Krieger: Former gang member shows the way out

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, January 27, 2007

It has been 25 days since Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was killed in a drive-by shooting on a downtown Denver street. No arrest has been made in the case.

Police impounded an SUV registered to a known gang member. A "person of interest" in the case is a known gang member.

The people who have been fighting gang violence all along have been meeting and talking and trying to find a way to make Williams' death matter in the bigger picture, but they're not getting much help.

Terrance Roberts, a former gangbanger who has launched his own nonprofit agency to keep kids out of gangs - The Prodigal Son Initiative, Inc. - would love some help from area leaders and athletes, but only if it's for real.

"If they came with a sincere message, like, 'You know what, this is dumb,' and have passion for it, they'd get through," Roberts said. "These kids listen to passion. People don't understand that. Whoever's the most passionate, that's who the kids are going to ride with."

How much influence do athletic heroes have on the kids most vulnerable to street gangs?

"A tremendous amount," Roberts said. "I don't think athletes fully understand who they are themselves because a lot of them are still kids, to be honest with you. You've got a 23-year- old man who lives in Parker with a $5 million house. He doesn't understand his influence. He has kids in the inner city wearing his jersey."

Roberts would know. He was born and raised in Park Hill, where he fell in with the Bloods who came to town from Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, more or less by accident.

"We were just a bunch of kids who played football in the yards and football in the streets," Roberts said. "All of a sudden, here come these new guys. They had a different flavor, a different style. They were a lot rougher and tougher than us."

The Bloods would quiz Roberts and his friends, who were 10 or 11 at the time, if they saw them wearing blue.

Before long, the kids were wearing red to be accepted in their own neighborhood.

When they traveled to Aurora or Five Points, their colors would have the opposite effect.

"We weren't even Bloods yet and we were fighting other gangs," Roberts said. "Like, we would go catch the bus to the mall of Aurora and we would get into it with Crips because we looked like the Bloods in our community. We were wearing red because if you weren't wearing red back home, you were liable to get into a fight with the Bloods."

From there, the escalation seemed natural. By the time he was 14, Roberts was locked up in the Gilliam, a youth detention facility in northeast Denver.

"That was my first time looking in the mirror and saying, 'I'm a Blood,' " he recalled. "They called me Showbiz. Action and drama."

He carried a MAC-11 machine pistol in his waistband, 32 rounds at the ready. He was shot in the back in 1993, during the summer of violence, requiring two surgeries. It was not until he faced life in prison as a habitual criminal that he took a longer look in the mirror.

"I was in my mid-20s and I was a loser," he said. "I mean, beyond a loser because not only do I have no money and nowhere to go, but even if I do get out of prison I got to go live with my grandmother or my mom."

Three years ago this month, Roberts did get out of prison. He took a course in how to start a nonprofit and founded The Prodigal Son Initiative, which he runs out of the Denver Children's Home.

The agency hosts a small after- school program at Hallett Elementary in Park Hill.

"The kids have to do their homework," he said. "We tutor them. We help them mainly with math and writing skills, those are the biggest problems, but we do whatever they need us to do.

"We feed them snacks and then we play fun educational games. We might play Scrabble. We give them prizes. And then we'll do some health initiative field trips. I take the kids rafting, take them hiking. I took them to Dick's Sporting Goods and did a huge rock wall climbing contest."

Like any nonprofit, Prodigal Son could do more if it had more resources. "You'd be surprised how many of them would want to do what I'm doing," Roberts said of his former fellow gangbangers. "You'd be surprised how many of them secretly pull me to the side and say, 'Man, I can't do it no more.'

"I tell 'em, 'I could show you a way to get out of this respectfully.' They just never do it."

If you want to help, you can check out Roberts' fledgling Web site at www.ProdigalSonInc.org, e-mail himat theprodigalsoninc@yahoo.com or call him at the Denver Children's Home (303-399-4890, ext. 298).

"I'm not going anywhere," said Roberts, now 30. "This is my career. I love it. I don't make a lot, probably never be rich now, but I tell you what, I'm rich spiritually and I love what I do. I've got a good name in the community."

kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com