Originally posted by generalissimo
and whose fault is that? he has only himself to blame.
He was sixteen the first time he went to jail. A minor. They got him while he was still a kid.
18th Street is often referred to as the "Children's Army" due to its recruitment of elementary and middle-school aged youth. The gang specializes in early indoctrination to the rules of the gang with these young members, who are told that leaving the gang will result in their death or the deaths of their loved ones.
http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/2002/18thexport.html
In any case, whether it's his fault or not (and I won't argue that point too much with you), he's still my blood, and that trash was all over his neighborhood. He saw their tags on the walls. He saw their thugs posting in uniform in his hood. He grew up during the Rampart CRASH scandal, like I did, in which gangs took over the anti-gang unit and began using their police privilages to gain power in the underworld. He may have felt unsafe and needing protection. He saw images of Mexicans as ghetto trash, human rats, cowardly and predatory at the same time, ignorant and savage, and he probably interpreted what he saw as their being clever and slick, slipping by border patrol, smuggling drugs, swaggering around, full of the west coast version of Tony Soprano power that the police can't take away.
He also was a teenager in the inner city during the L.A. riots, like I was.
They messed with my family. That makes me very, very angry. Fortunately I express my anger in ways that don't send my butt to prison, but then I bet I've had an easier life than he did even with all the difficulties we went through (and they were major).
Oh yeah...these guys are also known for taking vengeance by kidnapping, raping and murdering ones' female relatives. The corpses are generally found in the desert.
Perhaps the point is that this is a LOCAL problem for me, not something in another country. One should be concerned about one's community no? They use the name of my hometown's local streets and taint them with blood and pain!
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