Series: Gangs: Behind The Headlines: Part 5 of 5

CHANGE

Camp San Luis - Kelly stands with her back ramrod straight, eyes focused
forward, waiting for instructions. With her military bearing, she could
pass for a Marine.

The 16-year-old from Santa Maria isn't a member of the armed forces, but a
cadet at the California National Guard Grizzly Youth Academy at Camp San Luis.

When Kelly answers questions, she looks you in the eye with polite
confidence. She speaks of someday serving her country in the U.S. Navy, of
getting a college education.

By her own admission, Kelly wasn't always the confident young woman she
appears to be today.

"I came here because I wanted to change my life, because I was going
nowhere and getting in trouble with the law," she said.

From Gang Bangers To Cadets

The trouble was gang activity a destructive family tradition Kelly had
been initiated into at home. Her two older brothers were longtime Santa
Maria gang members. Both have done stints in prison. Kelly had begun
adopting their lifestyle.

Surprisingly, it was Kelly's brothers who urged her to abandon the gangster
lifestyle.

"They told me, 'Kelly, you shouldn't have to go what we've gone through.
Get out,'" she said.

With her brother's encouragement, Kelly came to Grizzly Academy at Camp San
Luis. The program, run by the California National Guard, gives troubled
students who are in danger of or have dropped out of school the chance to
make a fresh start.

"We are not a boot camp," explains Sgt. Maj. Steve Chipman, head of the
Grizzly Academy. "We are a school. Everyone is here by choice."

The choice Kelly and other cadets make means leaving behind their old lives
for an intense, 17 1/2 month program. They live at Camp San Luis, in
National Guard barracks. Their mission: to study and acquire a General
Equivalency Diploma and to learn to respect authority and respond to
discipline.

"Everything we do here is focused on getting the cadets an education and a
future," Chipman said.

The ultimate goal once a cadet gets a diploma is for them to have a career
path planned that will give them a future.

The school is "nontraditional," according to Chipman. Cadets rise early in
the morning for drills with their platoon before heading to morning
classes. By the afternoon, cadets are busy working on job and life skills
with instructors.

During a three-week introductory "boot camp," cadets who really don't want
to be part of the program are separated from those who have a commitment to
change for many, the test comes during physical drills. Forty percent of
entering cadets quit within 72 hours of arrival.

"There's a lot of physical activity," explains Chipman. "A lot of cadets
come in with preconceived notions and they find out quickly it's a whole
new ball game."

That included Cory, an 18-year-old cadet from Nipomo who had been put on
probation and sent to Juvenile Hall for several burglaries he committed
with fellow gang members.

"I don't like people yelling at me. At first, that was hard to take, and
not yell back," Cory said. "But I think everything happens for a reason.
After being here for a while, I decided getting locked up was not in vain,
because I wanted to change."

One of the most valuable lessons cadets say they are learning at the
Grizzly Academy is self-control.

"I'm learning self-control no matter what the situation, whether I'm out
here, or on the street, it doesn't matter," said 16-year-old Juan, a cadet
from Oceano. "There's no other way."

No other way because the consequence at the Academy for fighting or other
infractions are swift and immediate, according to Chipman. The worst
punishment, all three say, would be being sent home after failing the program.

That's because Cory, Juan and Kelly are hoping to break the cycle of gangs.
Kelly's determination was so great, after being sent home from the Academy
due to illness last spring, she returned this past fall.

"It's easy for me," she said of her choice. "I'd rather be here than home.
There I'd be getting in trouble."

What It Takes To Leave

What does it take to leave gangs behind when they have been part of your
whole life, as they have for Kelly?

In San Luis Obispo County, Deputy Sheriff Barney Foster has dealt with kids
like Kelly, Cory and Juan many times. Kids who think gang affiliation is a
way to feel belonging in a world that doesn't seem to care. Kids who
sometimes think juvenile hall or jail is a better alternative to living in
a turbulent home.

Often, getting a kid like Kelly away from gangs takes building trust with
authority figures.

"They need to understand law enforcement cares," he said. "We will do
everything we can to get them out of that lifestyle."

While some sociologists have recently criticized the Drug Abuse Resistance
Education program as ineffective, law enforcement officials say it does
make a difference.

Lt. Larry Davis, head of the south substation for the San Luis Obispo
County Sheriff's Department, said DARE is a vital program because the
school resource officers may be one of the few sources where kids from
fatherless homes or ones with a history of gang activity get direction.

"If we can take one kid and turn their life around, and plant the see in
his or her head and heart to change their life, then programs like DARE are
worth the effort," he said.

The bottom line is often parents: how closely they pay attention to the
influence in their children's lives and how far they are willing to go if
they must be wrested from gangs.

"The U.S. has to continue to educate people on how to become parents,"
Davis said. In homes like Kelly's, law enforcement is up against the
problem of generational gang activity.

"In some cases, we have to deal with what is really a generational curse,"
Davis said.

To get a youth out of gangs, parents have to take the situation seriously
and take action, Davis said.

"If a kid is involved in a gang, they are making a commitment to it
long-term. It's not a childhood trend or fad," he said. "If he or she is
involved in gang activity, they need to be moved from that neighborhood and
environment. It needs to be done secretly and they need to be watched."

Next month, Santa Maria Mayor Joseph Centeno's Youth Task Force is
scheduled to issue a report on major areas concerning the city's children
and teens. Some of the recommendations will include fighting the lure of
gangs, according to Ginnie Sterling, special projects manager for the city.

Recommendations of the report will include the need for more monitoring and
family counseling to deal holistically with the problem, Sterling said.
That information will then be funneled towards groups like the Boys and
Girls club who can provide services to help residents.

There comes a time, however, when the individual must choose whether they
will remain in a gang and accept the consequences that life, Foster emphasized.

"At a certain point, you have to make the person accountable, and you hate
to see them accountable when they are facing 25 years to life. We didn't
win in that case," Foster said. "We lost. By 'we' I mean the community."

Victory Over Gangs With God

Robert Almanza knows what it's like to become lost to gangs.

A native of Oceano, his family moved to Lompoc in 1991 to be near his
father and uncle, who were locked up in the federal penitentiary.

Almanza was in jail in 1993 when a fellow inmate talked to him about Jesus
Christ and how he could help his life. Then his sister, who was in a
women's home sponsored by the Victory Outreach church at the time, told him
about the church.

Victory Outreach Lompoc has been around since 1993, but it has sister
churches across the Central Coast, including Santa Maria and Santa Barbara.

The international Victory Outreach church, started more than three decades
ago as an inner city ministry to felons, addicts and gang members. That
ministry continues today locally, led almost entirely by former gang
members and drug addicts who credit their recovery to the love of God and
Christian mentors.

The Lompoc church was founded by the Rev. Ruben Tamayo, a native of Ventura
County who first came to the area a decade ago ministering to prisoners at
Lompoc prison facilities. Now the ministry includes one-on-one street
ministries, church-based outreaches and a men's home.

At the live-in men's home, three to four non-violent addicts and drug
members are taught self-sufficiency in an intensive yearlong program where
their tightly structured days include doing chores and fixing meals; prayer
and bible studies; and community service projects and odd jobs to pay rent.
"Street talk" gives way to straight talk. Colors are replaced with curfews.

"It's really intended to break the mentality of the streets and teach
discipline and to teach them a new way of life through the word of God,"
Tamayo said.

Ultimately, like most of the men who apply to enter the home, Almanza was
hungry for something different from a life of drugs and gangs, searching
for love and acceptance he says he didn't have in his broken home.

"I didn't know anything else but what my parents taught me and I was
dealing drugs and that's the only foundation I had," Almanza said. "And
this foundation that Victory Outreach monitoring provided for me gave me
another hope. It gave me a new future." Almanza and other Victory Outreach
leaders still get excited when they talk about how Jesus saved them from
lives ruled by gangs, drug abuse and domestic violence.

They also marvel at God's sense of humor and the feeling they are part of
His master plan for reaching gang members in Lompoc. Alongside Almanza in
Arroyo Grande Hospital's maternity ward on Feb. 20, 1969, was Jimmy
Gutierrez, 32, leader of Victory's youth outreach.

"We were born in the same hospital on the same day, and God has set the
stage where we're here in the same time reaching out to the gang members,"
said Gutierrez, whose family was from Nipomo. "His family and my family
would have been rivals."

After domestic abuse charges landed him in jail and almost cost him his
family, Gutierrez came to the church in 1997 with his brother, David, who
is now the church's marriage and leadership counselor.

"I had become everything I hated that I'd seen in my dad and my family, so
I had became exactly what I didn't want to become. I was looking for a
hope, for something that would work," Gutierrez said.

A product of a broken family, Gutierrez said he joined a gang at 12 to "fit
in" and find love and identity. "That lack of peace, that's where the drugs
come in, and the alcohol came in to numb up that hurt that comes from a
broken family."

A gangster mentality soon followed.

"With all that, it just led to trying to keep a respect and a reputation
and I was trying to be like top dog," Gutierrez said. "With all that comes
a price and the price is your liberty. You can't be yourself, you've always
got to identify with the gang and live up to what other people expect of you."

Jimmy Gutierrez ended up in jail three separate times for crimes ranging
from fighting, being under the influence, domestic violence, drug
possession things resulting from "just representing the neighborhood."

But if you ask Gutierrez, he'll say he's lucky to be alive and a
beneficiary of God's grace. Of the 20 or so gang members he ran with, only
one other person isn't behind bars or dead.

"All my friends around me are in prison and some are in the grave already,"
he said. "That's the part that we all have to pay to be part of a gang, to
be part of that lifestyle."

But what he is most proud of is the restoration of his relationship with
his girlfriend and later his wife after his conversation and that he is
now the fatherly example to his two children that he never had.

Getting The Message Through And Making It Stick

The message of Victory Outreach isn't always welcomed by gang members.

Tamayo recalls an incident where he was ministering door to door and
someone blew marijuana smoke in his face through a crack in the door.

"I know Jesus got spit on, so who am I?" Tamayo said.

Enduring a wet face once in a while isn't so bad. Because for the men of
Victory Outreach, the longevity of their commitment holds a credibility
that gang members seek.

The key to the ministry, according to the men, is individual contact, where
gang members can open up about their pain.

"When they're all together they're cold," David Gutierrez said. "But when
they start to disperse, then you can see the hurt in them … When
everybody's gone, you don't have to act all big and bad when you're hurting
inside."

Such hurt was found, Victory leaders said, at funerals last year for two
Lompoc gang members one who died in an accident and another who was killed
during a gang-related street robbery.

But the same vulnerability that makes the interpersonal ministry so
successful also poses the greatest risk for reformed gang members, who if
they themselves are cornered alone, could succumb to the strong physical
draw of drugs and the intense social pressures to rejoin a gang "family."

That's why Victory Outreach members only operate in groups of two or more
and they pray each time the go into the neighborhoods to minister.

They pray for safety spiritual safety. The way they see it, there's a
spiritual battle going on for the souls of gang-bangers.

"Not all will listen, but some do," David Gutierrez said.

Those who listen find that these people aren't your stuffed-shirt
preachers, or what gang members consider stereotypical church members.

Instead, they offer real, living examples of how their lives were changed
through a relationship with God.

"The same way I was hurting I know there's others that are hurting out
there, so that's why we go out there and that alone gives it something
different that we're a church that is actually going out there and showing
them that we care about them and that we're no different than they are, "
David Gutierrez said.

The fact that they can relate with gang members gives them an inroad and
general respect from gang members who know what they're about.

"We're not going out there intimidated, but also we're not going out there
to bombard their neighborhood in a conflicting type of way," David
Gutierrez said. "We're in there to help them."

For cadets and instructors at the Grizzly Youth Academy, one of the
greatest challenges is making the lessons learned at Camp San Luis stick
"out there" where temptation to rejoin a gang is strong.

To that end, Chipman and others teach the cadets strategies for
encountering old friends who are still in gangs.

"When you get home, there are going to be people you used to hang with who
want you to still hang out with the," Chipman tells the cadets. "But you
will find that you've left them and that life behind. You'll find you have
nothing in common with these acquaintances. And you'll have the strength to
deal with it when they give you a hard time."

Six weeks into the Grizzly Academy, Cory got his first test when he had to
go home for a weekend to attend his grandmother's funeral.

"Some of my friends wanted me to do stuff that could have got me in
trouble, but I just stuck with my family," he said.

To help cadets make the transition to a new life, their time at the Grizzly
Academy is followed by a yearlong mentorship. Mentors are approved by the
U.S. Department of Justice and receive training to help cadets set
educational and life goals.

"The mentors are like a backstop when cadets leave," Chipman said. "They
help them prepare for job interviews, look at options like college or the
military and deal with pressures."

Kelly's mentor is a high school counselor who encouraged her to come to the
Grizzly Academy. Cory's is an uncle who has always held a steady job and
provides an example of how the young man would like to live his life.

Success of the program is determined by where cadets are at the end of the
one-year mentorship following the academy. The goal is for them to either
have returned to high school and be getting good grades, be enrolled in
college or join a branch of the military.

Encouraging former gang members and other incarcerated teens to start a new
life is also the mission of the Los Prietos Boys Camp and the Tri-Counties
Boot Camp, which servers minors from San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and
Ventura counties.

Located in the Los Padres National Forest about 40 miles east of Lompoc,
the facilities operated by Santa Barbara County Probation Department us a
regimented schedule of exercise, schooling and special projects to
transform juvenile court wards into self-confident leaders.

It's a message of positive change brought home daily to teen by trained
camp counselors and guest speakers like actor Danny Trejo, a veteran of
30-plus files and a former street gang member who spent time in prison.

"Shoot for the moon," the actor, best known for his supporting roles in
"Con Air" and "Spy Kids," told a group of about 100 boys residing at the
camps in February 2001. "It's all right to shoot for the moon and miss. The
problem is we shoot for the gutter."

Already, Kelly, Juan and Cory are setting their sights on their future.
Both Cory and Kelly plan to join the Navy and use the GI Bill to finance
college education. Juan says he would like to learn automotive repair at a
trade school to become a mechanic.

Chipman likes to say he has "593 success stories" of cadets who have
completed the Grizzly Academy. One young man Chipman is particularly proud
of went on to join the U.S. Marines and served as an honor guard at the
White House.

Sadly, the school funded by the state and the U.S. Department of Defense is
only able to accommodate 1 percent of the approximately 48,000 students who
want in the program the only kind of its type in the state of California.
The selection process is hard for Chipman and his staff. Like an elite
college, the academy considers a personal essay, the potential cadet's high
school transcripts and a personal interview.

"We are looking for students who are motivated to be here who want to make
the commitment to change," Chipman said.

It appears that Kelly, Juan and Cory fit that requirement.

"Before I came here, I was not planning to do anything," Juan said. "I just
lived my life day to day getting in trouble. Now I have a different
perspective. Now I want to go somewhere."