- Even right now as we speak,
there are some 10, 12, 14 year olds
that's being groomed right now.
Most people end up the way they are
because they're a product of their environment,
and that's 1000% true.
- [Announcer] If you were alone in a room
with a former gang member, what would you ask?
- Do you ever feel like you had a normal life?
- Have you ever been to jail?
- Have you ever killed someone?
- What is your favorite song?
(upbeat music)
- My name is Sabrina.
What's your name?
- I'm Tyrone, Sabrina
- Tyrone.
- So like, just curious
can I get a little bit of your background?
- Start from the beginning.
- Well, I'm a former gang member.
Was part of the CRIP gangs.
Being in LA and being in the gang neighborhoods,
there's no way to get around it,
either you're gonna be a part of it as a victim
or you're gonna be a part of it as a member.
So I chose to be a member.
That was the safest route.
In the inner city of LA
you have gang members on every block.
So if you're a part of a certain gang
that kind of gave you a sense of security.
- What age did you start out as a gang member?
- I started running with 'em around 12,
but actually got fully accepted around 14.
- When you started in the gang, was it something cause like,
you know, you wanted to feel like Scarface?
- A lot of us grew up in the neighborhood,
and our brothers and sisters are gang members.
- Right.
- And we wanna be like that.
- Right.
- We're not looking for that out.
We want that reputation that my brother got.
He went to jail.
You know, you might find it crazy,
but a lot of guys growing up, looking forward to that.
(beep)
- You know, getting them stripes.
That shows that you're serious about that life.
- Being a gang member,
do you ever feel like you had a normal life?
- At the time, I felt normal.
Being a gang member at that time, it was like an honor,
a badge of honor honestly.
- What was the initiation process like?
- Painful.
Getting jumped in.
You may end up fighting anywhere between four to six guys.
They're cussing you.
They're literally beating you up.
But soon as it's over, as soon as it stops,
they're shaking hands and hugging you,
and you are now officially a part of this family.
A lot of people don't understand
why they're trying to hurt you
if you're trying to be a part of the gang,
but it's basically to see what type of man you are.
You know, can you take some of the things
that may happen to you in this situation?
- Do you have any gang related tattoos?
- Yeah, I have several.
- Do you have a favorite?
- Probably my gang name.
They call me by my nickname, Tee Mac.
On the left it says Tee, T-E-E going down the back,
and it has a Mac on the other side, M-A-C.
To this day, I still get called by that name.
- For the record, that's a really cool nickname.
- So what is a normal day in the life of a gang member?
- First thing is on your mind is making some money.
We were going to school.
We were able to make money in school
selling weed at school, selling dope at school.
That became a easy way for a lot of us to make money
when we couldn't get money from our parents
or if it was just hard times at home.
- Have you ever been to jail?
- Yeah, been to jail a few times.
- Was it regarding your drugs or the gang?
- Drugs and as well as robbery and stuff like
that came to gang banging.
- Have you ever experienced anyone
like overdosing over drugs?
- I've experienced people overdosing on drugs.
I've experienced a lady going in labor.
- Oh, wow.
- Actually having a child on the streets
at the time that she was trying to purchase some crack.
- Wow.
- You know, just for a little bit of dope.
- Did that ever make you wanna stop selling drugs
or was it kind of just like, I need my money too, like?
- You have to convince yourself,
well, this is what it's gonna take for me to survive.
You're thinking to yourself,
well, I'm not making them do it.
- Right.
- You know, this is their choice.
You give yourself all these reasons to keep doing it
without blaming yourself.
- Do you remember the first time that you held a gun?
- I can remember clear as day.
When I graduated middle school, right after my graduation,
clear as day I went to the neighborhood,
and the guy that's considered my big homie,
his gift to me as a graduation gift was that 22
and $200 worth of crack cocaine.
People look at that as a negative, like who?
What type of gift is that?
Some crack and a gun, but living that life,
that was a great gift.
- Yeah.
- I felt protected even though it was a little 22.
- Have you ever killed someone?
- No, not to my knowledge, no.
- That's good.
Have you experienced a close call with death?
- I mean, in the 80s, drive-by shootings was real prevalent.
You can be standing outside, daytime, nighttime
it just didn't matter.
They were there that fast
and start shooting at us
to where we would get to running,
and bullets are literally hitting walls in front of us,
passing us up.
So those are some scary situations in drive-bys
because you have no idea where the bullets are going.
- Yeah.
- Do you feel like you've become desensitized to violence?
- I think I'm more sensitive to violence that's being done
because as cold hearted as you need to be
a lot of us had remorse, but we couldn't show that.
You know what I'm saying?
We couldn't show that to the homies.
We need to be as non remorseful and as evil as they are.
- Do you ever feel like you were hiding
under some sort of facade of masculinity?
- Oh, of course, of course.
You have to develop this character.
You have to become more tougher.
You know, you have to become more, what they call harder,
less remorseful and kind of like not care.
And so a lot of times you have to walk around
with your chest out, and there were times
where I had to put up that real tough guy facade
to maybe, you know, scare the hell outta somebody.
- How did being in a gang affect your relationships
with friends, families, partners?
- I literally lived a double life.
There's a situation where we had participated
in a drive-by shooting.
So I walk in the house,
and the situation that I participated in
is actually on the news.
My mom's on the phone, and she's watching this story
on the news, and I'm listening to her tell her friend
oh, it's a shame how these kids killing one another.
And I'm sitting there thinking to myself like,
wow, she don't have no idea
that her son was just a part of that.
And I even get chills talking about that right,
even right now as I speak about it.
- In the movies, what do they get wrong
and what do they get right?
- When you look at at gang movies, it's about violence.
It's about robbing.
It's about killing.
Everything is negative.
But the side the movies miss is that camaraderie
that brotherly and that family love.
Everybody there has your back.
Even on financial things
and things that you need to get done
that you might not be able to get from your family.
They'll take care of,
they'll take care of that for you.
That really is your family.
- I'm a native of Southern California,
so I have ties to gang culture.
When you say it means love,
but they're going against each other like other gangs,
I don't see that being love.
- Well, that's because there are reasons that only we,
that you can only understand as a gang member
on why I'm against my brother.
- I totally understand.
But at the same time, gang culture wasn't intended for that.
It was a vigilante type thing intended to protect
like it was in the Bay Area back in the day
with the Black Panthers.
You're going against each other.
It just defeated the purpose to me.
Do you agree with that, cause that's not cool?
- I agree with it to a certain extent.
The black gangs in particular were reinvented
to protect our own neighborhoods.
- Exactly.
- Few people know that CRIP stands for
Community Resistance In Progress.
- Yes.
- So back then, that's what it was supposed to represent.
- Is this something that can be fixed?
- I don't think that it can ever totally be fixed
because the hatred and the dislike runs deep
from a long time ago.
Some of us can look at it and and say,
well, no, they killed my brother.
- Yeah.
- Or they killed my homie.
That that would never be forgiven.
- It needs to be another way.
That's just, that's all I'm saying.
- No, there's nothing good about it.
- Yeah.
- What was like your moment of like awakening
where you were like, oh dang, I gotta switch it up.
- There was no particular moment.
You don't so much get out of gangs,
even when you get it in your 40s, your 50s.
You're still considered part of that family.
You're just doing different things in your life.
Eventually I went to college.
I ended up moving to Oklahoma City.
I ended up being a police officer working in the schools.
I could use my experience to show kids that, you know,
you could get out of this (beeping).
- Are you still a cop or?
- Not a cop no more.
Wouldn't go back into life for nothing in the world.
To me, the police officer have their own gangs as well.
Police Academy is kind of like a brotherhood
just like gangs,
and certain things have to stay within those walls.
I got to see how they really felt.
It could be some racial slurs.
It could be some negative things said about us.
With me being a part of that life that they hated so much,
a lot of things that they said affected me.
It bothered me because that was my life.
- Did you have to arrest any of your like own homeboys
and stuff like that?
- Never, because I was never a police officer in LA,
and I would've never done that.
The rule of the streets were more than important to me
than anything.
If I had to arrest a gang member as a police officer,
I would've quit.
- Dang.
You know, because I'm not, that's not what I was there for.
- Are you still in contact with anyone from your gang?
- Yeah, daily.
Just because you change your life, you don't turn your back
on your friends or guys that are still caught up.
You still have to stay connected
because this is a lifetime involvement.
- Do you regret having been in a gang?
- The only regrets I have from being in a gang
would be the hurt that I caused people
because at that time you don't realize
the things that you were doing,
how bad it's affecting people
and how bad it could hurt people.
My regret would be that I helped this multiply.
I helped it spread worldwide.
I mean, gang banging is in places
that you would never think now.
- Do you think gang culture will ever die out?
- Honestly, no.
Because even right now as we speak,
there are some young 10, 12, 14 year olds
that's being groomed right now.
Most people end up the way they are
because they're a product of their environment
and that's 1000% truth.
- If your kids today,
or if you do have kids or in the future
if they wanted to join a gang,
what would your mindset be as far as that?
- My kids are old enough to where they understand.
They know that's not the path they should take.
They know about the life.
They know about my past.
They're just proud that I'm not doing it now.
- So final question,
what is your favorite song of all time?
- "California Love" by Tupac.
- It's such a good one.
- Yeah.
- [Announcer] Would you like to meet each other?
- Yeah. - Sure.
- Hi!
- Nice to meet you.
- I'm Sabrina, nice to meet you.
- It was great talking to you.
- All right, you too, brother.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you too, man, sure.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
- Pleasure. - It was a pleasure, brother.
- Oh, a pleasure, man.
- Pleasure, man, it's an honor.
All right, you stay blessed, man.