Word: gangly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...hard finding people who were willing to be interviewed. He got the names of potential contacts from probation and anti-gang officers but, says Hull, "these guys aren't exactly looking for publicity." He showed up more than once for a street-corner meeting, then waited in vain for a source to show up -- wondering all the while whether he was about to become the target of a beating or a drive-by shooting himself. Even when he made contact, he says, "it took a long time to get them to trust me." But in the end, Jon found...
What he learned bore out his suspicions. Says Hull: " 'Dropping the flag,' or quitting, is considered almost a capital offense." Every gang has a de- initiation ceremony that usually involves a vicious ritual beating -- occasionally to the point of death. Ex-members who stay in the neighborhood -- and few can afford to leave -- are subject to repeat beatings by their former comrades and by rival gang members who don't know or care that they've quit. "It takes an unbelievable amount of courage to walk out," says Hull...
With his crazy stare, massive knuckles and tattooed biceps, Jimmy T. looks like an urban grenade with a faulty pin. The five-alarm face fits nicely with his career as an up-and-coming member of a Chicago gang called the Vice Lords. But when his face relaxes and the baby fat sinks back in place, a different visage emerges. Disarmed of weapons and bravado, Jimmy is a terrified 16-year- old who did something very, very stupid one hot summer night this past June...
Only thing was, Jimmy wanted nothing to do with the big time. Like most kids in his West Side neighborhood, he just sort of fell into gang banging at 14. Then things got crazy, and now he wants...
...muggy Saturday night shortly after 11. Jimmy is driving around in a stolen 1987 Honda Prelude, a 9-mm TEC-9 under the seat. "I'm thinking, ohhh, man, this sain't for me. I'm just tired of this gang banging, and I'm, like, real scared." A semiliterate high school dropout, Jimmy grapples with the ghetto's version of a mid-life crisis. He drives around for 40 minutes, carefully obeying every traffic signal as he furiously works through his options. Definitely don't want to be stopped by the police, really don't want to fire this...