Rob a store and you're in. The armed robbery that made Darren a Coquitlam Raider was quick and exciting. Now a young father, he says it was a terrible mistake
Glenda Luymes The Province
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

A family man now, 'Darren' is none too proud of his history with the Coquitlam Raiders and Surrey Thugs Incorporated.

Rob Rai, a diversity liaison officer with Surrey schools, teaches kids a better way of 'joining' than being in a youth gang.

He had been to the corner store before, but never with a gun.

Like other 12-year-old kids in his Coquitlam neighbourhood, Darren sometimes met friends there. He would spend his change on orange slush, chocolate bars and sometimes a magazine.

When he didn't have money, he would steal candy from beneath the counter. It was easy.

But this was different.

Darren felt shaky -- and strangely excited.

"Rob a store and you're in," the leader of the Coquitlam Raiders had told him minutes before, handing him the gun.

The weapon was now tucked in the waistband of Darren's jeans. As he approached the store, leaving the group of teens waiting a few blocks away, his fear gave way to adrenalin.

He was one robbery away from being "in" -- a real member of the Coquitlam Raiders. It was something he'd wanted since his sister began dating the crew's leader a few months back.

Ten minutes before the store closed for the night, with no one inside but the owner and his wife, Darren burst through the door. He pointed the gun at the owner. When the man's wife began to scream, Darren blocked the entrance and waved the loaded weapon in the air.

He demanded money and smokes.

Then he was back on the street, running, a bag filled with $1,100 and 12 cartons of cigarettes over his shoulder, the adrenalin pounding through his veins and a shout of triumph in the back of his throat.

He was in.

- - -

In a series of interviews, Darren, now 27, tells his story.

He asks to use an alias, which The Province has agreed to do in order to protect his family.

"There's not one second that I look back on and say that it was good," he says.

Later in the interview, he will seem to contradict this, talking loudly about his skill as a street fighter.

But despite the bravado, the years since 1991 and his initiation into the Coquitlam Raiders have given Darren insight on the reasons he sought to join a gang. He says his early criminal behaviour was like a "slippery slope" that eventually crumbled altogether, giving way to involvement, not only in the small-time Raiders, but also later, in Surrey Thugs Incorporated, a more organized street gang.

"It wasn't worth it," he says numerous times during the interviews in a quiet Coquitlam restaurant.

When his memories become too emotional, Darren slides his sunglasses down from the top of his head, covering his blue eyes and the feelings they betray.

"I get emotional easy now," he says. "I don't have a gun that I can just pick up."

He sucks orange pop through a straw, drinking two glasses in quick succession. He stops occasionally for a smoke break.

But he wants to tell his story.

"If this can help one kid, it's worth it," he says.

- - -

Darren grew up in Coquitlam living with his mother, a single parent.

"There was one guy who came around when I was 10 or so. I still call him my dad," he says.

Darren openly admits he didn't have a good upbringing.

His mom had very little money. Much of the time, she didn't know what was happening in her son's life.

Darren began drinking and smoking marijuana when he was in elementary school.

A "bad kid," he spent plenty of time in counsellors' offices, eventually dropping out of school in Grade 7. No one seemed to notice -- at least, not that Darren can recall.

When his older sister began dating the leader of the Coquitlam Raiders, a small-time gang whose members were involved in robberies, home invasions and auto theft, he was interested.

The group offered "a sense of family, respect. They had trust in me," he says.

After Darren passed his initiation by robbing the corner store, the crew threw a party to celebrate. He was allowed to wear their signature black-and-white bandanna, pairing it with a Los Angeles Raiders football jersey and ball cap.

"We made people fear us. When I walked down the street, people would be afraid," he says.

About a year after his initiation, while high on acid, Darren and some friends jumped a man and began kicking him.

The man died, and Darren went to jail for manslaughter.

He doesn't like talking about it.

While serving what added up to three years at the Willingdon Youth Detention Centre in Burnaby, Darren became friends with a number of teens who, like him, claimed to be members of one small-time gang or another.

"Obviously, we all had something in common," he says.

- - -

Darren may have had more in common with his fellow inmates than he realized.

In interviews with more than 700 teens who have been residents at the Willingdon Youth Detention Centre over the past eight years, Dr. Ray Corrado, criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, and Dr. Irwin Cohen, criminology professor at the University College of the Fraser Valley, have found minimal variations in the risk factors inmates exhibit.

"Many of these youth fit a multi-problem profile," says Cohen. "There's a lot going on with them."

Some teens, he says, will join a gang to make money, while others will join to fill their desire for family, status or acceptance.

"They'll access an alternative pathway toward the normal goals," he says.

Long-term studies cited by Canada's National Crime Prevention Centre indicate the most important risk factors for gang involvement include a need for recognition and belonging, poor educational potential, alcohol and drug abuse, a lack of parental supervision and an over-reliance on anti-social peers.

Corrado says that once a youth has joined a gang, it is gang membership itself that becomes one of the best predictors of violent criminal behaviour.

"It's really a culture of violence," he says.

In fact, it is very rare for teens to commit violence alone. The vast majority of teens interviewed at Willingdon were part of a group when they acted, he says. And while some youth make great personal improvements while incarcerated, many find themselves under familiar negative influences when they get out.

"It's disheartening to read their risk profiles," says Corrado. "Their lives are tragic -- that doesn't condone what they've done, but it's sad when all you see is, essentially, a lifetime of failure."

- - -

For Darren, it would take almost 10 years to break from the gang lifestyle.

The price would be high.

While in Willingdon, he met a member of Surrey Thugs Incorporated -- a gang he calls a "step up" from the Raiders.

In 1999, about a year after leaving youth detention, Darren moved to Surrey, where the gang gave him a place to stay and a pocketful of drugs.

"They told me to go out and make money," he says. "I had to prove myself."

Unlike the Coquitlam Raiders, which fell apart as its members grew older, STI matured along with its members and was already organized by the time Darren came along.

Youth probation officer Gerald van Stolk kept tabs on many of STI's 20 members while the group was active, watching it go from a neighbourhood "fight crew" to a turf-oriented youth gang.

"STI hit the radar when they started selling marijuana. Before that they were just a group of neighbourhood punks," van Stolk says.

Identifiable by their camouflage clothes, the gang established a monopoly on the marijuana trade between the Gateway and Surrey Central SkyTrain stations in the late 1990s.

While the gang had a number of dealers working for them, to become a full member, a wannabe gangster had to be sponsored in. He would then be allowed to get the STI tattoo on the inside of his forearm -- its large gothic letters left empty until the member advanced further and was permitted to fill in the letters with a design.

Over time, STI became more and more organized, "to the point where they would have separate shifts with special shift supervisors and kids on bikes doing heat checks," says van Stolk.

But around 2004, things began to go wrong for the gang. Van Stolk attributes STI's eventual end to crystal meth.

The gang moved from "weed to speed," and many members began doing as much meth as they sold.

The dangerous drug made some members ultra-violent, causing episodes of drug-induced psychosis and paranoia, says van Stolk.

Eventually, there was a "rift" among upper management.

Darren puts it this way: "They got rid of the weak links."

By this time, Darren was ready to cut his ties with the gang. He was feeling betrayed after being abandoned by STI members in a fight with another crew -- a long scar still runs along the crown of his head as a reminder. Plus, his girlfriend had just had a baby boy.

Drug withdrawal took him weeks in a small dark room at his mom's house. Lying on an air mattress, a vomit bucket beside him, he remembers being so sick his bones felt "broken and chipped."

When he finally beat the habit, it was too late to be the kind of father his son needed. Social services took the boy away from his girlfriend, and the couple split soon after.

The boy is now three and Darren hasn't seen him in more than a year.

- - -

As a youth diversity liaison officer for the Surrey school district, Rob Rai tries to save kids from the experiences that led Darren to realize gang membership is a dead end.

"We're always on the lookout for the risk factors," he says.

In an ideal world, every time a student showed signs of slipping, a meeting would be arranged with everyone involved -- parents, teachers, counsellors, even police.

"One person alone can't get rid of all the risk factors. Co-operation is essential," says Rai.

But sometimes it's enough to get the troubled teen involved in sports, or drama, or the physics club.

With that in mind, the Surrey school district has started a special program for kids who are suspended from school called the IR3 program -- the intervention, refocus, reflect and reintegrate program. Rather than being sent home when they've been suspended from school, students attend a two-day workshop focused on self-esteem, conflict resolution and character building.

"Every student's situation is different, but the principles are the same," says Rai. "Kids need to know someone cares. That someone is taking an interest. That their decisions matter."

- - -

Four months ago, Darren became a father for the second time.

He's been drug free for almost two years and has a steady job.

"I'm giving it my best shot," he says. "People are counting on me now, and I'm not going to let them down."

At the end of an emotional interview, he's happy to see his fiance and baby girl arrive at the restaurant. He picks up his daughter with a gentleness that is both surprising and touching, bringing her blue eyes to the level of his own.

Darren smiles.

The little girl smiles.

"She likes to smile," he says.

gluymes@png.canwest.com

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TAKE BACK YOUR LIFE

Don't forget to talk about gangs. Tell your child that:

- You disapprove of gangs.

- You see him or her as special and worth protecting.

- You don't want to see him or her hurt or arrested.

- You want to help with his or her problems.

- You and other parents are working together against gangs.