Gabe Trujillo believes his gang days are behind him. He's even said so in a newspaper ad. But he'll never escape their effects, especially the felony conviction on his record.
Two years ago, in December 1995, Trujillo and some of his friends from his neighborhood in Magna beat up a young man in a confrontation fed by an atmosphere of fear and suspicion.As it turned out, the victim was someone Trujillo, now 20, knew in junior high school - the school nerd, someone harmless, no one to be feared.
"It was dark, we couldn't see very well," Trujillo recalls now. "I was playing church basketball, and some friends and I stopped in here at the house to pick up my shoes.
"We came out of the house, and there were two guys, yelling and screaming, coming down the street, being followed by a woman in a car yelling at them, `Don't do it Aaron, they'll kick your a--' over and over again, the same thing.
"It was just weird," Trujillo recalls. "They started threatening us, yelling at us, and I thought one of them had a gun, he was fiddling like he had a gun, so I hit him," Trujillo recalls.
Then, his friends - he estimates a half-dozen of them - joined him in "beating on the guy until he couldn't get up," according to Trujillo. The second youth fled down the street, a crowd gathered and shots were fired. The police were called.
"Things were different around here then, they were really tense, with a lot of gang activity going on," Trujillo said. "Everyone was up on their toes all the time."
The victim, according to later court testimony, was intoxicated that night, drinking wine mixed with vodka. "He was out-of-his-mind drunk. He was just on a rampage that night," Trujillo said.
Trujillo admits his former membership in a gang, the 27th Street Ragtown gang, but said it was more a group of childhood friends who grew up together in the same neighborhood, hanging together in self-defense.
"I regret it now," Trujillo said. "But at that time, it was scary. I was scared every day. I tell people this, and they have a hard time understanding it, but our gang was the respectable one out here.
"We weren't on the offensive, we weren't out starting things. We arranged a lot of truces. We got along with the cops. We just backed each other up when things got scary. We didn't go out looking for trouble."
The 27th Street Ragtown gang has disbanded, Trujillo said, mostly because its members have grown up. They're working now, trying to get by.
Trujillo was charged with second-degree felony aggravated assault and pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony assault charge.
At Trujillo's sentencing in October, 3rd District Judge Pat Bean at first seemed inclined to send Trujillo to jail for a year. He relented but imposed stiff conditions.
Trujillo is on probation. He's working, doing road construction, putting in 70 hours a week in the summer and 40 a week until recently, when the work slowed down.
He's paying $300 a month toward a $3,000 fine and $550 in restitution for his victim's medical bills. It has strapped him; he may lose his car.
And, the judge ordered him to put an ad in the newspaper, renouncing his gang affiliation:
"I Gabe Trujillo, having been a member of 27 St. Ragtown gang do hereby notify the public and all interested parties that I formally renounce my membership in 27 St. and will not associate with the gang or involve myself in their activities. Thanks for your attn."
Trujillo, accompanied by his supportive parents, appeared in court again Friday for a review. The ad has run; he's up to date on his payments; he's working.
Bean again opted not to impose the year's jail term but set another review date in six months.
"I don't blame him," Trujillo said of Bean's tough attitude. "But I've changed. I don't know if he saw it, but I've changed."
There's another thing Trujillo regrets about that night as he now contemplates what he wants to do with the rest of his life.
"What I feel the worst about is that if I would have recognized him (the victim) that night, nothing would have happened. I would have laughed at him, he was harmless, just a nerd. If I'd known it was him, it would have never happened."