EX-GANG MEMBER ON NEW PATH, BUT THE POLICE ARE STILL WATCHING

Haunted By The Life

HIS BROTHER committed suicide on New Year's Eve; his father was shot
to death a week later.

But Gerado "Chuco" Balles could not grieve in peace.

The day after the second incident, which occurred while Balles' father
was confronting the father of a teen-ager he blamed for his son's
death, a Houston police officer pulled up to his home with a stern
warning. He assured Balles, in front of family and friends, that he'd
be sent to jail if there was any further bloodshed -- regardless of
whether he was involved.

Such hardball tactics are not uncommon for Houston's anti-gang task
force. Officers keep close tabs on gang members, tracking them in a
computer database. They often try to intimidate them after
gang-related shootings as a way to curb retaliatory violence.

The problem is, by all accounts, Chuco Balles is no longer affiliated
with any gang.

On one hand, the case illustrates how difficult it can be to leave
one's past behind. The savage beating that Balles took three years ago
when he decided to go straight could not erase the huge tattoo on his
back; it still proclaims allegiance to the Crip Cartel. When he landed
a job at Wal- Mart, he asked to work off the floor so the dozens of
other tattoos that cover his arms and leer over his shirt collar
wouldn't frighten shoppers.

But the case also raises questions about whether the police have been
slow to react to a steep, sustained decline in juvenile gang crime.
Houston's gang problem is much less acute than in 1994, when the city
was compelled to form the task force. And while authorities cite a
decline in gang-related crime of perhaps 50 percent as evidence of
success, critics argue that the force is fighting a war at a level no
longer warranted.

Charles Rotramel, director of the Youth Advocates gang intervention
program, charges that task force officers harass young Hispanics,
including many not in gangs. He says the police log their names in the
database to inflate gang activity statistics. Consequently, he says,
an entire generation of Hispanic youths is growing up to hate police.

"The message that the kids need to get is that they belong to society,
that they are valuable contributors," Rotramel said in an interview.

"The message that they get from these zero-tolerance approaches and
from total suppression is, `I don't care if you say you're gonna
change. We don't believe you. You're never gonna change. You're always
going to be worthless. You're always going to be a criminal. You're
always going to be nothing. We don't want you to be a part of society.
In fact, we want to lock you up. We think that's where you're going to
end up anyway.' "

IN THE EYES OF his neighbors in Lindale Park, a community of World War
II-era brick homes whose residents include a state representative and
a top police official, Balles -- stocky build, close-cropped haircut
and 37 tattoos -- evoked a hellish image of gang life on their street.

On nights when Crip Cartel members came over to party, Balles'
neighbors turned off lights and withdrew to rear rooms.

Neighbor Betty Davis remembers that on the night the Houston Rockets
won the NBA championship in 1995, the house was brimming with perhaps
90 gang members. She remembers that a female driver unknowingly turned
onto the street and was met by taunting kids. Davis said the woman was
so terrified she shifted into reverse and didn't stop until she was
several blocks away.

Finally, after a drive-by shooting in front of Balles' house in
January 1996, his neighbors took action. In a letter to residents, the
neighborhood association wrote, "We are living in a war zone. We have
a `gang house' in Lindale Park and once again, we must rise to the
cause."

Residents went before the City Council 10 days after the shooting,
seeking an abatement, in which the city condemns a property for
habitual criminal activity. The action would have effectively evicted
Balles and his girlfriend's family from the house.

"We're not only afraid of the deterioration and depreciation of our
neighborhood, but also worried for our lives," said Davis.

But Balles attended the meeting as well. His girlfriend's brother was
there, too, apologizing to their neighbors and assuring them that the
gang activity would cease.

"I'm going to tell you from that day on there was nothing over there,"
Davis said. "It's such a dramatic change, it was like they moved out
and somebody else moved in."

The drive-by shooting, it seems, had affected Balles, too. On the
night of Jan. 13, 1996, rival gang members stopped in front of Balles'
home and fired a shotgun into a group. Juan Garcia, 18, was shot in
the face and chest and an 11-year-old boy took a blast in the back.

Both lived, but Balles said he remembers the 11-year-old crawling
toward the front door when he picked him up and took him inside.

"There he was lying down on our sofa asking if he was going to die,"
he said. "That's it. I couldn't see any more people get hurt and shot."

Balles, now 22, gave up the gang life virtually on the spot. Today, he
is raising a family and working with Rotramel to help troubled youths.

Regardless, Houston's Police Gang Task Force continues to see Balles
as a threat. The most recent confrontation came early this year in the
wake of the suicide of his younger brother, Danny, who was still a
gang member,

A week after the suicide, Balles' father, Manuel, distraught over the
death of his son, confronted the family of a teen he blamed for his
son's death. Balles' father, who had been drinking, got into a
fistfight with the youth's father. While the two fought, the teen-ager
allegedly came out of the house and shot Manuel Balles.

The police showed up at Balles' house the next day.

"He came over here and told me if anything happened they were going to
take me to jail with my friends until they found out what happened,"
Balles said. The officer reminded Balles that he was still in the gang
database and would be arrested if there was any retaliation.

"He said I put myself in that situation, that I'm still considered a
gang member."

The episode upset Rotramel, who was there when the officer arrived. He
notes that four months have passed quietly, even though the suspect in
the shooting death of Balles' father remains at large.

"In my mind, Chuco is one of the shining examples in this city of what
we want from young people who have had a troubled background,"
Rotramel said.

"He's what we want to see, and what angers me about this situation is
that's not recognized. The assumption is made that because he was once
in a gang he will always be in a gang. That could not be more false."

ROTRAMEL, WHO has worked with youth gang members for more than eight
years, said the lifestyle no longer carries the allure it did for many
of the city's Hispanic youth. He remembers four years ago seeing kids
with some sort of gang affiliation everywhere in the city's east side
and near north side.

"You never see gang graffiti around here, very rarely. You never see
kids hanging out on the street corners around here like you used to,"
Rotramel said. "Three blocks from here there used to be a gang house
(where) any time of the day or night there'd be a whole bunch of kids
hanging out: thugged out, muscle shirts, baggy Dickies, bandannas on
their heads.

"You never see that anymore."

The Mayor's Anti-Gang Office, which began compiling such statistics in
1995, notes that gang-related crime has dropped by almost 50 percent
since then. Rotramel said he believes the decline may be even greater.

Regardless, Kim Ogg, director of the anti-gang office, said the war
against gang activity is far from over.

"I believe the city of Houston continues to have a significant gang
problem based upon the statistics and the crimes or summaries of
crimes that I review," she said.

"We have a significant problem, no question about it. It's just, I
think, that we're fortunate in that we began working very intently to
prevent and suppress gang crime five years ago.

"The intensity of the gang problem fluctuates from area to area," she
added, "and I think when citizens tell us that they're seeing a lot of
gang activity in an area, I think it's the city's responsibility to
respond."

Ogg said police have identified about 14,000 gang members in Harris
County, which is small compared with, say, metropolitan Los Angeles,
which has identified more than 160,000 gang members and logged 450
gang-related slayings in 1997. One Chicago-based gang is thought to
have 30,000 members nationwide.

Ogg agreed, somewhat, with Rotramel's assessment that gangs have lost
some of their attraction, but she believes gangs still possess one
strong incentive -- easy money.

"It's still prevalent, and where five years ago the appeal of a gang
to a young person might have been prestige, I think that may have
faded," she said. "But what has not faded, and what I think has
actually increased is the monetary appeal, the ability to make a quick
profit."

The task force was created five years ago with 60 officers. Today, it
has 149 members.

Police Sgt. Mike Craig, who commanded the Central Command gang unit
from 1994 until earlier this month, recalled that gangs had completely
taken over city parks in the city's near north side and that residents
there clamored for relief.

Initially, he said the task force's role was to identify gang members
and implement a zero-tolerance approach where the problems were the
worst.

He said he remembers gang members, at first, boasting about their
affiliations as if their numbers protected them from law enforcement.
Today, he said, they deny their membership because of the hassles from
police. Many of the remaining gang problems involve graffiti and truancy.

"I don't think it is as bad as it used to be, but it's still a
problem," Craig said. "In general, it's just not as blatant as it used
to be."

One argument for a call to re-examine the role of the gang task force
came with the July 12 shooting death of Pedro Oregon Navarro. Six
officers were fired for their role in the shooting. All six, including
a sergeant, were members of the Southwest Command gang unit.

One police official said privately that the officers should have
"counted to 10" and then called in narcotics officers rather than
taking the initiative themselves to act on a narcotics tip from a
confidential informant who was also a gang member.

Craig said the incident moved him to remind his officers of their
roles as gang task force officers.

"At least for me, as my responsibility for my squad, I'm a lot more
restrictive because of what happened with the Oregon incident," he
said.

"We're not out there looking for narcotics. We're only out there
looking for gangs and gang problems. We clarified our mission: Our
basic mission is to deal with gang problems. I do not allow my guys to
use confidential informants dealing with drugs; that's not our mission."

Rotramel said the problem with the zero-tolerance approach is that
officers are assigned to track a defined group -- known gang members
- -- and that whether anyone identified as such has done anything wrong
or wears a particular style or color of clothing, that person is
treated as a criminal.

"No matter what this group of people does, they're gonna have this
police unit on top of them all the time, taking pictures of them,
writing down who they are, who are their friends, what cars do they
drive, where do they go when they drive in their cars, everything," he
said.

"It's that if you're in this group you're going to get treated as if
you were already doing something wrong, no matter what. And that's the
problem."

GETTING A YOUNG person to abandon the gang life and stay out of it is
a delicate process, Rotramel said, because most of these kids are
filled with anger. The slightest setback can trigger their return.

"It destroys everything that we've done," he said. "We may have worked
years to get a person to a point where they make a decision like that
to get out of a gang, and all it's going to take is one incident like
that where they are put back into the gang file or they are treated as
if they are a gang member still."

Given Balles' background, his recent successes could seem
fragile.

Balles grew up in some of the most notorious subsidized
apartments and housing complexes in Houston: Northtown
Square Homes and Branch Village Apartments, known on the
street as Trinity Garden.

He has hard, bitter memories of his mother working at a
Jack-in-the-Box to earn just enough to feed her four children and buy
them cheap clothing.

"We didn't have nothing when we were kids," Balles
said.

Three weeks after Balles' 12th birthday, his father was arrested for
possession of cocaine and sent to the Harris County Jail. While his
father was away, Balles left home and moved into a small room in the
rear of a TV repair shop, where he was hired by the owner.

When Manuel Balles violated probation in 1994, he began a four-year
sentence at a Fort Stockton prison. There, he eventually joined the
Texas Syndicate, a Hispanic prison gang. The only photograph Balles
has of his father shows him in his white inmate clothing, staring
defiantly at the camera from the prison library.

The life lessons he taught were learned behind bars.

"When he got drunk, to save us, he'd tell us how people get stabbed in
there, how they raped people," Balles said. "He told us all of that so
we wouldn't go there."

By then, though, Balles had already thrown himself into the gang life.
At 12, he joined a group of neighborhood boys who called themselves
the Froggie Street Posse. The following year, his younger brother,
Daniel, joined the Crazy Crips (later the Crip Cartel) and Balles
joined soon after.

"We weren't in it for the money. We used to have a lot of guns here,
too," said Balles, adding that he and fellow gang members hung out,
drank alcohol and used drugs. They also fiercely protected their turf,
answering drive-by shootings with gunfire of their own.

"A typical day would be getting drunk and high," Balles recalled,
"waking up in the afternoon and going to Marshall (Junior High School)
and Davis (High School) to look for fights with rival gang members."

By 1996, he was a top lieutenant. Many of his fellow gang members
would gather at his girlfriend's Lindale Park house, where he now
lives, to party. They often made the street their own playground.

All the while, Balles said, he feared he would become like his father.
Even more, he feared going to jail because he had seen what it had
done to his father. Finally, gang life began to wear on him.

"I was tired of doing the same thing over and over, tired of going to
jail. I used to go to jail all the time for nothing," Balles said. "I
would be walking to school and I wouldn't even get to the school and
cops would put me in jail for PI (public intoxication) or something."

Still, it took the drive-by shooting that almost killed an 11-year-old
to make him stop altogether.

When he announced his intention to leave, the Crip Cartel leader told
him he couldn't. But a determined Balles submitted himself to a
beating by 13 gang members. They encircled him, breaking two ribs and
beating him until he was nearly unconscious. He says one man stomped
him so hard he left a bootprint on his forehead.

Balles said the beating was probably necessary to make the
psychological break from the gang. The answer he gives when asked if
he will return to gang life is succinct: "I wouldn't."

"I can't," he said. "It's not in my blood no more. I don't miss it. I
don't ever think about going back. I think about the stuff I did all
the time, all the bad things, all the people we hurt, a bunch of bad
memories. I really don't want to have nothing to do with it. I'm the
exact opposite of what they stand for."

BALLES SAID HE STILL sees former gang associates, usually when he
visits his grandmother in his old neighborhood, and they beckon him to
join them for a beer. But these days, he waves and drives off.

"I come home now and go to sleep to wake up to go to work," he said.
"So I really don't have time to do anything except for my day off,
which is Friday, and I like to spend that with my son."

He added, "I don't want to have nothing to do with the
cops."

Yet Balles credits the gang task force with playing an important role
in his departure from the gang. Before the task force was created, he
said, he and gang members roamed wild in the near the north side.

All that changed when gang task force officers began cracking down. No
matter where Balles and fellow gang members hung out, the cops would
show up soon after.

The crackdown had other effects. One former Crip Cartel leader is in
prison for manslaughter. One of Balles' cousins -- who was one of the
gang members who beat him when he wanted out -- is serving 45 years in
prison for a string of store robberies. He was 21 when he was sentenced.

"I just don't want to get that reputation back," said
Balles.

But shaking the reputation can be harder than shaking the
lifestyle.

Rotramel worries that the police are making the transition difficult
for Balles and many other Houstonians who have left the gang life
behind. He likens the situation to a serious disease that broke out in
the city and may have required radical methods to control its spread.

"Well, it worked," he said. "The disease stopped spreading. We've
eliminated the disease or we've gotten it down to a point where it's
very manageable and yet we're still having those extreme measures in
place, we still are quarantining people."