Rescued From a Dark Path : Waste of a Gang Member’s Life and Support From Others Lead to Changes

Fifteen-year-old Alex Casillas was home in the El Sereno section of Northeast Los Angeles two years ago when he saw the commotion at the home of one of his best friends, Albert Diaz.

Diaz, a gang member, had been shot. He was wounded too badly to live, so his friends had brought him home to die.

In doing so, they may have saved Casillas’ life.

“I saw him laying there,” Casillas said, remembering how the life oozed out of Diaz, “and I thought ‘Damn, that sucks. I don’t wanna end up like that.’ ”

Today, Casillas, 17, is getting good grades and is a member of the basketball team at Wilson High School.

Family and friends say the change in the boy has been remarkable. Though he had not joined the neighborhood gang, those who know him say he was heading down that dark path to an early grave or prison. They remember a 135-pounder wearing Size 46 pants, fighting every day, smoking marijuana, drinking Bacardi, getting kicked out of five schools and tagging with his three friends: Augustine (now a hard-core gang member), David (now in jail) and Alex (dead).

It was a near constant struggle with his mother that kept him from joining the gang.

“I never let him do what he wanted to do,” said Guillermina Casillas. “My husband [Tomas] would let him do what he wanted to do. My husband would say, ‘He’s a man. Let him do what he wants.’ It’s the parents’ fault kids get in gangs. You have to be strict.”

So strict that she once told him: “This is my house. If you don’t like it, leave. But put a note on your body that says, ‘I don’t have any family, no parents, no home,’ so when the cholos kill you, no one will come tell me. They’ll just cremate you. And I’ll never have to hear about it.”

And then, at night, in her bedroom, she would cry for hours.

If it was his mother who kept Casillas from joining the gang, and the specter of Diaz that made him realize gang life wasn’t for him, it has been Raul Caiz who has given him the direction to stay out of trouble.

Caiz is the director of the El Sereno Youth Center, where Casillas often goes to play basketball, to box, and to help out.

“To see the change in this kid is amazing,” said Caiz, a professional boxing referee who has worked on several title fights. “If you told me he would be on the Wilson High School basketball team, I would have said you were nuts. He has made a major turnaround since Alex died. He had a big mouth and would fight anybody. He has changed so much. He has learned to keep quiet and keep to himself.”

Listen to the story of the rabbit costume:

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“Last year, I asked Alex to be the Easter bunny for a group of children at a park,” Caiz said. “I told him he only had to wear the outfit for a little while, but he wore it all day.

“It turns out that some gang kids were looking for him, so he kept the bunny suit on to disguise himself. The thing was, he didn’t keep the outfit on because he was scared--the kid is fearless--he kept it on because he didn’t want [a gang attack] to jeopardize the kids and ruin their party.”

As Casillas credits Caiz, Caiz credits City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who represents the neighborhood. In 1992, Alatorre donated money from a fund-raiser celebrating 20 years in public office to help build the youth center.

Alatorre remembers Casillas when the boy first came to the youth center.

“He was such a disruptive player on the basketball team,” the councilman said. “He was the kind of kid that if you had 10 children, he would be the one you’d want to get rid of. But he straightened out. Drastically.”

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Casillas is refreshingly unimpressed by titles: “Raul takes me to meetings sometimes where these big people are, like Rich Alatorre. Rich used to be a mess-up when he was a kid, now he’s pretty big.”

He often boxes at the youth center with his older brother, Tomas Jr., who is training to be a professional boxer. He sees himself becoming a youth counselor, steering troubled kids away from a life he came so close to embracing.

And he still thinks about Albert Diaz.

“What a waste,” Casillas said. “He was stupid for joining the gang. And his mom was stupid for letting him.”