Word: hagan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Raised amid violence, Hagan responded with greater violence. Walk around like a hand grenade with the pin pulled, and people will make room. A soldier since age 13, he is adept at using battlefield logic to justify the daily carnage. "If you're in a war, you just accept that the only thing you can do is stay alive," he says. He impatiently explains the necessity of stealing from the enemy: "It's like I'm coming up in the world, you know. I'm trying to make it, and I need your wallet. That...
Still, even that twisted logic does not explain his cold-blooded murder of Kellie Mosier. A junior in high school, she was working at her first job, behind the counter of an ice-cream parlor. While Hagan was being initiated into gangs at the age of 13, she was still playing with dolls. Resisting pressure at school to join the gangs, she selected friends who shared dreams beyond the streets, and they stuck together for protection. Poised and attractive, she dreamed of being a fashion model...
During the trial, Irene endured Hagan's remorseless composure and watched in disgust as he reveled in the pride of gang life. Sometimes, when she sits alone in her daughter's room, she cannot help wondering where a young boy learns to pull the trigger without blinking, why manhood in the ghetto is such a dangerous thing. "I knew these gang members when they were just babies," she says sadly. "Now look at them. They've turned into killers...
Across town in the Los Angeles County jail, Hagan is chuckling. He cannot believe someone would ask him how gang members learn to shoot. "It's just like in the movies," he explains, demonstrating different firing positions. "You just shoot until you hit something...
That's what Hagan did. Six out of 15 into the back of a girl he had never...