the gang boy is a phenomenon of  row that's the picture and it's not pretty these kids are about to get into a gang war that will ruin every one of their lives and we're going to do everything in our power to prevent it place all extra patrols that we have on duty captain keep these groups from gathering at any location in the city and cast see if you can get the leaders together here at the stake maybe we can talk this thing i walked around for hours and then some inner force to me up here to the dam in a small dark corner my mind had remembered something something that would help me to decide poor but healthy kids and that we seemed to come together because of a battle that each of us was fighting within himself and with the angry world around him but how could i accept help from him when all the time i thought he'd do i was part of the angry world i was fighting know at this age you couldn't call us a gang we were just a bunch of kids playing together but whenever a kid's real world is a rec yard when it brings him on happiness he has a wonderful escape hatch his imagination and if you step into his world with his mind you will see it quickly change into a beautiful exciting world of fantasy all at once they wreck y said is an african jungle crawling with big game and every kid becomes his own favorite animal in that these guys he can as he wishes grow back at the world where i'm from it playing in places like this got us into trouble and this conflict made us get house in a never ending battle with a big powerful adult already in such a state of mind we got many false ideas about the world from the things we saw him some movies in comic books we explored the large world around us and we found a million noisy moving colorful objects sparkling and flashing to fascinate our searching eyes and  small way of striking back and we had great fun putting things over on this big to build up to protect us from an unfriendly world we had a secret hideout to us it was a all had a good laugh at the direction we were moving was clear now without wanting it without even knowing it we were becoming a gang and i its leader first i liked i thought i was becoming a brave man like mike who still the heart of my mother i did not know then that it was not a real bravery but kind of sickness that was always pushing the out in front and daring others to follow me three days later they found the body i felt everyone nine years seem a long time when they come between the age of ten and nineteen in that time most kids become young men we were weakened by our struggle with the world we never grew up instead we merged ourselves like animals into a herd and became a gang but like kids we still did whatever we felt like at them here we picked in the orange groves made a little money but we gamble that away some boys began to drink beer and whiskey a few began to smoke money one some even drifted into serious crime you know people couldn't understand us now the things we did why we mind because the recent were hidden away in those nine years of growing up in an angry world and we lived under the constant threat of punishment punishment from the same authority that would not recognize and accept us as human beings i lived in fear too but i had to put on a brave mask and keep proving to myself and to the gang again and again that i was not afraid god in the circle of fear and hatred violence in my only way out then i got a glimpse of another way with rosalie for the first time in my life i began to feel what happiness love might bring this way seemed to hold  for a better future for more real satisfaction and i guess i wasn't the first or the only young guy in the world to fly forward in his dreams to in a family  periphery gang every time i looked at their faces i always saw the angry homes they must have grown up in they were not so different from us as they thought unable to strike at their own angry world they tried to let it out on us this time we took it because if you want something better out of life than a gang you've got to make a start somewhere so the help of an older man we formed a club here we began the first small attempts at becoming better members of the community and we decided to hold a dance the two days before the dance the thing i knew was bound to happen sooner or later happened polish it's an ugly law they challenge we must answer hi i've got it a couple of friends of mine we challenge and they must answer that's good or lucky that after the release five of them they turn right turn here he never gave up come on boys let's get it straightened out now while our things would not let it lie i knew exactly what they would do go to the drive in and pick up some of the gang there come on we're going into next town instead of lying in wait for them i told my boys to get their weapons and line up on both sides of the street right out in the open once they saw how strong we were they would keep moving as they came down the street i had a feeling my plan would work but when your gang is so hopped up for a fight you lose control them make the first move so we met there challenge they would challenge again what would my answer be using let me go it was a cruise if nothing could be done to change things then something clicked in my brain that darkened memory of garcia had brought me to the dam and it showed me this thread running between him and the fighting if i was right if the reasons for the gang fighting were hidden away in nine years of my kids growing up in an angry world then it was clear now what i had to say to lieutenant ghassan a danny just as good as any other kid in the world right now but give him a nine year dose of the medicine i got and you'll get another gang boy now well i know he needs a lot of things real things they need something else a chance to develop a new outlook here go on a long time ago i told you to leave me alone remember in grammar school i was wrong then that's hard to say danny don't leave this one all alone not yet don't let him grow up trying to find his own way in an angry world he didn't make don't let him grow up feeling inferior and on love help him to become recognized and accepted by the community a real part of it will you help to what do you mean i mean if you boys are willing to help the younger ones are willing to put all the energy that goes into fighting each other into trying to change the angry world around you maybe this boy will get his chance in a way and maybe your chance to danny what do you say let's see what happens at the truce meeting tonight if you guys will try to settle things in a democratic way but it looks pretty clear to me just who it is that's causing all the trouble if someone gets killed it's to go mighty hard with you ok but it won't do any good fellows we didn't ask you here this evening to criticize you for the things that you've done rather we're going to ask you to cooperate with us by discussing your misunderstandings in a democratic way and arriving at a solution without further violence all right boys this is your meeting and you're going to have it all to yourselves all we're going to do is see to it anybody who's got a baby is hurt and that everybody gets a fair shake well danny you heard the base we didn't ask for this and i only got one thing to say we don't want rob but we're not going to run away from it we're willing to have a truce if they will guarantee that nothing will happen at our dance to so ok benet but there's too many and there's not a time to get in touch with all of them i want going to nothing i see well how would it be of danny here invited you in a couple of your boys to the days then if any of the other gang showed up you'd be there and you i suppose you would like to dance too much freddie that night i could hear a voice praying inside in the prayer words were simply don't let him grow up on  this was a true story based on an incident in the city of pomona since that truce day there have not been one outbreak of group violence and the boys club supply i themselves have built a ballpark for all the younger children in the community they have donated their time energy and money to the march of dimes the city of hope and other welfare organizations at christmas time they held an open dance collected food as part of the admission price and them together with the young children distributed this food to the needy family there is the evidence of a small beginning perhaps