Sporty is a 29 year old man who lived an entire life by the time he was 21. 

 

Growing up in Section 8 housing in the Southside of Garden Grove, Southern California, Sporty was raised by two illegal immigrants while helping to raise his four younger siblings. His mother was working in a sweatshop making $5 an hour, while his father landscaped six days a week. Both were unable to speak English.

 

“We never had much, but I was always surrounded by love. Yeah, I had a happy childhood.” Sporty says. 
 

Sporty’s childhood apartment in Garden Grove, where he lived with his family of seven. 
 

Sporty goes on to describe his neighborhood in vivid detail, with obvious pride and affection, recounting the specific street names and the light brown color of the apartment his family had shared with three others. He explained Garden Grove with the same fondness that many would use to describe their home as. but there was much more to this place than people saw. 

 

The Gangs of Garden Grove

 

“The first time I really started to notice the gangs, I was about 10.” Sporty says.  “I didn't notice the gangs when I was younger. You're just a kid, you know what I mean?” says Sporty, “You're so innocent. And even though people might look at the gangs in my neighborhood and be scared or whatever, I wasn't scared. It was just home to us. We were safe there,” He adds. 

 

Because of the normalcy of gang presence in his neighborhood and the fact that he almost never ventured outside his neighborhood, Sporty never feared the members, or even thought negatively of them. He didn’t associate them with crime or violence, but with respect and strength. 

 

At the age of 10, the local gang started noticing Sporty. “They started acknowledging me, making me feel accepted,” he says.

 

With his parents both working long hours, Sporty was free to spend his time outside around the neighborhood. This near-unlimited freedom, along with the unintentional neglect from his parents, left Sporty in search of acceptance and a sense of belonging. The gang provided that.

 

“I never had a big brother or role model or nothing, so when these guys came acknowledging me and just saying ‘what’s up’, it felt good, you know?” says Sporty. “They were giving me advice and telling me to stay in school and to stay away from drugs. They really cared, so I started trusting these guys. They were my role models, like some adoptive brothers.”

 

When Sporty started getting noticed by the gang, he was asked to do some small jobs for them. He recalls riding around the neighborhood on his bike with a Corolla walkie talkie, patrolling for other gangs or suspicious behavior. They paid him $10 a day.

 

“I remember wearing my Power Rangers shirt and shoes and puffing my chest out, because I thought I was the man. I was doing something good for my neighborhood,” Sporty explains, “Whenever I saw trouble or whatever I’d run and tell my friends, like some Paul Revere sh**,” he jokes.

 

At 10, Sporty was regularly hanging out with the members of the gang, most of them ages 20 to 30. 

 

“I felt like it was all love, like I wasn’t doing drugs and sh**. I was just hanging out, being a part of something and helping out my hood,”  says Sporty. 

 

When asked why he and the members of the gang felt the need to help and defend the neighborhood, he gave the disturbing truth.

 

Police Brutality 

 

“The cops weren’t there to defend the neighborhood. We were, though. We protected the people who lived there. We were there to help the people and if they had any problems or anything, they would call us. The only time you would call a cop is when you found a dead body,” Sporty explains.

 

Southside Garden Grove has a long history of gang violence, and with that comes a history of police violence. 

 

“The cops weren’t good cops, man. They looked down on us because we were poor and they could kind of do whatever to us because they knew a lot of us were illegals. We couldn’t speak out against them or anything because they’d deport us or just ignore us,” Sporty states.

 

The Garden Grove PD had a reputation of police brutality. Even today, the department has yet to adopt certain policies to avoid violence, such as the requirement to give a warning before shooting and requiring de-escalation, according to Campaign Zero, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending police brutality.  

 

“You don’t trust the cop. They’ll beat you and then drive you to the other side of town where they know the other gangs are and leave you there for them to kill you,” Sporty reveals.

 

Because this neighborhood was, and still is, largely made up of low-income Mexican and Vietnamese immigrants, many of whom came from nothing with no strong connections or formal education, these groups found family and friendship with their neighbors. Strong communities and support systems were formed.  They relied heavily on each other for security and protection.  Because of the mistrust and fear of law enforcement, this protection came in the forming of gangs in the 1970’s that are still around today.

 

The consequences of police brutality included making this neighborhood feel socially neglected and outcast, especially young kids.

“I was 10 the first time I got stopped by a cop. I was walking to my friend's house and a cop pulled up out of nowhere and said he needed to search me. I was a kid, I didn’t have anything on me, but because I was from this neighborhood, they did what they wanted.” Sporty goes on to describe multiple instances of police brutality he has endured throughout his life, including being kicked in the ribs while handcuffed and having a cop yell into his ear. “I can do whatever the f*** I want, this is my f****** neighborhood.” 

 

There was anger, rage, and hatred carried in the hearts of these people, many with similar experiences. For many, including Sporty, this hatred and anger fed his passion for the local gang. 
 

Something Bigger than You 

 

By the time Sporty was 12, he wanted to “back up the hood.” To him, this meant becoming a person of trust for the neighborhood. This place was what he knew, and he loved it with a ferocity and loyalty surpassing the typical regard for one’s childhood home. He wanted to show that. 

 

For the members of the neighborhood gang, that meant that you abided by a strict code of honor: Don’t lie, don’t steal from the neighborhood, respect the people, especially the elders, and have pride for your Mexican heritage. 

 

“Everyone was always looking down on me because I was Mexican and sh**. It was with these guys that I really started being proud of my culture and heritage, you know?” Sporty says. 

 

While these guidelines were a core part of the lifestyle of this gang, there was much more that a young Sporty needed to consider. 

 

“I remember clear as day what they said to me. They looked at me and said, “you really want to be part of the hood?” and yeah, I did. 

 

These guys looked vicious. They looked cool and powerful. I wanted to be like that man,” explains Sporty. “They looked at me and said, “This ain’t no party crew. This is commitment. This is honor and there are people dying out here. If you want to be part of this, you're gonna fight, you're gonna get shot at, you're gonna go to prison, you might even die. If that’s your choice this is your life.” 

 

“I was only 12 years old. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had heart. I had always had heart. I was never strong or rich or anything, but I had heart and I felt like those guys had heart too, heart for their family and their neighborhood, like I did. ”
 

After that, Sporty started hanging out with the gang more and doing more jobs, and by 14, Sporty had gone through the initiation process and become an official member of the gang. The process involved being beat by other members of the gang for 13 seconds, and if you fall it starts over. 

 

“I never fell.” 
 

Code of Honor

 

After officially joining the gang, Sporty made a reputation for himself as a fighter. The gangs were groups formed around honor and respect, so reputations were everything, and he had a good one. 

 

“I was respectful and honest, and as soon as there was an enemy, I was a fighter, defending my hood like I always wanted to.” Sporty explained. 

 

Sporty also included some more rules implemented by the gang. Of all of them, the one that stood out most, was their unacceptance of drugs beyond marijuana. If a member was found doing harder substances, he would be beat and kicked out. 

 

This lifestyle with these rules and guiding principles shaped Sporty into the man he is, he says. Relying heavily on honor and dignity, standing up for what he believes in and protecting his own. The ethics of what led to these qualities are questionable, but the outcome is undeniably positive, in Shorty’s case.

 

Sporty was an active member of his gang until he was arrested at age 21 for conspiracy to commit mail fraud. “It was stupid. It was just something I shouldn’t have done with people who I knew weren’t actually there for me,” he says.

 

When asked about prison he stated that, “Prison for a guy like me is like college for a girl like you. It was just something I always knew was in the cards.”

 

I asked him if he had any regrets. 

 

“Nah. Everything that I have learned from every moment of my life has brought me to this point. Every friend in prison, every friend who has died, they have brought me here. The homies made me who I am. They taught me to be who I wanted to be. They all did, so of course I'm gonna keep them with me. My moral compass is true north because of everything I’ve been through, so nah. I don't regret sh**”.

 

I would like to conclude this article by stating my personal opinion on the subject of this feature. Sporty is at the highest level of honor and dignity a man can be at. I have met very few people so in tune with themselves and their own life. I would be happy to have half the goodness that he possesses, and by saying his moral compass points “true north” is a gross understatement.