They jumped out and opened fire, Alex said. These are definitely the guys we’re gonna try to kill.’” “And sure enough, these guys were like throwing gang signs at us, so we’re like, ‘Alright, cool. “We were like, ‘Man these guys sure do look like they gangbang,’” Alex said. “So, the day my friend got killed, I decided to go back to my hood and take a two-minute beatdown from all my guys.”Īfter the beating, Alex said he asked for a gun and called a friend to go with him to try and get revenge for his friend’s death.Īlex said he believed a rival gang did the shooting, so he and a friend drove to the gang’s block and circled four or five times until they found a target: five men, one in a wheelchair, all wearing black hoodies and hanging out on a porch. So I guess that’s what I had coming for not being around for a year and a half,” Alex said. ‘smash on sight,’ like when they catch you, they beat you. That day, Alex returned to his gang block and took a beating from his fellow gang members. and a welding certificate.Īlex said he spent 18 months away from the gang - until his close friend was murdered.
He said he enrolled in Malcolm X College to get his G.E.D. “I was witnessing these grown men killing guys, and I was supposed to be the ride along,” Alex said.Īfter Alex served his time, the gang rewarded him with money and drugs, but eventually, he said he tried to leave the gang. But drug dealing eventually led him to more violent crimes. After that, they were in.Īlex said he started off selling drugs and used the money to help his mother pay the bills. To join the gang, he and four friends had to beat each other for about three minutes while the older gang members looked on, Alex said. “We love money, so we’re like, ‘Yeah that’s cool. One of the gang members eventually suggested Alex and his friends join for money and protection, Alex said. “Out of nowhere, we just started hanging out with a bunch of gang members, you know? It went from one gang member to four or five - and then maybe 10 or 11,” Alex said. WBEZ is not using Alex’s last name to protect his identity because of the sensitive nature of the illegal activities he described.Īlex, now 21, said his relationship with the gang goes back to middle school, when an older gang member started hanging around with him and his friends. A year later he joined a street gang - and by 13 a gang leader put a gun in his hand and deputized him as “block security.” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said officers are seeing more kids in their early teens pick up guns.Īlex said he watched his step-father get stabbed to death when he was 11 years old.
They also both expressed regret and showed an urge to turn their lives around.īut experts said turning away from gangs is a challenge for some kids. Both Alex and Jaime said they are aware they played a role in the vicious cycle of gun violence in the city.
Their decisions could partly have been influenced by violence they each witnessed firsthand, said Eddie Bocanegra, executive director of the YMCA’s Youth Safety and Violence Prevention initiative. Their stories illustrate why some kids join gangs and pick up guns. Soon their responsibilities in the gangs grew, and both said they were handed guns and told to shoot rivals. This story is part of a WBEZ project on Chicago violence that looks at who picks up a gun and why.īoth Alex and Jaime said they joined gangs because they became friends with older gang members who offered a sense of community and acceptance. Last year, the city reported 4,331 people shot - that’s an average of one person shot about every other hour. Last September, he vowed to spend $36 million on mentoring initiatives to help prevent kids in high-crime areas from turning to the streets. Stopping teenagers like Alex and Jaime from picking up a gun has become a focal point of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to curb gun violence. Instead, they joined gangs - and soon they were firing guns. They never went to prom or took the ACTs. Alex and Jaime didn’t graduate high school.
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