DAMN LOOK$ LIKE THE CITY I$ GETTING REAL $ERIOU$ ABOUT $TOPPING GANG ACTIVITY IN $AN JO!!....LOL....LET THEM TRY!!!!!!!!
Rodriguez: Former Norteños, Sureños unite in Cease Fire Ministry
By Joe Rodriguez
Mercury News
Article Launched: 02/14/2008 01:36:41 AM PST
Former gang members talk about Cease Fire
Seven veteranos sat around a long table in Morgan Hill, discussing a cease-fire between California's largest, meanest and murderous Latino gangs. Four former Norteños sat at one end and three ex-Sureños at the other. Opposites once again.
Soon enough, ex-Norteño Robert Chavarria thought back 20 years or so, when he was a kid locked up in Santa Clara County's juvenile hall. Tall and light skinned, he leaned over for a long look at ex-Sureño Emilio Rubio, who is short and dark.
"Now I recognize you," Chavarria boomed. "You were in B-5 at the same time as me. We were always wanting to fight each other."
Rubio remembered. Belonging to rival gangs, he and Rubio were kept apart in the segregated unit for violent youths.
"We could have killed each other," Rubio said.
Each man then stood up and gave the other a bear hug. Today they are allies in Cease Fire Ministry, a Christian anti-gang program whose approach is catching the attention of police and schools as gang warfare resurfaces with a vengeance in San Jose, even though some fear they are pushing religion too hard.
The man who had brought them together, Robert Rios, smiled at their embrace. Now 50, he spent 33 years in custody as a member of Nuestra Familia, a Mexican-American gang based in Northern California. Its members or affiliates commonly call themselves Norteños, or northerners. Their rival is the Mexican Mafia, based in Los Angeles, most of whose
members are Mexican immigrants and call themselves Sureños, or southerners.
Rios has lost count of the prison shrinks who tried to save him, just as he struggles now to measure the secular, anti-gang efforts of government agencies, schools and counseling centers.
"What makes us different," Rios said, "is we have a calling, a calling from God. Second, all of us are ex-gang members. Some of us were the guys in prison who wrote the rules and gave the orders followed by kids on the streets."
Gang killings rise
Of San Jose's 36 homicides last year, 16 were gang killings, the highest number in 10 years. Police believe Nuestra Familia bosses at Pelican Bay prison have ordered their street soldiers to begin eliminating Sureño invaders.
Rios saw this coming years ago when he was an inmate at San Quentin State Prison. In a guest column he wrote for the Mercury News in 1997, he denounced his gang membership and argued for more "intervention" programs that dissuade youngsters from joining gangs.
Although Rios was offered a spot on San Jose's gang task force, he turned it down because he wanted to lie low and avoid his former gang's wrath. Instead, he fell back into drug use and crime and was facing a third strike and 25 years to life when he "received a sign." His ex-wife persuaded the courts to send him instead to a rehabilitation house operated by Victory Outreach Church.
Started in 1967 in Los Angeles to save shattered souls, Victory Outreach now counts 600 churches in 24 countries and legions of parishioners who were once alcoholics, addicts, common criminals and gang members.
Meanwhile, in 2004, Pastor Ed Morales and other church leaders in San Jose came up with an idea they called Cease Fire Ministry. They would seek out hard-core Norteños and Sureños, get them to participate in a truce, and persuade them to rebuild their lives in the church.
"When I mentioned this to Robert, he lit up," Morales said. "He's really the perfect person to accomplish a cease-fire."
Cultural unity message
In addition to converting Sureños and Norteños, Cease Fire distinguishes itself from secular anti-gang programs by preaching cultural unity among Latinos, and by leaning heavily on Jesus' turning the other cheek, loving thy brother, doing unto others and other Christian keys to heaven.
"The thing is to get to the hard-core guys, the ones who recruit kids into the gangs, the ones who carry out orders from the inside (prison)," Rios said. "And the thing you have to realize is a lot of them are tired, just plain tired and looking for a way to get out, like I was. That's when they're ready to listen."
His Cease Fire workers visit gang members in prison and at parks and other hangouts once they're out. To prevent retaliations, they visit the families of shooting victims and the shooters. As missionary work goes, it's slow and risky.
Daniel Contreras, a former Norteño who assists Rios, recalled what one gang member told him at a park:
"Stop talking to me about Jesus . . . Get out now and I never want to see you here again, or else!"
Obviously, that vato loco wasn't ready.
"Time!" Contreras said. "You have to build rapport. If you continue to go they'll see you're serious. As time goes by, they'll eventually be reached."
Increasingly, Rios said, his Cease Fire team finds itself invited to public schools and group homes desperate to stop playground melees. This has made some public school officials nervous. To some in the mainstream, Outreach's religious pitch is fine on the streets or in church, but not in the classroom.
In their effort to get into more schools with gang issues, Rios said, Cease Fire disciples are learning how to "tone down" the delivery.
For example, meeting last month with Norteño youths at San Jose's Overfelt High School, Rios spoke for about half an hour and didn't mention Jesus once. He laughed about it after.
"We have a secular curriculum, and we're learning how to deliver it," he said. "But at the same time, the 'Word' is going to come out in some way or another."
Still, the church was turned down when it applied for an anti-gang grant from the city. Rios and his disciples remain patient and optimistic.
"A little door is opening for us," he said.
On those closing words, the former Norteños and Sureños rose to shake hands and bless each other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you have a story idea for East Side/West Side? Contact Joe Rodriguez at [email protected] or (408) 920-5767.
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TO ALL YOU HISPANIC HATERS, ID RATHER BE LABELED AS A GANGSTER,...
Too little- too late. These convicts created mayhem, violence, pain...
AHAHAHAHAH!!!! This is the silliest thing I have ever seen. Nortes...
Please Muderers are murderers executions are warranted here. just...
Jesus built my hotrod.
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Rodriguez: Former Norteños, Sureños unite in Cease Fire Ministry
By Joe Rodriguez
Mercury News
Article Launched: 02/14/2008 01:36:41 AM PST
Former gang members talk about Cease Fire
Seven veteranos sat around a long table in Morgan Hill, discussing a cease-fire between California's largest, meanest and murderous Latino gangs. Four former Norteños sat at one end and three ex-Sureños at the other. Opposites once again.
Soon enough, ex-Norteño Robert Chavarria thought back 20 years or so, when he was a kid locked up in Santa Clara County's juvenile hall. Tall and light skinned, he leaned over for a long look at ex-Sureño Emilio Rubio, who is short and dark.
"Now I recognize you," Chavarria boomed. "You were in B-5 at the same time as me. We were always wanting to fight each other."
Rubio remembered. Belonging to rival gangs, he and Rubio were kept apart in the segregated unit for violent youths.
"We could have killed each other," Rubio said.
Each man then stood up and gave the other a bear hug. Today they are allies in Cease Fire Ministry, a Christian anti-gang program whose approach is catching the attention of police and schools as gang warfare resurfaces with a vengeance in San Jose, even though some fear they are pushing religion too hard.
The man who had brought them together, Robert Rios, smiled at their embrace. Now 50, he spent 33 years in custody as a member of Nuestra Familia, a Mexican-American gang based in Northern California. Its members or affiliates commonly call themselves Norteños, or northerners. Their rival is the Mexican Mafia, based in Los Angeles, most of whose
members are Mexican immigrants and call themselves Sureños, or southerners.
Rios has lost count of the prison shrinks who tried to save him, just as he struggles now to measure the secular, anti-gang efforts of government agencies, schools and counseling centers.
"What makes us different," Rios said, "is we have a calling, a calling from God. Second, all of us are ex-gang members. Some of us were the guys in prison who wrote the rules and gave the orders followed by kids on the streets."
Gang killings rise
Of San Jose's 36 homicides last year, 16 were gang killings, the highest number in 10 years. Police believe Nuestra Familia bosses at Pelican Bay prison have ordered their street soldiers to begin eliminating Sureño invaders.
Rios saw this coming years ago when he was an inmate at San Quentin State Prison. In a guest column he wrote for the Mercury News in 1997, he denounced his gang membership and argued for more "intervention" programs that dissuade youngsters from joining gangs.
Although Rios was offered a spot on San Jose's gang task force, he turned it down because he wanted to lie low and avoid his former gang's wrath. Instead, he fell back into drug use and crime and was facing a third strike and 25 years to life when he "received a sign." His ex-wife persuaded the courts to send him instead to a rehabilitation house operated by Victory Outreach Church.
Started in 1967 in Los Angeles to save shattered souls, Victory Outreach now counts 600 churches in 24 countries and legions of parishioners who were once alcoholics, addicts, common criminals and gang members.
Meanwhile, in 2004, Pastor Ed Morales and other church leaders in San Jose came up with an idea they called Cease Fire Ministry. They would seek out hard-core Norteños and Sureños, get them to participate in a truce, and persuade them to rebuild their lives in the church.
"When I mentioned this to Robert, he lit up," Morales said. "He's really the perfect person to accomplish a cease-fire."
Cultural unity message
In addition to converting Sureños and Norteños, Cease Fire distinguishes itself from secular anti-gang programs by preaching cultural unity among Latinos, and by leaning heavily on Jesus' turning the other cheek, loving thy brother, doing unto others and other Christian keys to heaven.
"The thing is to get to the hard-core guys, the ones who recruit kids into the gangs, the ones who carry out orders from the inside (prison)," Rios said. "And the thing you have to realize is a lot of them are tired, just plain tired and looking for a way to get out, like I was. That's when they're ready to listen."
His Cease Fire workers visit gang members in prison and at parks and other hangouts once they're out. To prevent retaliations, they visit the families of shooting victims and the shooters. As missionary work goes, it's slow and risky.
Daniel Contreras, a former Norteño who assists Rios, recalled what one gang member told him at a park:
"Stop talking to me about Jesus . . . Get out now and I never want to see you here again, or else!"
Obviously, that vato loco wasn't ready.
"Time!" Contreras said. "You have to build rapport. If you continue to go they'll see you're serious. As time goes by, they'll eventually be reached."
Increasingly, Rios said, his Cease Fire team finds itself invited to public schools and group homes desperate to stop playground melees. This has made some public school officials nervous. To some in the mainstream, Outreach's religious pitch is fine on the streets or in church, but not in the classroom.
In their effort to get into more schools with gang issues, Rios said, Cease Fire disciples are learning how to "tone down" the delivery.
For example, meeting last month with Norteño youths at San Jose's Overfelt High School, Rios spoke for about half an hour and didn't mention Jesus once. He laughed about it after.
"We have a secular curriculum, and we're learning how to deliver it," he said. "But at the same time, the 'Word' is going to come out in some way or another."
Still, the church was turned down when it applied for an anti-gang grant from the city. Rios and his disciples remain patient and optimistic.
"A little door is opening for us," he said.
On those closing words, the former Norteños and Sureños rose to shake hands and bless each other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you have a story idea for East Side/West Side? Contact Joe Rodriguez at [email protected] or (408) 920-5767.
RePrintPrint Email Return to Top
Comments
The Mercury News is pleased to let readers post comments about an article at the end of the article. Please increase the credibility of your post by including your full name and city when commenting.
NOTE: Links are not permitted in article comments
Recent Comments
TO ALL YOU HISPANIC HATERS, ID RATHER BE LABELED AS A GANGSTER,...
Too little- too late. These convicts created mayhem, violence, pain...
AHAHAHAHAH!!!! This is the silliest thing I have ever seen. Nortes...
Please Muderers are murderers executions are warranted here. just...
Jesus built my hotrod.
»Read More
Post Your Comment
Name:
Local News
crime politics elections obituaries
Controversial lawyer in dependency court resigns following Mercury News seriesA new lesson for California students? Global warmingSupervisors: Santa Clara County should oppose FDA ban on blood donations from gay menFairmont in San Jose hosts Valentine Day pajama drive for homeless childrenWoman escapes after kidnapped, sexually assaulted in RichmondPower restored to nearly 30,000 Bay Area customers after windy morningSan Jose council to vote on how to handle 'Saigon' controversyBerkeley back to normal after Marine Corps dispute
