thedrifter
12-31-08, 08:16 AM
Some find inner strength to leave trouble behind
By Ashley Meeks Sun-News reporter
Las Cruces Sun-News
Posted:12/30/2008 11:20:09 PM MST
LAS CRUCES — Those who have escaped Las Cruces' gang scene — like attorney Mario Esparza, 27-year-old Jaime Espalin and 26-year-old Marco Martinez — can be outspoken when it comes to preventing others from falling into its trap.
Jaime Espalin
"In a nutshell, I grew up just in love with the gang culture," Espalin said. He was "desensitized" to the real-life violence going on in his neighborhood in the Moongate area of Doņa Ana County. The gang rivalries he grew up around followed him to a new neighborhood.
In 1998, then 17, the street fights started up again. Espalin bought an SKS assault rifle on the streets, already loaded, for $100. He and his friends piled into a truck and made for the party of a rival gang member.
"I jumped up — I thought it was a video game — and started firing at this house," Espalin said.
Two weeks from graduating from Oņate High School, Espalin was arrested for involvement in a burglary when the police found the gun in his car. Then they showed him the pictures of the woman he had unknowingly shot and paralyzed.
"That ripped me up inside," Espalin said. "Innocent people getting hurt was never my intention. I confessed ... to everything."
In 1999, he pled guilty to aggravated battery and assault and was sentenced, at 18, to 11 years in prison. He did some time in state prison in Grants. There, he discovered his family and Las Cruces social worker Maria Stops had pressed Judge Thomas Cornish for a reconsideration of his sentence. Espalin was sent to the Glen Mills reform school in Pennsylvania. He went on to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., graduating in 2005 with a degree in social work.
That's where Sam Good, the regional coordinator for Grupo Beribazu, which teaches martial arts to adjudicated youth, met Espalin. Good said Espalin was able to connect with and earn the respect of the Oklahoma gang kids.
"When you bring in something that's structured, martial arts, they really pour in all those things that they've been denied, all that energy and emotion," said Good. "It's not any one person that can help these kids. It takes a collective effort."
Marco A. Martinez
Others have found a new "collective" in the military, like Marco A. Martinez, who left a life of stealing cars and gangs in Las Cruces to join the Marines. In 2003, he earned the Navy Cross for actions in Iraq and wrote a memoir, "Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero." Radio host Dennis Prager interviewed him in 2007.
The schools' biggest tool against gangs would have been to educate the parents, Martinez told Prager. Without that, "we thought (the older gang members) had all the answers."
"You either joined or you were just going to get continually beat up and harassed," he said.
Eventually, Martinez said, "I just got sick and tired of being a stereotype. I didn't want to go out like everyone thought I would go out, working a minimum-wage job, not going to school and being, for lack of a better term, a loser, still involved with gangs."
Martinez and Espalin left Las Cruces and its associations behind to survive.
Espalin, now 27, has the geographical distance needed to stay away from the old battles. He says kids in his position need to make a choice to change their hearts and find good mentors to help: "There is hope. There is a chance. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody."
Ashley Meeks can be reached at ameeks@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5462.
Ellie
By Ashley Meeks Sun-News reporter
Las Cruces Sun-News
Posted:12/30/2008 11:20:09 PM MST
LAS CRUCES — Those who have escaped Las Cruces' gang scene — like attorney Mario Esparza, 27-year-old Jaime Espalin and 26-year-old Marco Martinez — can be outspoken when it comes to preventing others from falling into its trap.
Jaime Espalin
"In a nutshell, I grew up just in love with the gang culture," Espalin said. He was "desensitized" to the real-life violence going on in his neighborhood in the Moongate area of Doņa Ana County. The gang rivalries he grew up around followed him to a new neighborhood.
In 1998, then 17, the street fights started up again. Espalin bought an SKS assault rifle on the streets, already loaded, for $100. He and his friends piled into a truck and made for the party of a rival gang member.
"I jumped up — I thought it was a video game — and started firing at this house," Espalin said.
Two weeks from graduating from Oņate High School, Espalin was arrested for involvement in a burglary when the police found the gun in his car. Then they showed him the pictures of the woman he had unknowingly shot and paralyzed.
"That ripped me up inside," Espalin said. "Innocent people getting hurt was never my intention. I confessed ... to everything."
In 1999, he pled guilty to aggravated battery and assault and was sentenced, at 18, to 11 years in prison. He did some time in state prison in Grants. There, he discovered his family and Las Cruces social worker Maria Stops had pressed Judge Thomas Cornish for a reconsideration of his sentence. Espalin was sent to the Glen Mills reform school in Pennsylvania. He went on to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., graduating in 2005 with a degree in social work.
That's where Sam Good, the regional coordinator for Grupo Beribazu, which teaches martial arts to adjudicated youth, met Espalin. Good said Espalin was able to connect with and earn the respect of the Oklahoma gang kids.
"When you bring in something that's structured, martial arts, they really pour in all those things that they've been denied, all that energy and emotion," said Good. "It's not any one person that can help these kids. It takes a collective effort."
Marco A. Martinez
Others have found a new "collective" in the military, like Marco A. Martinez, who left a life of stealing cars and gangs in Las Cruces to join the Marines. In 2003, he earned the Navy Cross for actions in Iraq and wrote a memoir, "Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero." Radio host Dennis Prager interviewed him in 2007.
The schools' biggest tool against gangs would have been to educate the parents, Martinez told Prager. Without that, "we thought (the older gang members) had all the answers."
"You either joined or you were just going to get continually beat up and harassed," he said.
Eventually, Martinez said, "I just got sick and tired of being a stereotype. I didn't want to go out like everyone thought I would go out, working a minimum-wage job, not going to school and being, for lack of a better term, a loser, still involved with gangs."
Martinez and Espalin left Las Cruces and its associations behind to survive.
Espalin, now 27, has the geographical distance needed to stay away from the old battles. He says kids in his position need to make a choice to change their hearts and find good mentors to help: "There is hope. There is a chance. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody."
Ashley Meeks can be reached at ameeks@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5462.
Ellie