CONVERSATION / MIGUEL ROBINSON : Finding the Elusive Exit From Violence

MIGUEL ROBINSON, 25, also known as Scoobie, is an original member of the Rollin’ 40’s Crips in the Crenshaw district. Not long ago, Robinson abandoned gang life and became a peer counselor for Community Build, a private nonprofit agency launched by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) to serve areas most hurt by the 1992 civil unrest. Times staff writer JOHN L. MITCHELL spoke with Robinson about his life as a gangster and his journey from the streets to a federally funded job and a meeting in January with President Clinton.

Q: How did you become a gang member?

A: It started in my neighborhood. My neighborhood has always been a turbulent place to live. I hit the streets early. The older guys in the neighborhood looked after me, they took me under their wing. Without the gang, you became a target, you had no protection.

I turned to the streets about the same time as my father left home. He just disappeared. So I started doing for myself. I was 11 or 12 when my parents got divorced. If my father had been around, I wouldn’t have had to take the hard route to where I am today.

Q: What do you mean by hard route?

A: Basically, to survive I did whatever it took to make a buck--hustling, stealing, selling drugs. You name it. I did it.

Q: Did everyone in your neighborhood take that path?

A: There were people who didn’t, but I wasn’t one of them. There were people who studied hard and there were athletes. I was doing a different thing. I was pretty wild then. I wanted to make money. We formed a gang and I started hustling.

Q: Was there a point when you hit rock bottom and decided to change your life around? Did something happen that forced you to take a good hard look in the mirror?

A: Yes, there were several times. I remember I was in the 10th grade, maybe 16 or 17. Everyone would meet behind the Laundromat and hang out, drink and smoke weed. We used to do it for hours. There were older guys there too, some pushing 30. I remember thinking, “Hey I’m not going to be doing this when I’m 30.” But I didn’t listen and things didn’t change. Then gang warfare started heating up. A lot of my friends died. My uncle Winston was killed, cut right open. None of it made any sense. But I didn’t have any sense of remorse, no value for life. There was too much violence. You see it in cartoons, shooting and killing. You hear it in music. You hang around with kids shooting BB guns. You see a whole bunch of death and mayhem. You get desensitized. I stopped shedding tears at funerals.

Q: As you grew older, did you want to break the cycle of violence associated with gangs? Did you want to escape the pressure?

A: Not at first. I was too busy trying to make money. When I graduated from Crenshaw High School in 1987, the gang thing hit a new level. People were dying. It seemed like I was lucky too many times just to make it through a day. It was tearing my mother apart. I wanted to make my mom proud of me. I joined the Air Force, thinking I would get out. But I didn’t. The military was a gang, too, just on a larger scale. My whole military career was a disaster. I was dealing drugs on the side. Then on a two-day visit home my past caught up with me. I was jumped by some guys who wanted to rob me. I was shot five times. That’s when I went crazy. I ended up almost killing someone and went to the penitentiary for three years.

Going to jail was the worst thing I could do to my mother. I remember she came to visit me. I remember her face. She really wanted to hear me say I didn’t do it. But I couldn’t tell her that.

Q: How did three years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., change things for you? Was it the medicine you needed?

A: I began to see that I was out of control. I sought medical attention in a mental-health facility and gradually I realized that there was something wrong with the way I was living my life. I also realized that gang warfare was all for nothing. At Leavenworth, people split up into groups according to where they were from. People from California were in one crew. Chicago had its own crew. Your crew looked out for you. It dawned on me that I could be doing life for killing a Blood and end up working out with one of his homies, watching one of his homies’ back. The whole thing didn’t make sense any more. I began to value life more.

Q: After you were released from prison, did you have a different outlook on life? A: Yes. I was back on the street. My homies started calling me “angel” because now I am the one who breaks up fights, telling everyone to stop being violent.

Q: Do you run into people who remind you of what you were like?

A: Every day. Sometimes I see brothers who don’t know where they want to go. They don’t care who they hurt. I try to tell them to realize that there is hope. I ask them if they have a plan, or is this what they want to be doing for the rest of their lives? I tell them there ain’t no future in what they are doing.

Q: Did President Clinton’s visit to Community Build Jan. 20 give you a sense of hope that someone powerful was concerned about the problems of the poor?

A: Yes and no. It’s hard to feel that the President is really listening. That kind of politics is foreign to day-to-day life here.

Q: What does your mother think about your future now that you have a job and have stopped gang banging?

A: She’s really proud. This is a golden moment for her. I’m a peer counselor in my neighborhood, someone to look up to.

Q: What about your future?

A: Eventually I want to go to college. I took some courses in prison and now I want to get my degree. This program has helped me to help myself, find more outlets. I would like to be a businessman, an entrepreneur.

Voices correspondent JACQUI MAJERS contributed to this article.