Gang Aftermath

i was all good at first and then when my my grandma got murdered and everything went downhill from there and then most of my family was gang members already so i said oh yeah i miss we'll join up with them man when i first came in my chargers were so serious man you're asking 15 years to life another eight years on top they wanted 23 years in total first time in jail no criminal record not from being a gay member i grew up in a gang lifestyle i grew up like when i was a little kid looking up to these gang members thinking okay i want to be just like that rob pappin grew up in the street gang the street was his home and his family was his gang robb saw the dark reality of gang life from the inside and knew he had to get out today rob papin is a family man the father of five children they are his new gang they are who he represents and today rob helps aboriginal gang members and associates leave the gang leaving is easy staying out is the hard part he calls it gang intervention and prevention we're back at square one having to start over yeah that's a [ __ ] man that's where the sacrifice is those are just material things they come and go who's roberto without that though homeless no just kidding i'm still me like without them my kids are still going to be my kids without them see i've been trying to show you this all day okay i got it i got it i got it aboriginal street gangs have become a serious problem in major cities and on reserves never witnessed gang activity so pronounced as i've i've seen it here and in the community that i'm in and at such a young age also we're seeing kids as young as nine and ten as runners and you know as as young as 13 doing drive-by shootings and uh and carrying weapons and and so forth rob papin spends much of his time in aboriginal communities talking to youth about the pressures they face to become involved in gangs what's up buddy is this your brother he's my brother he's 16 2016 today and my other brother nathan he's 14. and he's like interested in all that gang stuff and he wants to follow that path where is he he's at home that's why i said he should have been here rob has received countless phone calls from gang members over the six years he has been doing gang intervention work i don't know if he'd call it destiny or luck or you know whatever i went to class one day and i seen this poster on the wall said gang violence help stop it there's a number at the bottom so i thought you know i'll check it out so derek phoned me once twice three times finally i phoned back to fourth time i got to speak to rob so i met him at this tattoo place in his neighborhood you know his gang neighborhood so i went met him you know i went there as myself didn't try to play the role didn't try to play the tough guy role or you know think i was better than anybody this winter as me you know i was looking for him to play this you know this solid role is whatever but you know at the same time i'm looking at him i'm thinking this guy's only 20 you know 22. we we talked for a while and you know he took me to the place he works and i guess you can say from that point he kind of took me under his wing and started guiding me derek powder grew up in edmonton's inner city with an alcoholic mother and never knowing his father i am a former gang member so that makes me feel proud about it as a part of the healing process rob encourages derek to speak in public about his gang experiences so there he is you know talking first time public speaking i loved being a gang member you know at the time you know don't get this twisted or stereotyped not in the gang no more what he doesn't realize that i got him on the hook now there's no way you can go out publicly in front of all these professionals in a place like this and say you're an ex-gang member and still try to be a gang member [Music] the shame of growing up in poverty surrounded by alcohol and violence pushed eric away from his family and onto the street rob papin has seen guys like derek powder come and go over the years some make it out of the game most don't this was the community leave for the hood man this is where gang members came the dealers the drunks the drug addicts the people from the street a place to just be themselves and you know it didn't matter who you were what you were about or what kind of background you had as long as you had money back in the day if there's any outreach workers that came by to say hey derek do you need help what would you have said what the [ __ ] you trying to help me for you know my mentality back then i think you know what do you want from me what do i got to do for you you know for you to come and help me because people just don't walk up to you and say hey can i help you can i get you off the street because they sit there and they say when i used to talk to counselors growing up they'd sit there and say you know um so how's everything you know how is this how is that or don't drink don't do drugs oh what the [ __ ] you trying to tell me not to drink and do drugs for do they sit there and say hey what's going on in your home life or the community you live in what do you see every day most gang members why are they male because they don't have that father figure at home so sitting there 10 years old you know a little brother sleeping i'm supposed to be sleeping too but i can't sleep because mom's not home we're not home with anybody actually that was a hard thing to deal with having the mom take off and not be there so finally eventually you'd fall asleep get up in the morning sometimes she'd be there sometimes she wouldn't when she was there she wouldn't be up to you know get us ready for school or i guess cook us breakfast so i you know slapped something together for me and my little brother get my little brother dressed and away we went we're in a big gymnasium like this right say i'm sitting over there with this group of my class and this girl she throws a piece of paper through the crowd first person they target me i get hauled out of the gym walk through those doors say this teacher walks up as she's walking and i'm following her she turns around she says you know what she goes it's a sad story about you and i said what's that she goes that you'll never amount to nothing you're just another stupid indian kid you know seeing my mom and my stepdad fight a lot that's how they handled their problems you know by yelling swearing screaming at each other and physically assaulting each other so i thought okay this is the way to deal with things i enjoyed that you know being a tough guy that's what i was called the tough guy in the school you know i enjoyed that getting that i guess that title at a young age it gave me power you know over people nobody would [ __ ] with me playing out and simple man you know talking to some of the kids you know i don't know how it would come about but we'd sit there and some boat welfare would come up i wouldn't say mom was on welfare because like [ __ ] i was embarrassed man you know where all these kids are saying oh my mom's got this job my dad's got this job and you know i ain't gonna say well you know what my home's on welfare and i don't have a dad that was embarrassing for me i don't say stuff like that because that reflected on me you know the way i dressed how i presented myself at school i was embarrassed you know to be who i was i didn't want to sit there and say well i got my clothes from valley village or bissell center you know mom would let's go to the business [ __ ] that [ __ ] man i ain't going there but still you know i'd go wear those clothes go to school you see all these kids wearing brand name clothes well for me i was one of those kids i really think that kids that decide to get into gangs nowadays they should really really think about what they're getting into every cop in the [ __ ] in the districts will know you man gangnam will [ __ ] roll up on you just for the out of it because you're walking down the street and punch you up man take you to the floodway [ __ ] leave you there walking back in the middle of winter time man just [ __ ] wearing your socks and that [ __ ] man so you don't need that [ __ ] man just [ __ ] go the right route man you know [ __ ] gang lifts not the way to go man really really understand what you're getting involved in that for some there is no coming back we place you on our national computer cpic the md police service if you're involved with gang activity or criminal activity you're on that network so when you get stopped anywhere and that includes going across the border because the us customs has access to this so if they pick this up and you've been picked up for drugs for example and you're off to disneyland they may not let you come into their country yeah i wanted to come to jail i wanted to be the baddest the baddest i can be at first i like i said i chose it because it seemed it looked from a distance like it was it was exciting it was fun but this time when i got out they were starting a group and that and even though i didn't want to be a part of it not i'd go and see them in that because they i'd never stopped them being my friends they were my friends my brothers and people i loved them who were always seemed there for me when i was out when they were growing up they were angels they were good kids like i never went through a hard time or nothing they just went to school came home everything was neat it was cool and then when i put it together with now like what happened where is it where's my good kids trying to get away from you as fast as i could i got all mine from movies man like when i found that blood and blood out on the street we were walking back my buddy's house we seen a video tape in the alley i grabbed it it said blood and blood oh we didn't know what the hell it was they went home wash it [ __ ] straight gangster man that's like awesome man that's it that's right there man because they went right up the line proof like me quota [ __ ] in the movie there and went straight to the top man you know how you when you play say say when you when you play a part of a role in movie or something you play that character you are that character i had to transform myself into him and i had to be that character to follow to extremes i had to go all the way from what i was doing we started this one one click started this up and then it was called uh independent gangsters were ig there was just six of us quentin tompkins or q derrick and quentin's two brothers cecil and flarey joined the same gang in the late 1990s and we started getting a name for us ourselves and uh we got a call from these other guys that we knew you know they had their own click going on but they switched over to something else and uh we went over there and they were drinking and they asked my buddy you know you want to be part of our crew and he said the only way i'll become part of it is if you let my brother and my other brother in you know and that was like a dream come true man you know that's where it began i always knew until they told us hey they told us that they were joining the gang members everything we tried to stop himself no it's not not a good life to be in but they they figured they were old enough to make their own decision my parents always had the right mind to tell me what to do but i never did listen to them as in growing up in a gang and i just chose that way gang life is all about proving yourself and being solid so there are different ways to recruit new members for the game in this case the wannabe gang member is about to experience a jumping in beating to prove he can take his licks like a man he is lured to a remote area and then jumped in by the patched members [Music] sometimes these recruits end up in hospital as a result of the severe beatings in this case the wannabe did not make it into the game because he was beaten to death for me to get into the gang lifestyle i wanted to be in power i wanted that control over people i wanted to have respect and inflict fear on people and i wanted people to back my play i'm gonna do something right now i'm gonna ask you guys some i need everybody's shoes everybody that's wearing shoes while obviously all of you yeah everybody throw their shoes in the middle both sides both pair won't you just throw them in there nobody hit me you've seen one person throw their shoes so why not you know the whole crowd goes just like the gang you know and then we explain to them the reality of it that's how it is now i have your property i want to see how tough you are i want to see if you challenge me got some nice shoes can we get you guys now to throw all your the ones wearing jackets into the in the middle too bring your jackets don't worry it won't go any farther than that how did you guys feel about throwing your stuff in the middle what was that it says getting bossed around no how did you feel oh you didn't throw yourself you're still wearing shoes man how did you feel it didn't matter to you do you know why i did that [Laughter] you want to use that term you know you guys noticed i was sitting in the back there right you guys didn't see me at all well you guys didn't see me in the front you saw me you know in the back right and you saw me come up here and ask derek to tell you guys to throw your stuff up here right do you see how i pumped you guys out in your own community in front of your own friends i did show you something your shoes and your jacket are over there that's showing you something okay but how much influence we have over you guys now for the guys that stood up and said they were leaders why are they sitting up here now leaders would stay just stay put and do their own thing like they were saying right like i do my own thing right that's how we're going to do this i do my own thing but yet they're up here and i asked them to do my own thing okay you guys are pumped and you're on tv as those getting older i started realizing that i liked it and i wanted to stay in it because i had respect people never badmouthed me they never talked bad to me you know if i raised a finger somebody would jump i i like power there's three kids i call them kids they were 16 18 19 year old they've been out drinking it's 2 30 in the morning and the 16 year old asked a group of kids just for a cigarette from that group reaches out and hits this guy on the face where he's just had a little bit of an operation and all these kids then in that group just go running off this guy thinks they're a group called the regular so he goes back to his apartment basement suite gets a knife gets a hockey stick baseball bat with his two buddies they go to a fourplex where they think this group is and they kick in the door and he's yelling their that group's name but he's hit an indian posse house the lady that's there comes out get out neighbors come out they come out armed because they know they want to protect their property they know who lives in that suite so they want to be prepared the young guy the 16 year old and one of the neighbors who's only 19 or 20 himself get into an argument they both have knives they stab each other the 19 year old starts chasing the 16 year old he's had his aortic cut nicked that's the main artery to the heart by one time around the block he's bled himself to death and he dies 16 year olds arrested charged then convicted of manslaughter goes to prison you've had two families and relatives and a great number of people that cared for both of these people now adversely affected because something stupid like that [Music] i'm using the weight to let that aggression go that um anger if i don't take it out on the weights or the punching bag i'm going to take it out somebody eventually this is another healthy form you know showing derrick that there's other ways to release that aggression me and derek always use it you can take a person off the street but you can't take the street out of the person so that's just me saying hey [ __ ] you guys but you know i'm using the weight you know to say it [Music] a lot of gang members are very angry and being like a gang member's girlfriend you carry a lot of their anger like physically emotionally [Music] gang members used to come stay with me there come you know buy drugs or whatever come get high and when my daughter wasn't there yeah the one right at the far corner yeah people just go in the back stairs come knock out the window and you just slide open a little sliding door you know make transactions and stuff and there is no women in the group but there's a bunch of women who hang around the guys and i'll tell you straight up they say you're not but a mattress in a gang you have to satisfy your man and if he turns around and he tells you he wants you to sleep with another woman you're gonna have to or else he'll beat the living crap out of you you know or if he wants you to turn around and go sleep with his buddy because his buddy doesn't have a girlfriend you know you're gonna have to do that when a girl is in a bathroom when you're there you're at a party and it has to do with drugs different guys are going in and out of there everybody knows what she's doing everybody around knows what's going on in that bathroom and it's all just for you know a few minutes of separation basically like from their mind from the drugs and yet their bodies are just getting used for nothing in a gang women are nothing but a doll a piece of meat somebody to be able to turn around and say hey you know she's there i'll go [ __ ] her then i'll go [ __ ] that other girl in about an hour you know it's a hard life it's a very hard life there is no you know beautiful high-rise that you live in there is no you know all beautiful clothes that you wear nobody has their own space nobody has their own personal belongings it's just a crappy place with crappy stuff there's a lot of girls now that they don't understand what they're getting into they just see it as oh well my boyfriend's you know this and he can give me this or buy me that and you know i don't have to pay for drugs or you know i could just go to a party and everything will just be all fun and games it's not like that it's not like that at all what does it give you he gives me money here and there he comes down here gets me buys me licks and when we were drinking at a couple of parties he was like giving me drugs but i told him i don't smoke if i have a girlfriend with me i'll like give him to her and she'll go so that's why i'm asking him would he like try and put her on the street maybe try and make her pay back for that like every time i see him he's with like 20 guys why does he have to have 20 guys with him he's a short little dude huh he's like real short he's like one of the smallest and he's like calling all the shots to who to all those like all those older bigger guys so why you want to get a record you are going to get a record let's say you're at home and he's at your place boom there goes the door cops come running in even though the shit's not yours are you gonna rat on them are you gonna go down for that like you can't just lead your own life man you know you got to worry about what's going on in your life what's going on in your friend's life you know what's going on in this person's life you know what's happening within the crew you know what's happening with the guys inside catch them by themselves they're soft man just like butter man they ain't nothing man they're so solid man they'd be rolling by themselves that's the way i seen it i seen a bunch of guys hiding behind the gang but being a gang member is nothing just the bottom line is nothing you're in a gutter you have nowhere to go it's the same as taking you and dropping you in a hole okay get yourself out of the 12 foot hole [Music] rob is enjoying a visit with his cousin robert wenger robert is the leader of an aboriginal street gang and has spent the last eight years of his life in a maximum security prison if you're smart while you're here you really look at yourself and ask yourself why you are here over the years i used to go to prison all i think about while i was in was can't wait to get out i wonder what they're doing i wonder i wonder who's all there i wonder what that girl's doing this girl never once did i ever stop to think about why are you here rob like why are you here you know sitting there you know talking on the phone you know talking my mom she's crying my dad they're crying you know i tell them and my lord told me no they're asking you know they're asking 15 years look at my little brother man young age man i brought him in at 15 years old made him do some heavy [ __ ] too sometimes now look at him man what a big brother i was huh he's like if you found goatee they're going to try to give you 25 years now no that's after you know i don't know what to say no this is what two hours before my trial starts you know i told him do what you gotta do i said like i can't be sitting here for 25 years monica i don't know that one it's stressful like thinking of it you know whenever i wanna see my guys like when are they gonna come out when are they coming home being inside jail and [ __ ] asking people to help me out get me out because i got bail but sitting in there oh yeah i'll say yeah we'll be there we'll come get you we'll get you out what do you need you need money [ __ ] we'll hook you up yeah well [ __ ] one week two weeks a month later six months later my ass is still [ __ ] sitting in there no money no bail and people are asking me that ain't part of the gang why the [ __ ] you in a gang if they can't even take care of you man you got you know all these guys sitting there you're bros you grow up with them they turn on you like that man call you a rat a skinner a check off a piece of [ __ ] and yet they got no paperwork on you man they got nothing just i don't know those what you call the hats means not even there never was man they never made the food chain like me man they never will you know there's no loyalty my face was supposed to get slashed i was supposed to get stabbed up and and this is supposed to be from people that i grew up with my friends like i was i was a one committed gang member man like i put my gang before my girlfriend man [ __ ] now i don't even have a girlfriend now [ __ ] gang member that's who i was that what i was [ __ ] 24 7 man i lived it and i breathed it i lost the one woman i loved through this gang she always wanted me to leave the gang quit selling drugs do this go to work straighten out but i i always told her i'm gang member till death that do me part i said i'll represent until i die you know i chose this gang over my own daughter my daughter's four years old just turned four in september four years old and you know what four years she's been alive and i bet you in her whole lifetime i haven't even spent six months with her to a year rob has been teaching derek about family values and how they are a part of a healthy lifestyle feeling more confident that he can leave the gang life behind derek has recently decided to regain custody of his four-year-old daughter rob accompanies him to his first appearance in family court you think people are your friends because they're there they back you up nobody's really there for you and back you up except for your family and that's your family with family the individual and the family and the family themselves sacrifice a lot to help each other in the gang you're always sacrificing to the gang giving up your freedom and your choices and a lifestyle and when i ask a lot of these guys especially the younger ones why to join a gang oh there's too many rules at home but when they start and stop and think about it there's just as many rules in the gang but your mom may not take a knife to ear beat you up or have you beaten up because you didn't clean your room i just can't figure it out you don't listen to your parents why do you have to go listen to somebody else that you never raised you to tell you to go do this and go do that then you go ahead and do it and you don't listen to your parents you know it just just don't make sense at all i can say i was kind of you know even more self-doubt she had all these [ __ ] people in her corner back in her plate and it was me and rob standing there you know and i was nervous like [ __ ] man you know all these people are backing her playing you know she's got a lot of weight i said don't look these are just people you know they're paid they're paid to be with her and i said i'm not paid to be with you i said that's a different i said i'm i'm writing this out with you just to show you i said but if you do it there is no turning back my daughter's mother telling me you know they ain't gonna give you your daughter you weren't there for four years the whole time of her life you didn't give her anything or provide for her and you certainly didn't raise her she doesn't even know who you are the stress of going to court and dealing with complex legal matters has given derek a craving for a taste of his old lifestyle he is tempted to kick back a bit and ease detention with a few drinks three hours you know debating whether or not it would be cool for him to go have a social drink i was like you know there is no such [ __ ] term as social drink when you're an alcoholic guy yeah but alcoholics are only old and blah blah blah i said well you know i sold up when i was 19 despite me being a dry drunk i still knew i couldn't [ __ ] touch alcohol man well you know he tried to give me every lame ass excuse and i was just like boing you know like give me a break man he got mad he was pouting i don't know i was like you know long story short you know you go do what you got to do if that's your case that's your choice cool but just understand this is that when you phone me up tomorrow let me know how you feel or everything like that ain't nobody going to be picking up because i don't give a [ __ ] [Music] derek fought off the temptation to drink and his healing journey continues [Music] rob pappan and elder joe cottrell have been helping derek to reconnect with himself as an aboriginal person on this day derek has returned to his cultural roots into the spiritual traditions of the green nation as he prepares for a sweat on the alexander first nation north of edmonton i don't derek he got away from that gang dog see [Music] he made up his mind he was searching for him some way to get out of there and he found it he's got that respect nowhere [Music] that's why everything is going right from he's happy now so he's stronger now getting stronger stronger one hundred years of residential schools where aboriginal children were removed from their families has created a state of despair and powerlessness for some people gangs create a sense of power for those who feel powerless and hope for those who live with hopelessness i think that the issue of residential schools and um other social policies and one of the profound social policies was outlawing ceremonies i don't think that the residential schools alone without the outlawing the ceremonies because ceremonies provided for us a sense of identity sense of belonging we even had our own justice system in the ceremonies we had ritual and we had a sense of community and the the difficulty is that when that's pulled out and the what they were trying to put in was unsuccessful in instilling the new values that they wanted to all of those things that were pulled out over 100 years happen in manifest in gangs since a ritual a sense of ceremony a sense of justice maybe it's not justice that mainstream would see as being justice but it's their justice if you believe really honestly believe in who you are as a native person you can do a lot of magic so i grew up like lost identity i really didn't know who i was throughout all the years i wasn't fortunate enough to learn about culture when i was younger we have a young population a young marginalized group of young people that are no longer in a lot of ways connected with their culture their language um they don't have that sense of identity that sense of belonging that pride in in who they are that pride in their family like you're saying like our aboriginal people we've been struggling for years we've been struggling for years like back in the day fighting extinction identity that lay years later were fighting addictions nowadays we're fighting each other i know a couple of girls who've gotten they've had certain marks on them tattoos they had them cut off by other people like their skin cut right off i plan to get some of the tattoos on some of these removals done but by professionals the gang tattoo or patch has been a big part of derek's life for years it was his badge of honor and a symbol of his loyalty to the game now derek is getting it removed patching it over with the image of an eagle this is but another step along the path of leaving the gang life behind if you're with one of them you got to be on guard all the time because there's always enemies like with my daughter before i had my younger kids were house invaded my girl was about maybe four or five she was awake she was sitting at her desk coloring and at the time my boyfriend he was like sleeping on the couch our door got kicked in while i'm sleeping she came into the room and she was like screaming and she woke up and i didn't know what was going on she was terrified and she jumped in the closet underneath her clothes she was hiding and then i went out and my boyfriend was getting like attacked by like four or five different guys with uh clubs baseball baseball bat golf clubs you know he was cornered he wasn't doing anything i don't even know where like the strength came from but i started swinging back at these people like i was scared and i know my daughter was like but my reaction was to defend myself when people would knock at the door after that she would like hide it was just a natural reaction for her she would like kind of duck down by the couch or something and i'd look at her and inside my heart like i just like kind of fall apart inside my friend was telling me how it affected her on when she was home invaded she said like how can you do that like how could they do that like did they not think about like who else was there and care i believe that's how she worded it i told her yeah of course they thought about it that's why they did it that's why i did it that's part of the things of a group one of them is intimidation there's only two alternatives to this lifestyle that's death or that's life in prison whoever says elsewhere you're kidding yourself there was a guy in the hospital when i was in a hospital after i got stopped after i got stopped who came in and died and the same guys that that that after i got stabbed the same guys that stabbed me went and stabbed him and all i knew is that i was being hunted too so instead of having somebody drive around looking for me to gun i went and got my own gun and instead of driving around i went right to their place and i kicked it in i didn't have a regard for who was in there my only mission was to kill him i've lost a lot of family members to the gang life and i still am i've lost two brothers and three cousins and they had to get hauled away in a body bag it wasn't just walking away it was being hauled away in a body bag they almost killed me once he almost killed me twice he almost killed me three times i got chopped in the head with a samurai sword my life almost got taken i stabbed that one guy at least 11 12 times i don't know how many times all i was thinking he's gonna kill me so i'm gonna kill him first the negatives is getting slashed from ear to ear and getting cut on the arm getting slashed in the face and having my lung pun punctured i was in the hospital for six days 50 50 chance to live i died three times on that bed i heard my own heart flat line my heart beep and i was i seen myself i floated up i looked down at myself and then all of a sudden it went black no matter what you go through growing up what choices you make when you're younger and stuff even if they are wrong ones that you can still lift yourself up and go in a better direction now when i go home man she's just gonna be like being born again man whole new person i don't know if i'm gonna hold it up in the city anymore i'll probably move somewhere else man stirred up somewhere different new life man i'd go back and start all over again man lead different way man it's just not the place to go man i got bad wounds i can't even breathe right to this day from all my stab wounds [ __ ] i had no sense of belonging i had no role models my kids have role models and i hope to god that they have a sense of belonging i had to lie to get into this program because really didn't know where else i would go um started hanging around people positive people people that didn't use the drugs and alcohol one of the first things that was told to me by my facilitator was what you put into the program is what you're going to get out of it so i thought to myself if i can be loyal to a gang for 10 years i can start being loyal to me me today i'm robert wenger i'm me i'm not outlaw anymore i'm one who cares about my family one who wants to spend time in my family one who wants to tell my family that i love him that i always have i just didn't know how to say it with rob's help and after many attempts the courts have awarded derek custody of his daughter you're big and i need to get a shirt that fits you good when she first walked in the door when you know the day i got cussy of her and she got dropped off that evening you know she walked through the door and you know here's this little person coming in my home you know and i looked down at her and she got her little bag and she looks up at me and not today i was like hey how you doing this was good like you know i'm standing there thinking in the back of my head like what the [ __ ] do we do now cool did you take a shower not [ __ ] come on let's go she knows how to count to 10 in cree she knows how to say her abcs you know and sometimes she'll sit there like one day i was getting her ready for school you know and i put on some cologne and you know i'm doing up her jacket and she was like daddy you smell good i was like thank you my girl and she goes yeah daddy you smell like a gangster i didn't go to sleep right away and you know looking at her and saying holy [ __ ] you know here's my daughter i put my arm around her and i gave a kiss on the forehead you know and i don't just i don't know how to explain it you know just something i never felt before you know [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: BearPaw Media and Education

Views: 82,478

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Id: 2QrGJu2xQks

Length: 47min 59sec (2879 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021