A Path From Gangs to Grace

Eddie Banales had quite a senior year at Garey High School a decade ago. He became student body president, got married, fathered a child, did drugs, ran with the 12th Street gang and earned a diploma.

Good student by day, gang-banger by night--Banales led a double life, although not a secret one, since his gang affiliation was never hidden. In fact, when he was elected president of the student body, Banales said, the feeling among some students was that “the hoodlums have taken over.”

But the hoodlums never took over Banales entirely. And today, at 27, he is out of gang life and trying to persuade youngsters--through dramatic skits and motivational speeches--to take an easier road than he did.

Banales said his first arrest, at the age of 12 for throwing a wine bottle at a police car, was a case of mistaken identity. But he said he was guilty of enough other crimes, including a violent attack on another student, to keep him on probation throughout his teen-age years.

After high school graduation, he continued gang life and made money by dealing drugs. At 19, with a troubled marriage, a second child on the way and his drug connections going sour, Banales changed direction. He turned to religion, got a job at a paper mill and settled in to raise his family.

Things were going well, Banales said, but something was missing. He realized two years ago that he was not finished with gangs.

“I talked to my wife and children and explained to them that we could have the house and picket fence and be in our own little world, or we could take what God has given to us and share it with others,” he said.

Banales quit his job and wrote a so-far-unpublished autobiography, “From Gangs to Grace,” that tells how he got into--and out of--gangs. He took a job as associate pastor of a church, then was hired as director of Family and Community Educational Services (FACES), a nonprofit organization that deals with gang problems. He also works as a consultant to the Pomona Unified School District.

Banales is trying to build FACES into an organization that can divert youngsters from gangs. He has the help of other former gang members, including Daniel Rodriguez, 31, a campus resource officer at Garey High School, who was shot in the face and shoulder in a gang shooting when he was 18.

Rodriguez writes dramatic skits portraying the consequences of gang life. These skits and motivational speeches by Banales have become the centerpieces of anti-gang programs in schools and churches.

Banales took his anti-gang program last month to Fremont Junior High School, where he had once been student body president. Principal Frank Garcia said some teachers remember Banales as “one of the main gangsters” in the school and were delighted to see him trying to persuade others to avoid his mistakes.

Pomona Police Capt. Chuck Heilman, who also remembers Banales as a gang youth, said he has seen audiences moved to tears by the powerful programs staged by Banales and his team of former gang members.

“The people we’re using are those with five, 10 or 15 years of hard-core gang affiliation,” Banales said. “Kids appreciate that because they know (the ex-gang members) are sharing out of the pain they have experienced.”

Banales said he has the motivational tools to interest youngsters in alternatives to gang life but is moving slowly because he has not developed an organization that can offer follow-up services. His goal is to raise enough money from state and federal grants to create a resource center that could counsel and refer youngsters and parents to agencies that would help them deal with problems ranging from drug use to child-rearing.

It is not enough, Banales said, to tell youngsters to say no to gangs unless there is some means of helping them cope with the pressures to join gangs.

“You need voices and leaders and role models to stand up and fight this psychologically,” Banales said. “And when that begins to happen, there will be a very positive change.”