Behind Gangster's Hard Exterior Lies a Kid Who Wants to be Loved

Where love is missing, gangs are flourishing

Jerry Boone
The Oregonian

Jon Biles says the young teens arrive in his office full of aggression, flashing hand signs and exuding disrespect for anyone outside of their gangs.

"It's all about violence," says the Washington County Juvenile Department officer. "It's all about themselves and the reputation of their gang.

"But inside, when they are all alone, most of them are just kids," he says.

"They don't know how to channel their emotions. They will tell you they want to be accepted, but they don't know how.

"Every one of them wants to be loved by their family, to be accepted and be successful," he says.

Biles was among speakers during a recent town hall on gang activity in Aloha. The session was prompted, in part, by a June 16 gang fight at Melilah Park in the 2900 block of Southwest 182nd Avenue.

Sgt. Bill Steele, leader of the Washington County Sheriff's Office gang unit, says members of two gangs agreed to meet at the Aloha park at about 10:30 p.m. The confrontation devolved into a battle, with one gang member being attacked by five rivals armed with knives and baseball bats.
The victim was taken to the hospital with serious injuries, having been stabbed in the back.
Steele says four juveniles are in custody and police are looking for a fifth gang member.

Isidro Loya, 16; Victor Ortiz, 17; Timothy Zurita, 17; and Daniel Zurita, 17, are in Washington County Jail, charged with multiple counts of assault and unlawful use of a weapon. They are expected to be tried as adults, Steele says. The assault charge is a Measure 11 crime, which carries a minimum five-year, 10-month sentence.

Police are also looking for Leopoldo Diaz, whom they call a person of interest in the assault. They ask anyone who knows where he is to contact the sheriff's office.

The five teenagers are among more than 600 people in the county who law enforcement agencies say are associated with criminal gang activity, Steele says.

"It is not against the law to be in a gang," he says, and police don't track hundreds of other gang members who haven't committed any crimes. The 600 they do have records on have been involved in everything from simple graffiti to homicide.

"We actually think the number is low," Steele adds.

The crowd of about 125 that filled the meeting room at Reedville Presbyterian Church was told that gang activity in the area is a chronic problem.

"We aren't Compton, but we are concerned we may be heading that way," says Julie McCloud, sheriff's crime prevention officer, talking about Southern California's gang epicenter.

Speakers say that gang members linked to some of the Compton-area groups have been reported in the county.

Biles says gang recruitment is going on at area schools, with older gang members contacting kids barely 10 years old.

"A 19-year-old guy comes out of prison and kids see him as protection," Biles says. "They have no ideas what they are doing, but they make a decision to get involved in gangs without being old enough to recognize the consequences of that decision."

And once they are in, it is almost impossible to get out.

Marco Monteblanco, also with the Juvenile Department, says most of the gang members in the county are Latino.

"Most of the kids aren't in school, they come from single-parent families and there may be alcohol or some other sort of abuse involved," he says.

Biles says the kids come from families that give them little support or love, they live in poverty, in an environment that can't meet what most of us consider even basic needs.

Gangs, he says, offer them the things they can't get at home: protection, respect, a sense of belonging. In return for those benefits, members devote their lives to their gang, and are even willing to die for them.

But he says that behind that hard stare, often lives "a kid who simply wants to be loved.
"No one really grows up wanting to be a gang member," he says.