I got out, I was doing good. I was
sober for a few months. And in December I
had alcohol poisoning really bad, and I had
to go to the hospital, and my mom, she
couldn’t take care of me anymore, and so
she basically put me in DHS custody. I went
to court, and they told me to pack my bags,
and they put me in a program, and I didn’t
stay there, and I kept running.”
In 2011, Josefina lured a 13-year-old gang
member to his death, at the request of her
boyfriend. She claimed in court that she didn’t
know her boyfriend and his brother were
bringing guns to the altercation and that the
victim would die.
She is serving a 15-year sentence at Oak
Creek Youth Correctional Facility in Albany.
“He was telling me, ‘Set him up, set him
up,’ and I told him no, because he was my
friend, and I told him I didn’t want to, and
he’s like, ‘If you love me, you would do it.’
and that’s where he got me, because I did
love him and I would do anything for him,
and I said ‘OK.’
“Right after it happened, I didn’t want to
hang out with that crowd anymore. I wasn’t
about any of that stuff no more. I
automatically became weak, and I didn’t
want to go out anymore. I became afraid of
everything and everyone. I wasn’t who I
other mitigating factors, such as criminal
history. This change would not have granted
any of the youths featured in this story a
second look hearing.
"I wish all youth were granted a
second look," Pnentes said, "so
that they conld go in front of a
judge at their halfway point and
show a fudge what they've done,
and the person they are that day,
and have a judge snake a decision
on if they feel it's beneficial and
in the community's best interest
to spend another however much -
whether it be two and a kali years,
or 15 years, or 20 years, more. I
wish every case had that."
built myself up to be.
“I think about how (the victim) is never
going to have a birthday or Christmas, or
any holidays with his family. ! think about it
every time there’s a holiday, or on his
birthday. I think highly of him.
“I know the media made me seem like I
didn’t care, or that I was like cold-hearted,
but I’m actually'a very caring person. I care
about people and how they feel, I think I
used to be a bully because I was bullied, and
once I started realizing my patterns, like I
became - especially in here I realized that -
and I became very caring.
“People make mistakes, and some people
don’t get second chances, but I do feel bad
for what I did.”
MARSEL
For Marsel, fitting in was important, and
being in a gang, was all about the
camaraderie.
“It’s friends! It’s not even about money.
Part of the lifestyle is getting fast money,
but getting fast money and the gang lifestyle
are kind of separated, in my era. It’s kinda
like not mixing business with personal, you
know. And like, the gang is more like your
personal beliefs or your personal friends.”
Marsel got a gun his sophomore year of
high school. He traded his Xbox 360for it.
“At first it started with just shooting in
the air and then shooting at nothing and
then shooting at a tree.”
“Blit then, I started having it every day
and playing with it and doing shit with it to
get myself ready for the moment”
Did he know he’d eventually shoot someone?
“No. I mean I thought about it, like if
something happened then yeah, but it
wasn’t, Tm going to shoot somebody. I’m
going to kill somebody.’ But that’s what can
I happen and that’s what may happen,
I because that’s what this thing is used for.”
I
At age 16, Marsel shot and killed a rival
gang member at a bus stop in East Portland,
resulting in a lOyear sentence.
I
He said he pulled the trigger “to prove to
I
\ myself and to the people that I was around,
t that this is the life that I want to sign up for. ”
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“It started on the bus, the altercation,
words being exchanged, and from there, one
thing led to another. I told myself, ‘Shoot.’
And then, ‘Don’t shoot. Shoot, don’t shoot.’
I was going back and forth. Then I just
turned around and started shooting.
“The altercation, and getting off the bus,
all that’s happened, so now you just have
one choice to make, you going to shoot or
not going to shoot. I chose shoot
See YOUTHS, page 8