The Latin Kings, a Latino gang that began in the prisons of Chicago, have tribes across the United States. The gang members must know the history of the organization and wear beads or bandanas with the gang colors black and gold. The Latin Kings have been in New York since the 1990s. As part of the coverage of recent gang violence, The Queens Courier interviewed a former Latin King member. He declined to give his real name but said to call him “Janito.”
“I joined the Latin Kings when I was 12. A good friend of mine and I, may he rest in peace, were hanging out, and he was the victim of a shooting. His brother was a Latin King, in the Inca tribe, and he began to look out after me.
“I used to hold the drugs because a cop wouldn’t frisk a 12-year-old. Everybody knew to come to me. I was a lookout too but mostly I would hold on to the heavy drugs. Coke, crack everything and anything. I was basically a human Rite-Aid. Everybody talked and preached about family and unity. I look back on it now, and I can see that mom was trying to survive. They gave me the belief that we were family. I had the mentality, ‘Thug life born, Thug life bred, when the time is right, I’ll be Thug Life dead.’
“If you had met me, and we’d be doing this story years ago, it would have been different. I had been drinking the Kool-Aid that was brainwashing me.
“I held my first gun at 12. One of the MS-13 [a Salvadorian gang] attacked a member’s sister, and there was a big fight. I thought I was defending my Latin Queen. I ended up pulling the trigger at some MS-13. I don’t remember if I hit anybody. We heard the sirens, and we ran past the McDonald’s at 103rd Street and we ran into a park. I could feel my heart pumping out of my chest.
“I didn’t have any fear about getting out [of the gang]. My mentality was that I wasn’t gonna make it anyway. I’m lucky to even be as old as I am. I really wasn’t thinking I’d be alive this long.
“I met two Guardian Angels that were starting a chapter up in Corona at 103rd Street and Corona Plaza in 2000. They were doing a big recruitment drive. The two guys were ‘Crazy J’ and ‘Zeek.’
“They gave me the whole spiel. It didn’t mean anything to me until Crazy J and Zeek asked me, ‘Are you a father?’ To have someone talk to me at my level! I was trying to do a lot of things like sell drugs, but once he mentioned my son, I started thinking …
“I’m working now. They have been a real family compared to the make-believe family of the Latin Kings.
“I’m really glad for the Guardian Angels – EQ, 13, Crazy J, Zeek, Curtis. They gave me, a former Latin King, an opportunity to do something with my life. They gave a street kid a chance. They are the reason I’m not pushing up daisies.”
