Gerardo Lopez on the History of MS-13 and His Experience as a Former Member (Full Interview)

all right here we go we have Gerardo Lopez formerly of the notorious ms-13 gang now this is the first time we've actually interviewed someone from ms-13 so I just want to go into the history of the gang first because not only is ms-13 known for the extreme violence but they're also known for being singled out by Donald Trump in order to deport South Americans in general and children in particular without due process so let's go ahead and get into the whole history so ms-13 started in the 1980s correct okay and talk about sort of the situations that caused the group to form initially okay well I guess you talk about mr. team we have to understand the history of what happened in Salvador first which was the white people decided to form him as their tuna fish salad or before the civil war even started sorry Lord it was a right-wing government fighting against taking land away from the camp instead of the farmers if he will and it's a lord and they've got tired of it so they started to unionize and started forming their own groups and fighting against the government and this happened for for several years and as time went on there's other uprisings that were coming up in Latin America as well fighting against their government because they felt oppressed as as well and during this time it was just chaos in El Salvador and the United States intervened because they were fearful of these countries in Latin America becoming communist or being during that time Soviet Union influence they were in for them to become in communist countries so they started funding this Civil War and after aftermath of the Civil War there was about there was hundreds of thousands of deaths when kids went to school or when they were just around the neighborhood they saw these wars bombs going off walking down the street seeing bodies being decapitated could have been their friends their family members or people they just didn't know but they saw all these volumes all together and late at night military soldiers from the government will come into the people thousands try to take away their kids for them to be able to join the military so these were kids there were 10 11 12 years old that will now taught all these things that the government was trained by the School of the Americas in the United States that all these training came in to excel at all which is a brutal training if you will so parents had no choice but to go ahead and free Salvador to a safer country so they were refugees and they came into the United States and some of these kids were sent by themselves to go with their aunts or their uncles and a lot of their kids their parents had already died so they went into a neighborhood where in pretty much in Pico Union Koreatown in Los Angeles where there was already violence there was already gangs and there was already drugs and there was no Allah not a whole lot of opportunity for a youth to be able to survive all those things that were going on so as the gang formed these kids started going to to school if you will and when they started going to suit before the gang forms give the kids these kids started going to school and they were being made fun because of that their dialect now the dialect of Salvador is very different from the dialect of Mexico if a kid from a Salvador tells somebody a que onda Sirota to a Mexican the Mexican guy's gonna be feel very offended the same way of a Mexican kid tales or Salvadoran kid a waking on that the Salvadoran kids gonna go ahead and get offended and then you had a Chicano American kid who speaks both languages and the Chicano will go ahead and be the kid who's born in the United States but their parents are from some country in Latin America so there's bullying because of that they are the way they talked and it was a strange culture to the people living in the neighborhood not that just Chicanos or the Mexicans but kids from other different countries as well it was somewhat of a culture clash if you will and there was a group of kids not not all the Salvadoran kids as a whole are Salvadoran kids I didn't join em s but the way that it started was the sorry Korean kids started forming their own group called em SS which was Mara Salvatrucha stoners and the gang started as a protection for anti bullying if you will against other people within schools and these kids started fighting back but it consisted of a rock it was more of a heavy-metal gang where they went to these concerts like the light likes of Black Sabbath ac/dc and when they went to the concert they saw people that had the ripped up jeans the shirt with the tongue hanging out the long hair head bagging and going like this which was the MS sign so they adapted that heavy metal sign which turned out to be the famous and as sign if you will so when they were in the street now they need now you have this group and they were they started hanging around in the street and other gangs took notice of them that they were uprising if you will so from smoking weed to heavy metal now they were being assaulted by these other gang members if you will so they started defending themselves they started getting locked up now when they started getting locked up they were still being made fun up because they were saying that they were in a gang if you will but they look like like heavy-metal people people that were going to those concerts and right there this is the movie this is the time when the movie colors came out right you saw the dress the Nike Cortez shoes dick and pants the Pendleton shirt the tattoos the shaped heads so from right there they started adapting this style and the tattoos as well and they also began to learn the language if you will English because a lot of these kids they came over when they were 10 11 or 12 and when they got deported back to El Salvador when they got off that plane for me Salvador it was like you know rock stars coming off that plane that kids started seeing them because they were dressed like the cholos from the movies that the tattoos and they spoke English as well so of course the girls right there you know they flocked to them the kids thought that the other girls were flocking to him they wanted to go ahead and be just like them so when they landed in a salwar Lord it was a whole different culture for them because a whole lot on were already in the United States for several years that was their home and in Salvador it was a strange country trillium now because their family ties was and as as as grounded if you were because a lot of their family had got killed in the Civil War so they had kids then they had their left in the United States of America so their plan was to always try to go ahead and come back but at the same time there was people that began to people in over there in Salvador and that's how the the gang continued to grow and grow so the name ms-13 what does it stand for so M s is so M is Maura and the SS Salvatrucha and 13 is always a 13th letter of the alphabet for the letter M okay now is that something to do with army ants well see what I'm saying like there is a the marabunta hi is aka an army ant which is considered one of the deadliest really animals in nature it's basically it would eat through anything it would it would attack anything and just run through anything flesh you know plants whatever in order to get to what they wanted is there some sort of connection with that you know if you continue to see the history of what M s stands for all M is is they are in there sitting down in couches like like this right here right here and people will go ahead and talk and try to make images of something and try to portray it even more and more you know give it giving it more spice to whatever it was but there was some talk about those ants as as well but Maura in general is a slang word in its Salvador like saying where are you gonna were stomata a like where is the group so Maura was even before a word out as a solid Dorian Ward that was even formed before MS started so that's how they got the Mara Salvatrucha is slang for solid Dorian okay so in order to join the gang there's something called a beat in right and it goes for 13 seconds alright where they basically all the other gang members will beat on you and then after 13 seconds you're considered part of the gang correct okay now you know you talked about the hand signs I guess called The Devil's head well again it consisted of a the hand sign was was copied from the heavy metal rock concerts that were right there in Salvador so nobody knew what it really was they just saw everybody going like this and in some Metallica stuff that was the time when the Metallica music was Dean say tannic rabble ish yeah motely crew motley crue out of the devil and right all that I thought yes a satanic imagery in heavy metal we're kind of going together in the eighties right so remember all that right so when you go like this it's also like that and then it played in well with within the gap because it they consist of during those times with the Devil's horns and then it consisted if you turned the hand sign upside down it's an M as well gotcha now along with the hand signs came the tattoos right now in 2020 seeing a rapper with a bunch of face tattoos is considered normal but back then you never saw it Anna ms-13 guys like the first ones that I really saw with very heavy heavy face tattoos it Ebola under been in the in juvenile facilities and early on 1991 19 and 2 and I was locked up in central juvenile hall or spa the Reno's Sylmar went to camp and there was a whole lot of there was some people right there already that those face tattoos there was some East LA gangs that already had it a lot of the people that were actually known for the face tattoos were the people from 18th Street as as well and again that was just another step that ms-13 began mimicking if you will of other gangs who try to go ahead and fit in because again the gang did not starting in Salvador the gang started with the LA culture influence within the in the United States and if you remember back in I mean back in the days we know we're talking about the 60s or something the first tattoo of a gang member was probably like a teardrop or a smile now cry later of brown pride so they started copying the tattoos from there but yes absolutely ms-13 did take it over the top if you will with the face with the face yeah I mean you see you know MS covering and riot person's face right horns right on the head right you see the 13 you know people's entire faces tatted up that's considered somewhat normal with ms-13 whereas it's not quite as common when you see maybe like the Mexican Mafia or the Crips and bloods and so forth what there is - I will say regardless with what the horns but there well you I mean you make you make a great point because I do see that but going into the the stuff that I was seeing like let's say in Los Angeles there is some people that you you see you know what the MS tattoos but when you're going to El Salvador now we're talking about ms-13 is solid all then yeah absolutely there is everybody almost a whole lot of people right there how those MS tattoos in their face okay so these kids they they come over to the US they get in trouble then they get deported back to El Salvador now before I miss 13 there wasn't any significant gangs in El Salvador correct from what I understand but then once ms-13 starts coming back they were the rockstars right they had all this cool American things about them and everyone started to uh to really kind of copy them you know and not copy them but but want to be involved and what it is that they're doing now during this time it's kind of an interesting time in El Salvador because I guess there's something called the chapel that back peace accords mm-hmm did I say that right mm-hmm so basically after the the revolution had had been you know finished the the Salvadoran government was required to stop using the standard the standing army as a police force and form a new National Police Service but the ruling party uh Idina it was kind of the descendant of the wartime military government so it actually there was a delay in creating the National Police Force and by time it was finally formed there's kind of like a lack of a police in El Salvador so as the ms-13 guys were kind of building a power there was no real police presence right to really go against them is this kind of accurate in terms of what's happening yeah well absolutely the thing also was that they were just trying to recover from a civil war if you will we're facing poverty we're facing a whole lot of debs murders trying to even reconnect families where somebody trying to even survive a day of what they're gonna eat or where they're gonna go go ahead and live and now with all these deportations happened now ms has this now ms started retinol and it's an uprising and they don't know how to go ahead and deal or handle the client culture so absolutely ms members did take advantage of that to continue to start that uprising over there and instead of although because of the lack of resources over there law enforcement ways as um as well but then also they did start the way that they figured out how to Chloe and in combat they did start making these government groups which was like like the chambre Nagar and we have right now is the military groups that are called gurupada alumina C own meaning that they're just right there mainly to hunt ms-13 members so if you're going there was a time when people are getting deported and the unite and the Salvador said we can't handle is how we're gonna handle these issues so if you were from ms and you were getting off that plane the militants the some but I Nate I will go ahead and and disappear you from as soon as you got off that plane and go ahead and kill you and if you were with your family they will go ahead and kill them as well yeah no I was watching a lot of documentaries about this and you know you see the guys that are basically ending up back in El Salvador and they're like hey man my friend got deported six months ago and he was killed right away so they kind of don't know what to do they may not want to join back into ms-13 but they're scared for their lives against the police so they end up joining the gang just to survive right so it's kind of a catch-22 situation it is so along with you know the civil war had just ended in El Salvador there was all these weapons all around the country and it wasn't really controlled at the time so you had all these guns all this heavy ammunition and you know essentially ms-13 became arms traffickers during this time is that accurate I I never heard something of to that extent that they have access to some guns absolutely but I think also we have to understand where these guns came from they didn't come from they came from America yeah and I'm gonna get into its really good ironic how you know America has this problem with ms-13 but they kind of created ms-13 right indirectly right so a lot of it is like theirs now they're just havoc in this Salvador now who is it that we're gonna go ahead and blame this stuff at this ms-13 have a fault to a certain extent of starting the gang right there absolutely absolutely but then also what was the opportunity for a kid to even not wanting to go ahead and get a gun and defend themselves when he saw that there was no type of youth activities or and there was people in sweat labors or sweatshops getting paid very low wasted to be trying to able to go ahead and survive now violence is one of the one of the main attributes of ms-13 but but not only violence but violence involving minors seems to be a major a major theme with the victims being minors as well as the suspects for the actual killings being minors as well why is there such a focus on children well it's the gang culture I think when I was 15 or 16 years old the people that we were assaulting or attacking it was kids killing kids and when you start thinking about ms-13 sometimes you do have this picture of what's been portrayed to you as the the mean-looking gang member with the face tattoos and you will think that this person is twenty thirty something years old killing these kids but in reality it's youth from a certain gang fighting against kids from ms-13 to which a lot of times we forget that these kids from these people from ms-13 they're also kids as as well and a whole and there they have done some horrific crimes as well and the victims that they that you do see like the stuff that you're probably talking about recently from the East Coast it's kids that are having situations with other kids at some schools that are they're the same age and the way that these kids are letting out their aggression or the way that they saw from the after in the wars in in salvador is through that extent of violence well ms-13 starts to spread other South America and Central American countries right and the violence was really just off the meter there was a situation in Honduras where I guess the Honduran government wanted to restore the death penalty mm-hmm and there was a situation in 2004 where a whole bus was sprayed up right 28 people dead 14 wounded most of the passengers were women and children right 6 6 different people just sprayed the bus with guns and then another person actually went on board on the bus and just started executing people you know a guy named Juan Bautista Jimenez he was accused of masterminding the the massacre and then when he got to prison he was actually killed by other ms-13 members mmm you know buses would get burned up in broad daylight for going to the wrong neighborhoods police would be targeted government officials be targeted you know it got to the point where the supreme court in El Salvador actually classified them as a terrorist organization and there were there are really situations where there was presidents in El Salvador they would have to negotiate with ms-13 to try to lower the killings and so forth so it really as big as ms-13 was in the US and El Salvador it became a major major entity right and you're familiar with with all this type of thing correct why do you think that it became so huge in El Salvador considering that it started in LA well a lot of it consists of the deportations that we have or the immigrant people being deported if they had any ties to if they come in at any type of crime like in 1995 or 1996 you will go ahead and get the port even if it was some type of misdemeanor and when you continue to just have oppression to try to go ahead and fix a problem a gang is notorious that a master - but your thing is your strategy is just to go ahead and try to kill them or try to go ahead and push him out of that out way too from that town to it they're just gonna go - go ahead and a nearby town but nobody go when I had and focused on the rehabilitation of the gang member nobody went to continue and focus on what's causing ms-13 to continue to spray it was there lack any the lack of opportunity of resources of jobs of even mental health social services and install our Lord there was really none of that stuff so in order for us to be able to stop the ms-13 from continuing to form we have to go ahead and give opportunities for other kids that want to go ahead and to get into other gangs and give them opportunities for them to think about not joining the gang and say you know what here's this job here's this facility this you for Synod or here's this mental health services or here's this this curriculum of this program that's gonna help you through the healing that you grew up seeing throughout your life or how do you go ahead and parent or how do you go ahead and be a good parent or a good citizen of society if if you will so we have to go ahead and start focusing on the rehabilitation and again in this Salvador there was any there was none of that so it's gonna continue to form whether it's its ms-13 or its other gangs it's just gonna continue to up rise as as well without those resources well ms-13 was was growing but it was somewhat disorganized I guess it wasn't cliques you know friends doing doing various things but then in 1990 a guy named Ernesto Daris came around you familiar with him so he was actually a former member of the Salvadorean Special Forces mm-hmm and he was trained in Panama by the United States Green Berets mm-hmm and once he actually got into ms-13 and started becoming a leader he actually used the military training that you learned from the u.s. to actually organized ms-13 into more of a an organized gang that mmm no you know I don't know about this at all well I've haven't heard of it so I don't think one person will have that pool to go ahead and organize the stuff like that you always hear about ms-13 about militant people joining the gang yeah when I grew up I will probably say 1 to 2 percent maybe what they have some type of militant influence but there wouldn't be one person who when it scared I said ok now this is a whole military operation because if that started in Salvador then that would have probably trickled down to the United States and well this was actually in the United States but from what I understand but in the United States I believe so yeah no no no case I mean maybe I'm wrong but it's just very ironic though that the Green Berets taught a guy who ended up using that in ms-13 what well the School of the Americas taught a whole lot of the dirty does scuse me another idea but the government in Salvador on how to go ahead and use the tactics over there well at what point did the beef with 18th Street gang start well it started there's there's different stories to it right these are like a folk tales if you will and the one that's probably more accurate to me and just like gang stuff sometimes it starts over a girl you took my girl as well she's messy with right because at one point 18th Street at ms-13 were actually friendly with each other right and then a situation with a girl a situation with a girl happened at a party and I believe it was an 18th Street member that um that got shot and that went ahead and started the war between MS and 80 streets and that's now spread into other countries as well so in El Salvador you have 18th Street and then it's talked about all you have 80 Street you have 80 streets and yeah and different parts different different parts of the world in different parts of the world as as well and this this war Polly pond nine or ten years ago there was a peace treaty in El Salvador with a salvadore was negotiating with ms-13 members and 80 Street members right there and they were started to and what they were asking was the stuff that I just said right not about mental health services better for being able for their poor bull gets to see their their families as well some type of better clothes and when you're in Salvador I mean you're worrying the what you're wearing for weeks upon months so as soon as the United States caught wind that the government was um well was dealing or negotiating with the gang members the government and in Salvador went ahead and got scared off and said no we're not dealing with them and that's when the talks stopped and then Salvador I believe the murder rate right there was um it was about 15 per day when the peace treaty started you were having um one or two per day which I mean that's still bad I mean anybody being killed still bad but you could see the demographics you know changed as well I mean just interesting how these wars will start over a girl like for example like in LA you have the war between the rollin 60s and the HRA gangsters right and that started over a girl mmm girl was seeing a you know a guy from each of these crews a fight broke out someone got killed then the other side retaliated and then 30 years later you have literally hundreds of people dead over a couple of teenagers right fighting over a girl right who you know probably went on and messed with someone else right afterwards and a lot of times trying to even understand what that girl was going through herself yeah why was she even there what was the pain that she was going through as well yeah well by 2004 the FBI actually created an ms-13 national gang task force right so they actually started working with law enforcement El Salvador Honduras Guatemala and Mexico and actually had an office in a Salvador to deal with this by 2008 they set up a series of arrests and crackdowns all over the world mm-hmm that involved like 6,000 police officers in five different countries 650 people were taken into custody so you just started to see these worldwide sweeps that was coordinated so it became a very serious thing do you remember this time I do remember this time and I remember let me give a little you know just to talk about a little bit of history or that I mean when I came out of California Youth Authority YT s in 1997 that's about 18 or 19 years old and I was walking around my street in a Koreatown my old neighborhood and any give it time before I got locked up you will see five you know ten ms-13 members late at night hey you know there's certain blocks and during this time when I got out I was all like yeah we're all what happened to all my homies because there was a turf war between ms-13 an ms-13 in 1996 over a certain a street that was that was drug trafficking and a lot of people wanted to be in that and a lot of people didn't want to go ahead and drug traffic and say you know what this is art click go to your cliques OEMs and met and I started fighting there was deaths there was killings and some people from M s they didn't want to be part of that so a lot of them moved away some of them just calm down stop banging and a lot of them got locked up as well then I remember the rampart crash officers that will go ahead and pull me over and tell me damn clever my nickname if you will what happened to ms-13 that turf war when I hadn't killed you guys and I was all like wow and you will only see a few homies so as time went on during a few years later than the FBI did wage the war on on gangs so you need a perfect villain for that a lot of times the immigrant community are the ones that get that short end of the stick from generations upon generations upon generations so this villain that they created from the gang was the person that had the image tattoos so they started showing the ms-13 person the tattoos on the on the TV just plastering this person's face all over the thing thinking that this person was living right next to you when a lot of times these MS members these tattoos were people that were in prison in El Salvador they had never even stepped foot in the United States but of course there was also violent ms-13 members in the United States as as well so now when they continue to plaster the crimes of M is they started putting in in Anna Pettis to then the National Geographic came out with the world's biggest and most dangerous gang with the face tattoos as well and kids they wanted to be from a gang they say wow we're gonna go ahead and join a gang we want to be from the biggest and was being portrayed the worst the the the the baddest gang that's what a lot of times I go ahead and say when I'm asked is ms-13 the world's biggest in the world and most dangerous gangs know and also you need to go ahead stop promoting or put it up in a pedestal like that because then you have these kids that do come from broken families that do want to go ahead and giant that end up wanna go ahead and do that but in 2003 also there was an informant from MS where there was these other uprisings there was an FBI informant and there was these other uprisings and different states in the United States and there was no connection between them and and California or El Salvador it was Central American people that were flocking to other country I'm choosing in two different states and not again not all along got into a mess but when these kids did all these feel isolated and didn't have that culture shock how MSS started in the 1980s they started out bring and said oh yeah so should they weren't even Kenny jumped in or nothing they were just claiming it because they were from El Salvador so this informant from 2003 2004 he the FBI played and paid his plane tickets they were getting fifty to sixty annual salary to go ahead and see what was going on with these other groups so what this guy did he pretty much connected the dots from state to state to state and they commit connected the ultimate da to El Salvador that line and that's how that started to get more organized if you will well by 2011 the task force had made twenty thousand arrests mm-hmm by 2012 the US Treasury Department froze all the assets with anything connected with ms-13 and they actually listed ms-13 is a transnational criminal organization which took it to the next level and then by 2015 El Salvador had the highest national homicide rate per capita in the world more people were getting killed in El Salvador we're getting murdered in El Salvador than anyplace on earth horrible I mean that's kind of mind-blowing when you share about it a lot of countries out there there's a lot of war-torn countries out of here there's a lot of gangs all over the planet every country has its own gang and so forth but El Salvador in particular with ms-13 being the biggest gang in El Salvador it's contributing to more people getting killed than anyplace else but when you hear that how does that make you feel well it's it makes me feel it's horrific you know and given that um all that stuff it goes back to to the pain of saying how do we fix this because I remember even in LA seeing those are murders I mean there was years in LA where there was a three or four five hundred people a year getting getting killed you know a lot of my own homies and you know enemies as um as well but it goes back to the thing of it it's almost like an everyday thing it's not watching it's watching like the movie great groundhogs day over and over and over again and we continue and say the murders the killings the chaos but we don't we need to start talking more and more and put more and more efforts into rehabilitation tactics and giving people opportunities so they won't go ahead and and join a gang but it feels that sometimes we're you know us as a country here in the United States we want our hand in different things and we try to go fix something that's already broken and we end up shattering it you know because of the same continued tactics that we have continued to use and from generations upon generations in in Latin America was a mess turd whether it's against ms-13 or just different uprisings that are that they feel as a threat or that we feel as a threat from from overcoming or becoming a communist country if you will we're starting to see how is it that we're gonna go in and fix it a lot of it it's continuing and just the saint's actives of oppression and oppression and it's the same tactics that we continue to use in our own country right here in the United States of oppression and oppression when it comes into the situation of how do we go ahead and get that guy out of a gang let's go ahead and lock them let's go ahead and throw the key and when this person goes into prison to try to go ahead and find some form of rehabilitation there is none there is none right so how are you gonna go ahead and come out of prison and be a functioning member of society if you will when we don't we're not focusing on the preventative part we're just focusing on the punitive punitive party if you will yeah well eventually ms-13 spread to New York right to Long Island and there was a series of murders that happened and the weapon of choice was a machete you know that the district attorney in New York said the crimes are talking about her brutal the weapon of choice is a machete and of seeing people with injuries that I've never seen before you know limbs hacked off as the bodies look like they were recovering and these were not adults these were like young girls teenage girls they were getting chopped up and killed in the forest the guys that were caught would be like 13 14 years old right so it's basically children hacking up children right when you hear about these stories knowing that this is an organization that you were once connected to yourself how does that make you feel yeah it's horrific if you will when you go ahead and hear something like that I actually went to those high schools where that's that what that stuff I'm happy oh really oh yes the neat there was a New York Police Commissioner that they found out that I was over there doing some some work through my organization and they reached out to me and my my longtime mentor if you Alex Sanchez was part of homie Sunil's a former ms-13 member as well and we went to the school and we talked to these kids and we had a healing circle for them and a lot of times of strategy of that right there and how to go ahead and find healing was go ahead and to you know a lot of the government official one end there they got the kids and they deported who they fell and they who they felt was involved or a lot of it even consisted of somebody that were a Salvadoran background they're on Facebook they were just showing the pride of the Salvadorean flag but it's horrific when you hear something at that not just an ms-13 but even when you hear these stories in general with other gangs or you hear stories like that that even don't have to do nothing with gangs right it's just the human being attacking the human being but to go to even the history of the machete because it's constantly being upper turned on the news and the media the history of the machete consisted and back in the days and in Salvador even before the Civil War started were it's a tool that farmers used right in a salvador get to the forest forest so they won't go ahead and scrape their their hands and when that true from the machete when the operation of the government coming that the farmers didn't have these weapons or guns the way that they knew how to defend to myself what the easiest access to them which was the machete if you will and then i'm a chair and the kids remember the Marchetta as when they were kids in a salad order and when they came over here in the MS members saw that and now you have a gang that's uprising but you don't have the resources yet to go ahead and buy the guns with other gangs already had guns and they went to go ahead and try to attack and for them to defend themselves they remembered how these farmers if we will defend themselves and that's when they got the the use of the of the machete but if you go into the even though more history of the machete how it's been used it's been used throughout Latin America not just for killing but it's a famous to that has been used a lot for farming or for the branches or for cutting stuff up that didn't necessarily mean armed people but even to take it a step further the machete has always been glorified even when Jason had it in the in the movie if you will right 13:13 if you it was a I mean I was scaler and I used to see Jason that's a movie this is real life then it comes into the thing but a lot of times in the movies we have to go ahead and be careful what we go ahead and and what people portray like remember when the colors movie came out with the with the gangster image you know people wanted to go ahead and copy that on that image as as well but absolutely any any killing you know that a kid does what everything I mean it it it hurts you right you know it devastates she's just to hears that somebody will actually go ahead and go to that level of catching somebody with a machete or any type of way if yeah well from reports ms-13 comprises about 1% of the total gangs in the US but the Republicans kind of took it upon themselves to really use ms-13 as a tool to try to change laws that they wanted to change right so you know Republicans started to accuse Democrats of being responsible for the violence of ms-13 you know and started asking for stricter immigration policies because of ms-13 right right they started to argue the sanctuary cities which is places that don't deport people was contributing to ms-13 activity although you know they did Studies on this and there's actually no no relation to the two in fact the in sanctuary cities is actually less crime that they found but it started to go with this whole narrative that Trump started to pick up and run when he was actually trying to get elected and then once he became presidents and mr. team became a top priority of the Justice Department mm-hmm did you feel that would that started to happen well I remember seeing it out and and me you know shaking my head I was all like I can't believe that this is happening over I guess history started to repeat itself because that's the same stuff that I saw on TV when the ms-13 gang started to dial in Los Angeles and then the the war on gang started and then now it was being put on a pedestal if you will so it's kind of history repeating itself and not only are you are you using that image of ms-13 like you say is being portrayed to go ahead and say this is how all the immigrants look this is how everybody from it's salable or looks and we go ahead and don't stop but we don't build a wall all of these people are gonna come and they make you feel like they're gonna be in your backyard or right next to you so absolutely like like I say it's been a tool to use immigrants people of color as a scapegoat but this time they were um you know they took it to a whole different level and say you know what we're just gonna go ahead and paint this face as well and say this is the the the immigrant face if you will and then we put the ms-13 tattoos which was an actual actual person right yeah I mean in the process you started seeing some very you know some very kind of disturbing things so Trump's organizations started using this ms-13 [Music] reason to start locking up kids mmm you know there was a there was an interesting documentary that I watched on PBS there was a kid named jr. who's in New York and in Long Island someone accused him of being an ms-13 member you know when they went through the investigation they found that he had written 503 which is the el salvador area code in his notebook one time mm-hmm they you know he got suspended and they told him you know look just sign this little paper saying you're an ms-13 and you can come back to school next year these are all undocumented immigrants right so no one really wants to go to the police no one really wants to have the law involved they just want to quietly live in the US and not get deported so with this with this a teenage kid here he signed the paper and before we know it he got sent off to detention center mm-hmm for six months right by himself he tried to kill himself mm-hmm tried to hang himself right so then they stripped him lost clothes and made him just basically sit naked in a cell then he found some glass and try to cut cut his arm to bleed to death the ACLU came and filed a lawsuit on his behalf and one of the California judges actually started against Trump and then they these are reviewing all the charges 26 kids were actually had the charges dropped and his charges got dropped but this is somebody who was just a good church-going kid who got hemmed up in the system and this started happening over and over again where kids were getting separated from their families and getting thrown into this pile of gang members of dangerous people in order to for Trump to actually get rid of what he felt was undesirables mmm in this country well what what's your take on that well and who you heard stories like this I have and I remember reading about that story as long as well kids from Central America being you know let's say let's say those kids in that school it was obviously kids that also had that culture class right there and the people that they could relate to will the Salvadoran kids on says we have culture clashes between the Mexican kids head over here the Salvadorian kids are over here the African Americans over here that you can tow kids right here so this kid automatically flocked if you will to the solver Dorian kids and unfortunately there was MS influence right there and now when you hear kids now saying that I'm from Hermes I don't jump to the conclusion that it's this machete-wielding ms-13 member that's just gonna go ahead and hack you away a lot of times it's these kids wanted to get that clout if you will within the school to probably look good to a girl or to go look to their peers and say oh yeah by the way arm I'm from ms-13 also and these other kids will go then they get that sense of belonging that sense of acceptance another part of a group where they feel that they go ahead and belong and then with this stuff she this kid told a school teacher if you will hey I'm from MS and I'm from ms-13 and that's how that went I had and happened but I've seen a lot of stories where even when I go to intervention with a kid that's saying that they're from Hermes a lot of times I go down to the point of it where I you know talked to him and I said so in reality you're not from a mess right and a lot of time no mister you know it's just that it sounds cool and everybody and I'm tired of being bullied at school also I want to be a part of something so if I'm saved I'm from this gang I'll go ahead and do it if I put on my face face book on page and portrayed this image of myself people will probably go ahead and leave me alone and these kids don't understand and unfortunately if you go ahead and throw up on em si if you go ahead and start faking at the Little Creek the cried wolf if you will the fans are gonna go ahead and and and take advantage that or take it serious to a certain extent and you're gonna end up being you know in custody or the same thing that happened to arm to jr. and then jr. was an informant right he he gave up the the are we talking about the same kid that we're not sure okay was there there was also another kid they started working with what the FBI if you will and he started giving Intel and he thought he was gonna get that railey old a deal if you were from like the Goodfellas where you put up in all this so you're gonna get protests for us in the book but after they got all the information from from him they turned him over to I&S and then he was facing um deportation and recently he's been I believe that he was deported back to to El Salvador so where is the way out you give information you get turned over to ans because you weren't born here and and you still get deported and right there and instead of our Lord then you're probably gonna go ahead and get killed and a lot of times not necessarily perhaps from from ms4 you being there for me but then you had this email elimination squads that if you have any type of MS on your jacket or MS tattoo if you're from it or not they're gonna go ahead and kill you as as well if you will it's like a kid that goes ahead and gets out of ms/ms right and he's not from in solid or just say you get out and everything but then I and I still doesn't care and comes to get your eyes and you end up getting deported as um as well yeah I mean I've seen some of the documentaries about MS ms-13 guys in other countries that you know the guys that have their face tatted up there's such a target to the police they literally don't leave their house for years yeah they sit in their house and run their their operations they send their guys out to do whatever but they literally cannot leave the house because as soon as they walk outside you know the police or the the hit squads will come in and just either kill them or put them in prison forever yeah and what's happening right now it's all about Lord with the current administration right there you know it consists of the same oppression of saying okay we're gonna go in and kill off these gang members and before you go into a neighborhood and you arrest or you kill the gang member then you know your military group are leaves now what they're doing you kill or arrest the gang member in the military groups stay so now what they're doing these guys from ms they're being pushed out into the mountains if you will yeah so now you're totally away from civilization if you will and you're on survival mode and if you are survivable more and you're right there seeing how are you gonna go ahead and survive your mentality from over there to over here if you're all you're thinking about is violence then it's gonna be you know what you know without getting any type of mental health for that you know it's gonna be pretty pretty bad if you will well Trump when speaking about ms-13 you said these aren't people they're animals this is talking about people like yourself like your friends like your family members he's calling them animals how does that type of herbage really affect a whole group of people well you know being a former ms member i believe that we're all human beings right when you're going through the history of times and times you know the stuff that that that uh that governments or regime or whatever has even done to indigenous people of the killing of millions of people right not just a Native Americans but even when you go into the Holocaust if you were that's that yeah that's animalistic behavior F if you if you will arm as well but it's again portraying the image and giving somebody a label if you will right so it went from the gangster where we label the gangster of thug right and say this is the thug this is the criminal this is the good-for-nothing now we're gonna go ahead and put the the the face of the immigrant and not necessarily they were probably talking about ms-13 not just right there but it was a low-key thing to say the immigrant is the animal they want to go ahead and break it to a whole different extent but going to that I believe that nobody is in a more I believe that people are human human beings so that easier to put an animal in a cage than a human so you consider someone an animal you have less qualms mmm to put them in a cage to put them out of their misery however you because these aren't really people right right they're just animals right then we kill animals every day mmm for whatever reason right perfect yeah perfect example right there okay so let's go ahead and get into your story so you were born in LA right which part in Korea Tom Normandy and 8th Street to be specific okay now your mother you said that she had worked 14-hour days in a sweatshop correct to support the family where's your father around during this time so I never met my real father but the person that I thought was my father he raised me until the age of three and he was in and out of the picture they have their they had their issues within the household and I found out like at 11 years older 12 years old that he was in my actual dad but he was a great dad when he was when he was in the picture okay where was your real father you know I never I never met him I understand that he's from from Argentina I've guessed him yeah he was just never in the in the picture your mom never explained the story my mom never explained the story and I remember finding out when it was time for me to go ahead and play baseball and you had to show your birth certificate to the Little League things and then my the name wasn't the name of that dad that I thought um wasn't my dad it was the same name of my my little brother my step-brother his you know my stepdad name was on the birth certificate oh yeah do you think that there was something inside that bothered you that your own father had abandoned you and that wasn't in your life that maybe made you look for a father figure in the streets I there might have been something like that to a certain extent but again the father that I had my step that he was it he used to take us to Disneyland in Magic Mountain um two ball games got an assáááá Oh give me much he was there so you had a father figure yeah I I had a father figure for for sure and I think when I started going into the streets is I took my mom's love for unconditional love and I took advantage then I took that as as like mandatory fee also type of way of granted and there was more me being curious and there was a time also where I used to even get bullied by the MS members as um as well so it was kind of trying to find my own identity and try to gain that respect power and pride if you will so at 13 you know walking down the street and an ms-13 member put a gun in your face right and robbed you right that was the first time something like that had happened specifically I will go ahead and and probably say yeah something like that to me but me seeing it as a as a kid you know even younger than that I remember hearing the gunshots and even seeing the shootings as a kid or people getting shot at okay so you have a gun pointed at you right they take anything from you yet they took a a Michigan jacket that my mom had bought me I guess they liked the aim in the back yeah that was a time with people wearing like the whole yard Michigan thing in early so you get robbed at gunpoint mm-hmm and you basically have to wake up the next day and go back in this neighborhood where the kid that robbed you is still probably moving around somewhere right so now you're you're feeling a sense of danger I assume right no absolutely it it was just going from point A to point B just to even go to to the school I would have to jump over neighbors fence head so I won't go ahead and see gang members but when I got to the point where I couldn't go to the local fast food place because there was um gang presence right there but as soon as I left that neighborhood and went to another one there was another gang over there and then another gang over there and then another gang over there so I was kind of walking between the lines everywhere where you turn there was some type of gang violence I just happened to have lived right there in the MS neighborhood what were the other gangs around there outside of MS well you have different gangs such as Drifters alley boys aslan mid-city playboys okay these are all Chicano gangs these were all Chicano gangs right so in your neighborhood you start see the ms-13 guys being celebrated mm-hmm I guess there was a guy in the neighborhood that everyone really looked up to right what was his name Nelson Nelson mhm so you're seeing this and you're getting affected by this type of praise and stature so you actually decided to join ms-13 yourself right these were the Normandie locos right well I initially went into the there was a clique called 7-eleven then I got into the Normandy's okay you jumped in correct 13 seconds yes it was 13 seconds right okay how bad did you get hurt you know what it wasn't I seen beatdowns from from jump ins and I'm also like man he really got it bad but nice another jumpy as well as I like him okay and I see no the jump ins where you know before the jump in this friend talks to this when I said that you better come fast or how you got me so so it's different things in that nature and my jumping was 13 seconds but it wasn't something while I was laying in a puddle in the in the floor I think it was two or three guys that um that jumped me and a couple of more of my friends um a couple more my friends in and the reason during that time it was like the tag banging days were you know different taggers or people were starting to to join to join gangs if you will and me and my other friends say you know what let's just go ahead we're gonna join a gang let's just go ahead and join em s the one that's the biggest and most dangerous if you will and that's what happened you were 14 years old the time 14 so your street name became clever right why didn't he you know I get asked that a lot because I chose the name and then I got into the gang and a kid getting arrested and people in there I don't know even though the other gang there is why why are they calling you clever and the reason that I came up with that name was because right before I joined the gang the night before you're thinking about okay what's gonna be your name or they're gonna go ahead and and give you your names and if you're from a mess I mean the history of the MS stuff I mean there's guys that had been named you know chunk Letta or palo de coco i mean there's some maize right and now they want to be called flock or smokey because everybody has that name already if you were all a lot ago and i went to all your nuke named now's liking for somebody says it's just I was writing stuff down and I was like okay I'll just go ahead and put clever because nobody else has that name so I wanted to go ahead and be unique and the reason that I chose that name clever was because I knew that I was gonna get arrested I knew that I was gonna go ahead and go to juvenile hall so when I and and in juvenile hall you got your your respect and you got your rep by fighting so in there I didn't there's different cliques from EMS so I didn't want to be confused with somebody else's name with that person taking my credibility that I just fought this gang member if you will okay and your mother is Salvadorian know so my mom is from Mexico from Michoacan aha and your dad's Argentine and my dad's Argentina's you're not selling at all no I'm not Salvador that and that father that raised me was Colombian and if you want to mix it up even more I was born and raised in Koreatown when you have there's different cultures of Korean Japanese Asian on door Daniel's and you know all sorts of places from Latin America okay so ms-13 doesn't restrict its membership to Salvadorans you know in the beginning it was it was predominantly an MS group and the reason they started joining ms because there was other gangs that didn't like the liking that they were from salvador you know they weren't accepted because of that but as time went on I was like the end of the first generation kind of the beginning of the second generation where I was one of the few that started to get ms-13 within with the what the Chicano background if you will okay so now you're officially ms-13 right so you have the you know the protection of your homies but now you have all the other gangs right you can't just turn around you know when they ask where you're from you can't just say nowhere right now you have to say I'm ms-13 exit movie and if your enemies with that particular other gang then it's on site right right yeah absolutely you know that perfectly explained and the problem with that with me was as soon as we got in were like okay now I remember getting into MS and being jumped in and when I remember being jumped in all I could think about because there was a carnival that came to the neighborhood in art Moorpark it's called like Seoul International Park or something and they came every three months and as I got taller and MS you know I started getting robbed for my stuff it was full of MS members now me and my friends that wish to play baseball with they couldn't go to this carnal and carnival anymore and we've to hide or we couldn't go so now I'm watching for my grandma's house everybody having fun on the ferris wheel and everything that I'm you just watching from the window so now when I got it - MS now I'm able to go to this carnival now I'm able to go through this fast food if I want to go to school is point A to point B but a week later a couple week later I started to regret my decision because remember how I'm telling you that I walked through other neighborhoods as one there was other gangs and every time when they stopped me they asked me where I was from and I said no were right so they gave me that free pass if you will but now they have found out that me and these couple of friends that was a little bit known within other neighborhoods because other kids walking around they found out that we were from the gang so now we friend at ms-13 but we enemy if you will everybody else around us so now we couldn't leave the neighborhood now we have to stay right there confined to this certain neighborhood yeah was 18th Street an enemy of ms-13 by this time yes okay so now and that was considered your main rivals all right were you running into 18th Street during this time well there was a there was times where cars were roll up it was from different gangs if you will it was that um that machismo if you were all versus that machismo of whose gang is tougher so you bump into them a lot most of the times when I bumped into 18th Street members consisted in juvenile cat or juvenile facilities or cya camps I remember them always been one of the deepest gangs it was always like seven to one or something you know the ratio of eighty Street versus versus ms well how much violence happen in that first year I will go ahead and say there was a there was a lot of violence you know but to me it was something nothing if well it was different in a sense because now you're the ms-13 member and you're experiencing it directly but me growing up in LA growing up there was since I could remember there was guns drugs there was violence there were shootings that was um killings I remember being six years old one time and there was MS members trying to take over the territory of another gang right there and there was guys that were dressed in heavy metal with the with the long hair the Metallica days if you wouldn't then they did have the machete if you will and started hacking away at the at the rival gang member there as well and late at night I could I could remember hearing the gunshots and when I was trying to do my homework they get aboard just circling around circling around so violence within my neighborhood to me was in wasn't rare it was almost it became rare in the it was new to me at the beginning what I understood were violence but then it almost became just like another day at the office you will always just have to look around and watch for your back read but now you're expected to commit the violence right were you involved in shootings no never never were you shot at I was shot at probably about 15 or 20 times really hit no I was never I was never here I'm here one specific time when I was being shot at I was drunk and high and I was going I was going home and there was a car from party from sidewalk you know on this side of the sidewalk and I was in the other side of the sidewalk and it was late and I was probably 1 2 in the morning and they passed by and they were like hey homie your slagging hey you saying that as soon as I saw that it was a bunch of gang members with within the car I knew that the thing was was for me to approach the car and for me to shoot right and I just I was walking around also like now I'm not and I remember the guys going outside of his car window and pulling the gun out and I never seen the fire come out of the gun before I heard the sound so I ducked and I started jumping fences you know I'm back there you know me I remember being shot at you you start being able to climb all kinds of stuff that you think you didn't cry if it has Bob wires or not and I'm jumping and I'm falling I'm believe Mary I'm falling to trashcans and I'm running this guy's you know dumping right behind me and then I try to get away you know I get away and then he gets back in the car and they circled a circle and then I'm seeing the car just passing by like this and every time it circles I run a block and I run a block and I live I live like three blocks down and I finally make it home and when I make it home I see my mother and my grandma with candles right there praying and and that's when and they were like that you hear those gunshots you know and me not wanting to go in and were like no you know and that became you know or norm as well well he started getting tatted up I did with your gang mm-hmm where was the tats going initially I will say the first one that I got was in my it wasn't my elbow there was an MS right there and I believe I got that one when I was in in a juvenile facility I think in the California Youth Authority well you got locked up at 15 you went to juvenile right at 15 what did you get locked up for it was I believe it was for a drug charge and then assault okay so you started dealing drugs as well well we were used we were we were under the influence of drugs and we had we had some drugs in our in our pocket that we were using to get high off but what the dealing with the dealing I never really Belle um you hear these gangster stories you see these Scarface stories of the amounts of kilos and kilos and the pounds of cocaine but I remember most of the people that I saw they were selling nickels and dimes in the in the drug corner right and when I was selling nickels and dimes in that same drug corner I think I remember making the most in a day probably in a night probably about three to four hundred bucks if you will but it wasn't I wasn't made I wasn't making 300 or 400 bucks consistently it was okay I'll work this night and they had to three days later I go that way so if I probably worked in a fast-food joint again a minimum wage if you go ahead and put all the dummy cracks and stuff like that I'm head up in baking yeah doing that okay so then you get locked up you go to juvenile right but you're not just a regular you know a kid from the suburbs who gets in trouble you're ms-13 right and then you got 18th Street then you got whatever other gangs have problems with MS there today how deep was ms-13 and juvenile at that time you know there was some in the streets that seems it seemed like there was a lot deeper but then you had generations upon generations of gang that it felt like a lot of times we were outnumbered they felt that every time it was a cup two or three of us the most while was with ms-13 members in a pod or in a juvenile camp I think he was five that was the maximum and not a lot of people not not allowed all eyes were they were the minority we were we were definitely the the minorities right right on right there and not only that not only was i from ms if you will but I was on Mexican with an MS so somehow they even took that as more of a disrespect if you will so you're and you're getting locked up and and you know I'm not gonna lie you know it's a it's a new experience to me I'm getting locked up I mean you're like I was gonna go you you're scared if you will you know now you start remembering what your mom and your grandma was was telling you if you will but then you have to go ahead and prove yourself and then one fight led to another and then another and then another where you just started fighting and fighting and trying to get your respect like that so how much time you spend in juvenile that one time they got this six months okay you didn't tell anybody right so you come out and now you're you got your stripes you did your time and juvie you didn't snitch on anybody now your status is raised mm-hmm and the gang when you come back home so now you're even if you're a bitter gangster now right how did that feel to come back to the neighborhood after doing some time it's almost like I came from a long vacation everybody was just so happy to see you and I'm your walking down the street it was aren't the best way that I could explain is that sick comfort from cheers were everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came I felt that aura within you when you have ten 15 20 people we didn't you know you know kind of a Prada you're putting out the red carpet even the ladies even the people from the neighborhood that knew you before you were from from a gang and then your little brother walking around with you and you know this kids just looking up to you and then everything and then the girls if you will as well you know like the home girls it was soft clever and it was just a natural high if you will like you came back and you're being a plotter and recognized for what you did well you said you're actually ready to die to protect your neighborhood right you know it's kind of ironic because I assume your mom was probably renting her house an apartment an apartment and apartment so you're willing to die to protect a neighborhood that you don't even own right you're just renting land that you have no ownership or claim to but you're willing to give up your own life for this rented piece of land right does it seem a little crazy now that you think about it absolutely it's definitely crazy it makes it makes no sense and at the time right there when I was trying to stretch look for an identity or you know being in that comma rowdy if you were with your other friends you know back then it made a lot of sense for us unfortunately yeah cuz that's pretty much I want to say all we knew because I never had that lifestyle where you hear these horror stories where you know kids were beating or being abused you know when they were younger I don't think my mom ever ever um hit me it's just me taking all that stuff for for granted but uh the stuff about just me being caught up in that cycle of violence and me not wanting to be the victim anymore but more of the perpetrator if you will I started to look beyond that stuff but know you've really great point it makes makes a lot of sense it doesn't make sense now you know what was the most violent thing that you were involved in I believe it was um it was fights with me you know I was never much of a gun person or anything like that I was kind of more of a fighting you know gangs we'll fight we will fight in parks with weapons or just with the fists a lot of times it will be with uh with if you will somebody will probably bring a baseball bat a cane people would bring bottles whatever they could go ahead and and bring but I don't remember people bringing guns maybe probably people to break up the five shot a gun up in the up in the air but I was really known for fighting within the juvenile the juvenile facilities and I guess because I was so used to that that's kind of what I brought to the street as as well well you were not getting shot but your friends were getting killed what was getting shot at but not at me you you weren't actually getting hit yeah bullets but your friends weren't as lucky right so now as a teenager you're going to funerals right your friend you're losing your friends and these are your homies these are the guys your brothers in the same gang and you know you're going through this trauma as a young as a young man right going through all this and I guess at sixteen you were thinking about leaving the gang mm-hmm but you described it as it's like telling a Catholic to stop being a Catholic right yeah you start taking a moral inventory of your life at that time and it was 16 but it felt like you were 20 something or 30 something because nobody was living to live past the age of 18 and I was already starting to reach that age and I was like man am I even gonna go ahead and make it to 80 people were living day by day and I remember going to these funerals and me and oh ho me going and saying man you know my home you know you put the rest in peace you put the homey in the shirt and then he like man I hope it's not me next time and a lot of times it it was that person that was next it was that person in the coffin and I remember I'm a real specific story where a mom who was trying to wake up his son in the coffin mmm trying to wake up a son I remember another ordeal where he was being another guy was being laid to rest and the mom she was being held back because she she had to she was trying to jump into the hole and with him sad so you had a friend named Alex Sanchez right and he was an ms-13 guy himself correct and he approached you because he want to start a gang intervention group right how old were you at the time I think I must have been like 21 early 20 or 21 okay so you've been banging for like seven yeah seven eight you've been banging for like seven or eight years right what was it about Alex that convinced you to to go through this whole system well I remember seeing Alex you know Alex was one of the person that I used to always look out through the window and you know that I felt that he had that respect power and pride as well when I was a kid before I even joined I remember being a kid and seeing Alex and these carnivals and he was um everybody was just around him everybody wanted to be like him when he was in the gang if you will and then when I got um when he approached me you know he was he here at this level of respect within the gang as well so it right there it kind of clicked like man is this guy is saying not to do it you know that it's not worth it and I'm seen how comfortably he's doing this and nobody's messing with him cuz he's doing this stuff to go ahead and leave the lifestyle maybe I'll go ahead and and and and give it a chance but the first initial was was you know I was already used to this stuff to being from the gang so the first initial was it's already in this addiction lifestyle or my whole world consisted of just going over in my head MSM SMS and I'm gonna go ahead and try to fight or be the enemy of anybody else but you know I eventually went to the to the group so joining this group which was no this is uh homies you need us right the early incarnation of it right does that mean that you had to leave ms-13 I think there in the time it didn't it wasn't necessarily about that it was more of stopping violence and drugs and trying to be a person that doesn't commit those crimes as well so if you tell somebody initially you know go ahead and leave ms-13 you have to go ahead and show them what is the opportunity ahead you have to bring them within the circle if you will for him to go ahead and leave so it was kind of him putting people and talking about home Sunil's and then just going then if you wanted to go ahead and leave the gang afterwards then you definitely had that choice I mean in ms-13 are you allowed to leave is it blood in blood out like the the Mexican Mafia or can you just say hey I don't want to do this anymore and everyone just wishes you well I think when you talk about em esta - you talk about the demographics of is Salvador then the East Coast and the demographics in in in California but when you get on to him I mean I definitely didn't put in a two-week notice or anything you know I kind of faded away to somewhere like if it was a bad relationship if you when you're breaking up with a girl whatever or you know vice versa and you know they're hitting you up and you stop answering those cars that they're gonna be there where I'm gonna go ahead and be over here you were thinking was that much dirty no it's a lot more difficult to go ahead and arm and do that but as soon as we started going to the neighborhood I think us as we started hearing you know expressing ourselves would I you see drugs and violence I've seen the opportunity the homies who needles had I think each other we started egging each other on instead of saying let's go over here beat this person of a beat this person off probably let's not go ahead and and do that but you could definitely fade away from the gang and not just ms-13 I mean I think there was a study done something I think it was 70,000 right we might have been 700,000 that I saw a study from the University of Boulder that that's the amount of people that are leaving gangs each year mmm okay so now you're part of homies you need us and you feel like you're no longer gang banging but the police see it otherwise right and you're sort of in the middle of the whole rampart Police District right which ultimately ended up being the most corrupt police force in America right and you start getting pulled over on your way to meetings mm-hmm you started getting beat up good by the police right it was the same officers that was stopping us and frisking us when we were from an MS and believe me we definitely weren't no arm no angels but is it for some reason they probably believed that we couldn't change or we they have that upper unity or doing the corrupt ways that would just continue to use the the strategy in the strategy there was no strategy of saying okay now this guy's not from ms these people are not from him is how do you deal with them we were still being dealt as as that and then they took a very disliking to homie Sunil's because now we had the backing of Senator Tom Tom Hayden and we used to you know tell him the stuff that was going on on the streets and we started organizing with him against police brutality so there was a time in the neighborhood who have the police stopped you they asked you are you from ms-13 are you from homie some needles and people raised their hands or care from homeless O'Neal's okay you're going to jail who's from ms-13 other people start raising their hands okay you guys would go ahead and leave well you guys actually end up suing the police department correct and they settled for six figures mm-hmm you say how much well me it was it was six figures that consisted of between a certain amount of people but what I ended up getting was just it was a few thousand okay right it was it wasn't more than five thousand nothing okay so you didn't really make yeah so then you decide to move to Colorado in 2002 correct and the reason that I move to Colorado was because the the when the rapper crash were what go ahead and um and uh and see me in the neighborhood they will go ahead and say a clever I like what's up this media attention is gonna die they will say hold me this video is gonna die homie we're gonna come after you and that's exactly what happened because then the media touch on her walking down the street with the likes of Geraldo Rivera and I'm talking to him about police brutality when it consisted of Time magazine there was his aide from Time magazine that came to take pictures you like man there's no police brutality or like yeah cuz you're a white lady with a camera that they're not gonna stop go inside the liquor store and as soon as the cops Pat they're gonna come right now so she went inside a liquor store and sure enough the cops came and they put us all against the wall and then she made um she came out you know like blaze of glory just taking pictures taking pictures the cops we're gonna take your camera or you're not gonna take my camera away and then I'm like this and I told her okay that's enough and then she stopped that she left in the cops look I mean there Claire you got some pool who was that and then a couple days later they were on the on the Time magazine and it said ganks the cops when they in the end they said homie something goes wrong LAPD zero there was like a or keeping figured you will so it became a war with the cops it became us fighting for our civil rights yeah and exposing the stuff that has been going in the communities for generations upon generations that did people didn't believe was exposing a big exposure that that started people to believe stuff is what happened during the the Rodney King when he was really beat by the Sheriff's Department if you will so it was kind of exposing the same stuff that I saw growing up and just plenty made out there into the media okay so basically since you're a target of the police you decided to move to Colorado correct okay this was 2002 right was there an ms-13 presence in Colorado during that time I I believe I believe not because you know we move to first we move to Aurora and we move to Denver and our main thing wasn't to look what gangs were around there our main thing was how do we get away from this police brutality my son was about two years old what is the best life that I could go and a gift from my son and should I go to college - should I go go ahead and get a get a job and where am I gonna live at ok so you end up getting an associate's degree in criminal justice currently in 2004 right you you had a wife right and you had two kids right at a certain point do you guys lived in an apartment mm-hmm she worked in a preschool mm-hmm and you were a bouncer in a club yeah so I worked part time as a bouncer and I also worked as a youth counselor and a mental health institution and in a juvenile halfway house got it so here you have this whole new life right you got a family you don't have cops you know frisking you down you're not getting shot at you you start a whole new life but an ms-13 presence was in Colorado during that time and police started a whole negation around that I guess around 2009 prosecutors said they actually squashed the ms-13 presence in Colorado and there was a three year investigation mm-hmm and you got arrested right on drug and conspiracy charges correct they claimed you were an ms-13 leader and a shot-caller in fact they said that you went out to Colorado specifically to start a whole new faction oh no very master of ms-13 how did it feel to move away from LA and all the craziness to a whole new place start a whole new life and next thing you know boom because you actually from the time that you were arrested from juvenile you had never been arrested as an adult correct up to that point so you you were clean right and then BOOM now you're back in a jail cell again right right and to go to the to you know of how how that when you know specifically get down as as well to add to that was when I moved to Colorado on the they said that there was an MS president there was an MS presence first a friend over that was a former MS member he asked me if I wanted to go ahead and move over because I told him about the police brutality I went there and then other people started going to go there five or six thousand people and these people were were people that were going over to go ahead and get their jobs there was no drug dealing or drug trafficking if you will right but I believe that they said that the investigation started I believe it's a 2009 or he might have started in 2006 and a lot of that stuff is to eliminate that we I was there from 2002 so that's seven years and there is no MS there MS 30 pressure that are talking about allegedly is about six or seven armed people if you will so there is no presence but the reason that they said that it we were there in 2009 was to eliminate those other seven years where I was pretty much just working here and the way that it happened was that an for or LAPD officer was the one that followed me to Colorado and they don't let the the courts know that if you will so I believe that my investigation had started by the FBI already when I was already walking down the street with the likes of Geraldo Rivera or coming out in the media as well but to answer your question of how that fell I woke up the well I was I woke up the next day in the in the federal facility and I was all over the news in the newspaper and I was like the ms-13 leader and I mean that's the high that's the stuff that you that I wanted when I was 16 16 years old right now I have my family I'm like whoa what are you talking about this has to be a mistake and not only that but people in the facility started running with it like the CEOs or the end other inmates while the leader of a mess when you went to core you were like extra security and when I went to court I was like okay this has to be a mistake they're gonna let me out right now and it didn't happen anything well your phone lines were actually tapped right and there was a call between you and a guy named Enrique like a lo look how you Caillou and in the phone call he said that there was going to be a hit against somebody in Los Angeles lacayo was recently released from a California prison and I guess he was telling you on the phone that ms-13 and Mexican Mafia leaders in Pelican Bay had ordered a hit on somebody mm-hmm in the conversation you said you know this phone could be tapped and let's just put a delay on the hit so you can go to LA and talk about it mm-hmm which in their eyes is well here you are talking about a murder a potential murder but in your eyes you saw it a little bit differently so can you talk about that whole situation well there was a lot of wiretap calls there also were misinterpreted if you if you will it was a conversation with somebody called me from the juvenile facility and he told me what he had heard from somebody right and I said okay you know redoing having an experienced in gang intervention well perhaps I could go ahead and go to LA to so go ahead and try to stop this hit from from taking place now do I have the palabra or the authority to stop a hit from the Mexican Mafia absolutely not did you know the guy that was supposed to get hit yeah okay so I see a friend of yours yes okay so I knew so I didn't knew him and you know I talked to some certain people in in LA and they talked to their people right and that's what I lose the the paper trail of that and eventually you know there's there's you know there's rumors that it was just a rumor that it wasn't gonna go in and happen anyways and there's rumors that it just didn't happen you know somebody doesn't send you like a letter and says okay you know what he's good he's gonna be out of it that doesn't happen it doesn't happen so even that conversation right that but they those are the wiretap conversations that they were manipulated in my bond hearing if you will per train that that conversation consisted of me saying okay I'm gonna go to LA and carry the hit myself and that's what they used in the grand jury to go ahead and indict me as as well and there was dozens of calls like this cuz every 30 days the FBI needs a certain call that consist of drug trafficking of or that you're committing a crime in order for your wiretap for the wiretap on your phone if you will so the investigator the former LAPD officer that moved to Colorado to investigate me he will make these calls to see me as the aggressor and there was this other call where I would tell friends hey let's have a carne asada come bring how many Cardenas out how many pounds should we buy buy like 10 pounds of cod masala and bring it to my house and we're gonna go ahead and have a cooker so apparently those 10 pounds met keys and we were going to go ahead and do that there was another one where there was this restaurant and it's a Vietnamese restaurant and I tell one of my friends hey were you gonna go ahead and eat at and that consisted of let's go to this restaurant they'll be enemy's restaurant night so now you know what you know the the waiter he's always messing up my order man let's go somewhere else so there was still no drug trafficking so he needs this call again to consider wire to my phone so he interpreted that the waiter was my connect and I did not like the quality of the of the food if you will and let's go somewhere else and just to finish there there was another call where where I did work at a nightclub there was a friend's you know we had some beers we went back home and we were having some beers right there and and he ended up getting my phone that um that night he in the game I formed and he started going down my list of the people from from the club and he started calling them and asking them actually for drugs right he wanted to get high and then the next day the people went ahead and called me the next day and complaining a man there's all these someone so called me for drugs and why is he doing that I had to apologize sir ten people and when I was locked up and really these wiretap the feds forgot to erase those calls because they erased when he was making the calls now why did they erase when he was making the calls because I found this King pink or wash with drugs and we're in my house why does he need to go somewhere else to look for dope so that would that would have had and stop the investigation but it was it was um it was wiretap calls in that nature where they were being manipulated against my advantage to go ahead and use against me continue the wiretap well uh lacayo along with talking about this potential hit on this guy you knew he also talked about how he sliced the sureños throat with a razor hmm in prison well it wasn't that that one right there it wasn't a suitable if it was a person from another gang and I believe that he had just came out to shoe and I asked him why were you in the shoe and he was telling me this this story that that he did during the times where people are in the facility and they're around all this violence your conversations are gonna go I miss my mom I miss my dad I miss my kids oh and by the way this is the violence that's going on here this is the means that the survival mode unfortunate that that's going on it's still fairly reckless to talk like this over the phone well in a sense absolutely but again I wasn't it was the person where I answer the phone call and they're telling me this information if he will and him their only reason that I went ahead and answered some type of phone call like that was because it was a childhood friend that I grew up with but for me to go ahead and and say that you know we were talking like this and we were plotting killings or reporting hits it's totally uh you know false like if there is another part of these tape phone calls where I guess you spoke about attacking a man who's supposed to be an informant and you said they need to send this guy to hell because he doesn't belong to the two letters two letters being M s right again that phone call right there was also taken out of pour potion as well and didn't go down like that I look for that wiretap call as as well and I believe the the the liking of that didn't consist of me saying stuff like that is something that I went ahead and heard okay so I was almost like the third person saying the thing of a story that I heard well with all these wiretaps and all these investigations you were facing 48 years 48 years and you were how old I was 31 I believe okay so you're basically looking at potentially dying in prison right with a sentence like that while you're in prison your wife divorces you mm-hmm because she assumed you're never getting out right and she gets engaged to another man right was that the worst part I think that was the numbing part of it where I I really knew I did you're expecting the worst of that stuff and I remember her visiting me and after that year it did look like I was gonna go ahead and get that like there was just so much corruption within the case that it did look like that and you know I told you know do whatever is best for you and the kids and you know I cannot blame her because there was times when the feds in order to get you first gonna try to break you down they wanna go ahead and break down whatever your support system is and she was my support system right there my kids were the support system if you are if you will so what they started doing they started um stopping her for no reason giving her these tickets when she would go home in the apartment that we lived in they will go ahead and call the manager saying she's with this ms-13 leader she will come back and her her furniture was and my kids toys and all the beddings was outside of the apartment so it was times where I told her you know what you have to do what's best for you and and the kids you know I got me I'll go ahead and fight my case right here and after a year it was um she didn't visit or anything like that I think that was the best because even though to our conversations or the calls I didn't want them to go ahead and twist my words either in a sense where they're twisting my words I try to get some more evidence like that so yeah I dig it out and she was engaged to somebody else yeah stuff yeah and you know you get out and and as long as my kids are good you know she's good I'm not gonna go ahead and any remorse over that stuff it uh it is what it is well you spend two years fighting this case right locked up the whole time I guess you tattooed the United States versus Gerardo Lopez on the back of your head right you still have that tattoo I do yeah oh you've grown your hair you know when I was getting that tattoo I was like you know maybe I'll go here you know you know just faded us why I did it kind of yeah like that but when I got that tattoo I looked at the indictment and when I looked at the indictment it it says United States of America the first there are the Lopez and I was like what well first of all from United States America me now you have a whole United States of America you have all these resources and and also and that's why I got in and also when I used to go to court they would just bring up ms-13 political stuff from from all the United States saying that I'll you know and I was like what does that have to do with me so let's not they start talking about the MS stuff what is the charges that you actually have um have on me and as time went on it there was nothing well you were actually offered her for your plea deal right and your own lawyer told you to take it because with two years time served good behavior you would have got down in a couple months I would I was already down to I were in a halfway house and partly about a few months after that and your own lawyer was telling you this is you're facing 48 years right and you actually turn it down right because you felt you were 100% innocent absolutely and then out of nowhere they just dismiss all the other charges yeah let me tell you how that went down well when you're fairly in dieted you know the feds have like a ninety nine point nine ninety nine point eight conviction rate and you will see that these are convictions at the convictions that the convictions that go to armed they go to trial these are all plea deals and that's why that's so high and the reason that people don't want to take it to the box to you know to trial is because the sentencing guidelines are too high yeah you did get ten years or you lose and trial and get those forty eight right they hit you and it you have the the gangs things you know ms-13 if you will you know they trying to deem you as an ms-13 gang member again they try to hit you with what the high-end now I would have thought that my attorney my first attorney water over percent in melee accurate and got the case this dismissed well hurt his main thing without looking at the case was go ahead and take that a plea deal you know so I have a little bit of a criminal justice background you know what more my degree but nothing in the sense that would be able to represent you in court so I started going to the law library in the feds I started going to a library and study in my case for you know eight-hour days ten hour days then I was in the feds and I got into a fight in there that was self-defense and they sent me to the hole and then it sent me to to the court it with in there down to go ahead and and and fight the the defense charge it was and they shot me to a counting gels Jefferson County Joe in Colorado and I believe that a lot of that consistent was because my attorney was probably sharing information with the US Attorney they're like this guy's probably breaking the case now why would you attorney do that because in the federal and the federal sentencing guidelines the attorneys want to go ahead and have a good relationship with the prosecution for future bargaining deals they don't want to climb up that mountain of studying hundreds of thousands of a wiretap or you had a court-appointed attorney I had a well it was a coital portent attorney but it was a pro bono from a prior turn it because every certain year they have to do these pro bono but that's still very different than having a hundred thousand dollars that you're absolutely top-notch lawyer to then I was going to basically tear the prosecution apart yeah this is a guy now I've seen the difference right pro bono or not it's very different than the guys that spend half a million dollars defending themselves right absolutely so you know so there I am and I started to write my own on court motions because you know I started bring out the all the evidence that they were having I guess when the grand jury that consisted of they're flipping my words around and making me seem like I was dealing dope on all the lies that they said to the grand jury to get me indicted so I started doing this and I started showing it to my attorney and he didn't want to press any course so I ended up try to fire him and the the judge didn't let me fire him so he excused himself from the case and then I get a second attorney who seems like man and although this is so much so so much corruption there is that guy from the LAPD did follow you from LA to over here is retaliation for you coming out in the media and exposing the rampart crash the rapper crash scandal that's what it is and so that goes on and I'm just in in my room just studying law and eventually I started writing my own quote motions and representing myself in court and that's what my attorney came that he was still on the case when I was going to pro se and he told me okay head out there you know they offered you these forty eight months and at that time I'm telling you man guilty or not you wanna take it you were to take it because it's forty eight months or 48 years guilty or not he's like you got into twelve O'Clock to date or call my office and take this deal so I go back to my jail cell man and by this time you know I'm not saying that I was this tough guy within the jail cells saying you know I broke down a lot of times you know mentally physically you know II emotionally I knew that I probably wasn't ever gonna go ahead and see you know my kids or be able to come out but it was almost like a like a Rocky Balboa fighter I remember me watching rocky all the time you know these movies were he got knocked down like thirty times and he ended up getting up in the end and winning so I was looking at the phone to go ahead and call him and you know it was total clock it passed by and I kind of knocked on the door so the CEO who let me out right not very likely purposely and then the time passed and I was like man now I really gotta go now really gotta go ahead and and and and fight this and then he came the next day and he said like you didn't call my office and I was all like no I did it and he was all like well now they off they say that they're gonna go ahead and extend it till today to talk like you've got this is like a damn game show like we're gonna go to the motions to trial because they wanted a conviction on they wanted to convene because there was portrayal in the news and my attorney knew they wanted that conviction and a lot of times they want to go and my my own attorney told me you know what I'll take the deal alright no there's some more evidence here he was like no then they're gonna come after me I'm like you you're my attorney you're supposed to go ahead and represent it's your due process of law adequate counsel so we go to the trial the most researched to a trial and he doesn't put the government understand and this is the motion to dismiss the cases the motion to dismiss the wiretap all kinds of different motions he doesn't put the government understand and the judge denied almost every motion what I wrote it but it was weird that he didn't denied the motion to dismiss which was the biggest one and then I go back to my jail cell and I was like why didn't you put the governor understand he told me pre cuz they already got caught lying they could go ahead and lose their their jobs if you will and that's when I started writing more motions and two weeks later they opened up that that cell door to do that and they let me free and then I say I saw as I started remembering of how that went down the reason that that judge started denying all the motions is for people not to oh it could be also one for people not to be that that happens something seriously for them not to be able to use my case law as well and you know thousands of people would have been freed I mean this this this court thing had all kinds of different setting precedents based oh man it had all kinds of different things that people doing you know life sentences for something that they didn't do they could go ahead and use and I was also to try to go ahead and block my my sable suit as as well you know so so I get out and then I'm trying to look for an attorney to get the civil suit and everybody told me the same thing all the same attorneys look we could sue the the cops but I'm not going after the feds because then they're gonna go and can't come after us or I'm having this case and I don't want to piss off the feds for this client over here so a lot of times I was blackballed within having the suit and then eventually I did get an attorney and he found like a one-page you know I mean it was cool that he had the courage to to to fight or something but it was like a one-pager and the government came back were like a 30 or 40 page Roberto all the attorneys and the FBI agents the government appoints them an attorney been they had attorneys of their own as as well yeah so you walk out of that jail cell you're no longer married your kids still in the area or they moved away I have no clue I haven't had contact with them for like for like a year my friend picked me up I went before behold that before I left I was like alright I'm free you know I'm getting out they didn't take me to court the judge signed up it didn't have the audacity you know the decency to take me to court and apologize you know it's almost like you want the Super Bowl and there was nobody there to go ahead and see that yeah right so they try to close it off so they sign the paper to release me the CEO came in here after your clay your case is over the Denver Post it got dismissed I get out I have my you know whatever legal documents and I walk out and and people right there whether they like you or not everybody just starts cheering right everybody starts cheering I get out and before I'm getting out the CEO tells me on another we have a problem I like what's up he's out like there's this ticket of like $500 that is holding you back Oh like really you guys do 48 years and that was some fight I was unloading a jailhouse lawyer more and I was I the reason that I was unable to pay that ticket was because I've been locked up and it accumulated to $500 so I called my friend right here over here sitting down out here next to me and he went ahead and and he paid a ticket for me yeah you know and you know I get out and he was the one um told me I was like take me to my my mom's I'm choosing to my my wife's house I don't see my kids and she's all like a man um you ever heard of like what sir like yeah she's engaged to somebody else you're gonna come you're gonna come and live with me you know I got you know an extra room and I was like man you know and everything's going through three through your head is this real is this really happening you know I just beat this case and you know you're gonna throw that and I was like all right well let's you know let's go and then it it consisted of me being um you know coming out and you know even the PTSD from that event I just started seeing cars following us behind us me going to the the place where I started looking up at the scenes thinking that everything is just um wiretapped if you will I remember my friends come out you know friends that you know they don't gang band they're like oh you know people still copy by their nicknames with you from the gala Clarisse ow okay man we're gonna have a cut in a salad I'll bring 20 pounds of cotton I saw the Dodgers to go to uh to course fear of place the Rockies I don't when they were trying to take it from friends translated to rob these games hey we got four tickets you want to come with us or like what do you mean by tickets nothing we're gonna go sit in this aisle did I have fun it's one word through specifics after a time my phone never rang down like this was tripping well your friend Alex Sanchez the one that actually convinced you to leave the gang he ultimately was indicted in 2009 on racketeering charges and the investigators said that he lived a double life that he was participating on the criminal side of the gang life while publicly condemning it right is he still locked up no Alex beat his case oh yeah absolutely you think it was retaliation in the same way that it was well during that time with the rampart crash scandals as he was the leader of for me so needles the rapper crash figure we get rid of Alex and the and and and and get him adding him deported and that's the end of homies O'Neill's that's when I stepped out I became the face of who knows if you will well yeah he was they they violated then LAPD violet special ordinance 40 which means they cannot turn over nobody into the i ns so he was an i NS custody and that's when although that's what we had the likes of Senator Tom Hayden to back us up we have people you know if celebrities things in that nature so that was retaliation because of that because he was the first X gang member to get political asylum right here in the United States so he was going through that stuff as well and it's very similar from his case to my case in the wiretap stop what they started twisting his words as well and anything that we said I couldn't say it if you're messing around with somebody to a friend because I have this MS associate I can't go ahead and say yeah man I need some real ass-kicking man or you know what that damn I hate that guy it all of a sudden it's pursued we're all of a sudden that means a hit but no he ended up beating his case a few months after I beat my case I was number one in my case in my indictment and when I be my case number one in my indictment everybody from my case all of their charges were also dismissed and I believe they would have no effect yeah it was a domino effect and I believe there was some guy that he you know he was even tired of fighting the case where he actually pleaded guilty and they even took back his guilty plea right say no I just get out of here and after that when I was trying to talk to them you know who's what I want to talk to you when you're a former MMS member who the hell cares that you just want any that you should continue to be stereotyped stereotypes theater and you constantly have to walking on these eggshells if you will because they are they had to say is this guy's a former ms-13 member and he really meaning what he simply just said hey yeah like I need to get his ass kicked well it's now 2020 right you did your jail time there only to be found innocent you no longer consider yourself ms-13 absolutely not but you saw the tattoos well their worst tattoos if you see the ones on my neck I had some laser treatment so I went ahead and took those off if you will it was about 15 sessions and they go away within eight sessions but for whether whatever Inc was you know it's probably some heartache so it goes and every time when you when you take off these tattoos I take kids that were in gangs with me to go through that process that they want to go ahead and take their tattoos off because it's not just taking off your tattoos if someone's stripping your identity right and what else are you gonna go ahead and replace it so I took off all the visible ones and the other ones I'm collage from the chest all the way down to my stomach I mean the pain to go ahead and take that off yeah there's too gruesome but I've learned a lot of time sometimes when I'm in the spot like that um okay now he took off his ms-13 tattoos now what could we go ahead and and find on him you know look at the way he talks look at the way he expresses themselves right is he still part of it or you know you stopped going to that that stuff like that and then the real one that starts to get was like well you know what well he's still you know on mine or then they start attacking your race if you will then it goes to the situation of okay then Who am I and that's when I tell the kids also when they take off their tattoos or the people that join gangs that's why they joined gasps because they continue to be oppressed oppress the press a lot of times by the launcher culture what they have they don't have no sense of identity if you will and they feel that they have to go ahead and join our band because they're being oppressed like I'm like that well and I heard that removing a tattoo is way more painful than actually getting it no black it's like man it's like five six seven his heart and my skin is sensitive so my thing might be pops up like big-time there was kids that I took that there was these hard trolls and everything and I took them and as soon as they see how my bite my skin plugs pops up I look pod like you know that you have to go it's okay it's gonna be okay I don't know man so it's it's to that it's to that nature with it that's right and it's just not one treatment you gotta go every six weeks yeah well uh harada lopez there's a hell of a story and you went through a lot to get to this point a lot of losses a lot of pain but it seemed like you still have a good demeanor about the whole thing it seems like the the US government never broke you you know and it's broken a lot of people right a lot of people get into this prison system and you know at that one kid jr. the day they try to kill themselves right they can't they can't go through that type of hardship it seems like you you got through and you came out a stronger person and not only did you leave the gang mentality but you actually are now leading an organization homeys Unidos that's actually helping other people follow in your footsteps as well so you know I'm definitely proud of of where you are in life right now and you know I'm expecting much greater things for you in the future Thank You Man I appreciate you bladder you know for reaching out and and and wanting to have this interview and you know like to say you know I talked a lot of negativity if you cuz it consists of the story talking about about the police or the government but you know they're mean this time I have done present presentations where I have made good police officers right it's not yeah not all of them are bad I have met you know people that have came to us attorneys that have came to apologize and say they don't have nothing to do with my case I've sat in chambers with what federal judge is talking about law that they had invited me I've done presentations for US attorneys for US attorneys that they do for the defense attorneys on how to humanize your clients or her facing the death penalty so they won't go ahead and killed off so I understand that it was an area everybody and I can go haters hate I can't hold on to hate and then teach somebody a kid to get out of a gang if you continue to have that um hey and I got to the extent also being fortunate to sit on the district attorneys law enforcement and Community Relations Council in in Denver to go ahead and build more or better Beach between law enforcement and a community also on how to go ahead and and relate to each other more how to have that respect also and I'm also mayor appointed commissioner for the city of Denver as um as well so anything is possible when you continue to to grow and continue to um to proceed you know I love it man I love to hear stories like this man I wish you all the best thank you you saying thank you for having me appreciate absolutely until next time right on peace

Channel: djvlad

Views: 874,817

Keywords: VladTV, DJ Vlad, Interview, Hip-Hop, Rap, News, Gossip, Rumors, Drama, Gerardo Lopez

Id: U2FOJaH1Pac

Length: 110min 53sec (6653 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020