Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man Read online

  You have to bear in mind that the EME was established in 1957 by a bunch of YA juvenile inmates who eventually landed in the CDC. The accepted theory is that the EME was founded by a gangster named Luis “Huero Buff” Flores from Hawaiian Gardens in LA County. The EME was formed as a prison gang, and the initial group of EME members were also members of various street gangs like White Fence, Artesia, Rockwood, San Fer, Avenues, Maravilla, and others. At the time when the EME was first formed, the Hispanic population in the CDC was outnumbered by the white and black inmates. The Hispanics banded together for protection against those two racial groups.

  One of the first rules laid down by the EME was that quarrels between gangs on the street ceased to exist when members of those warring gangs landed in prison. You were expected to bury the hatchet and let the old beefs die while in prison. This was purely a move for self-preservation. Hispanic inmates can’t fight each other and then hope to defend themselves against the blacks and the white inmates. It’s that old proverb about how a house divided can’t defend itself. That rule is still in effect today. But over time, the EME morphed from an entity for Hispanic self-protection into a violent group that preys on its own Hispanic gang members.

  One of the first things I learned when I landed in YA for the first time was that I wasn’t allowed to associate with anyone other than Hispanic inmates. This was a hard adjustment for me. On the street, I had Samoan, Filipino, black, and Asian friends. I was mostly blind to race and ethnicity. I hung out with people I liked and got along with and it didn’t matter what color their skin was. That changed in YA. As it turned out, one of my best friends on the street was a black guy named Daniel Taylor. He landed in YA soon after I did. When the Surenos saw me hanging with him, I was told to cut him off. He was a tinto (colored) or a mayate (dung beetle) and the Big Homies wouldn’t tolerate it.

  When you’re in custody in the system, there’s no such thing as affirmative action, cultural sensitivity, or racial tolerance. The inmates operate entirely on the concept of tribal allegiance. You don’t associate outside the tribe. In truth, the Surenos have tolerance for white inmates, who generally operate under the banner of the Aryan Brotherhood (AB). Historically, there’s been a mutually beneficial cooperation between the AB and the EME. A lot of white guys grew up in Hispanic varrios and some of them even made it into the ranks of the EME. The best known of them was a legendary white EME member named Joe “Pegleg” Morgan. Morgan, who had an artificial leg, moved easily between EME and AB factions because of the respect he carried in both camps. Despite his artificial leg, Morgan in his prime could never be beaten in handball, a game played like a blood sport in the CDC.

  That same level of tolerance is not extended to black inmates. During my time in the CDC, I remember the ACLU suing the CDC to force them to integrate the cell blocks. A lot of politicians jumped on that bandwagon, thinking that they could force black, brown, and white inmates to get along by sharing cells. What these well-intentioned fools didn’t realize was that we were criminals and we were running a criminal business with certain rules created to keep us in business. We were already in prison. What sort of punishment could they give us to force us to be nice to blacks? When they tried forced integration, the EME just sent out the call to riot. And we did. The other thing that politicians and the public don’t realize is that the Mexican Mafia controls the California prison system. They call the shots. The EME is the control motor of the CDC, not the guards or the wardens.

  While the racial aspect didn’t appeal to me, I understood it for what it was. Namely, it was solidarity. The EME doesn’t want divided loyalties for the simple reason that one day they may tell you to grab a bone crusher shank and kill that black guy in B Yard causing trouble. And if that black guy turns out to be an old friend, you may not jump to it the way you’re supposed to. And you can’t run a criminal or military organization like that. Your loyalty has to be beyond question. There’s no room for sentiment or loyalty higher than what you extend to the Mexican Mafia. Loyalty to the EME comes before God or family.

  I may have learned profiling people on the beaches of San Diego. But my real education, the instructional blocks that I needed to stay alive, started in YA. I literally learned how to walk. I watched some of the older guys who were making their second or third tour through YA. Everybody knew that they were headed for prison someday. Some of these guys who were approaching seventeen or eighteen had already been gangbanging for almost a decade. These were the hard cases that grew up worse than I did. They were the real gangbangers.

  The difference between gangbanging and just being a member of a gang is that a banger puts in a lot of work. Basically, that means violence. Gangbanging or set banging is the equivalent of going to war with another gang—either a rival Hispanic gang or a black or Asian gang.

  Gangs “claim” neighborhoods. And those neighborhoods have clearly defined and clearly demarcated boundaries. They mark their territory with gang graffiti. Unlike our own national borders, gang borders are constantly monitored for interlopers. As a Posole, your side of the street belongs to your gang. But it’s entirely possible that the other side of the street belongs to, let’s say, the Crazy Mexicans. So, as a solid soldado, you mark your territory with a gang placa (graffiti tag) and the Crazy Mexicans mark their side of the street. If you both respect your boundaries—you don’t go selling dope in the other guy’s house—everybody gets along. If some homie decides that he’d like to sling dope in the other gang’s house or just demonstrate some power, he’ll sneak across the street and spray-paint over the other gang’s placa and replace it with his own gang’s placa. That’s not just rude. It’s considered a declaration of war. That’s when the guns come out and the homies start cruising the neighborhood at night looking for enemies. That’s called putting in the work. You’re literally on a military mission to neutralize the enemy. And if you catch one of them in the open, alone or walking deep and with or without their weapons, it’s fair game. It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t the guy that painted over your placa. What matters is, he’s one of them and they need to be taught a lesson. The pride and honor of the neighborhood is at stake and you don’t want to be the guy that tarnishes the reputation.

  These guys who had already put in a lot of work for their neighborhoods were the ones that walked and talked like warriors. They were the ones I watched and emulated. They’d shot people and been shot at. In the military they would have been called battle-hardened. And there was nothing false about the way they acted. They were the real deal, the guys with heart, and they ruled YA. And in time, they would come to rule the prison system and eventually entire neighborhoods all over Southern California. That’s why it’s called Gladiator School. It’s basic training, boot camp for future supercriminals.

  The staff at Rancho Del Campo was a combination of paycheck collectors who didn’t care what we did, well-intentioned but naïve people who grew up wanting to save the world, and those who were borderline criminals themselves who would smuggle in dope and contraband for the right price.

  On my first trip to YA, the director was a very decent man who gave us a lot of lectures on living a moral life, avoiding drugs, the benefit of prayer or meditation, and generally doing what he could to keep us from coming back. He realized that the inmates were at the hormonal stage in their lives and needed hard physical outlets. So he was always organizing track meets, ball games, and any physical activity that would burn off excess energy. A teenager tired from running ten miles is less likely to go out into the yard and look for trouble. Thanks to Sergeant Corona, I was already hardened to the point that none of the physical stuff ever got me tired out. I grew up with the physical discipline, and ironically, Fred Corona trying to turn me into a Marine made it a lot easier for me to become a disciplined soldier in a criminal enterprise. I was going to be a hell of a candidate for the Mexican Mafia.

  Even though I was affiliated with Posole, I wasn’t a banger yet. I hadn’t
put in that sort of work other than sell dope and share the proceeds with the homeboys. In the eyes of higher-ranking Surenos, not snitching on my dope connections made me loyal to my set but it didn’t earn me any serious stripes. You get that by spilling blood. And I still had long hair. But that didn’t last long. One day a guy who I think was from Logan Heights looked at me hard and said, “What’s with the hair?” That was my order to cut it. I liked my hair long and I didn’t want to go full pelon (military buzz cut, literal translation is “bald”). So I had it cut short, but not to the point you could see the skin. Apparently that was good enough for them.

  One at a time, they started setting out the rules for me and guys like me. The first thing was I needed to have a weapon or access to a weapon at all times. Those are Sureno rules. In YA and the CDC, that means a shank—some sort of stabbing weapon. I was also told that if a Sureno gave me a weapon, I was supposed to hide it and keep it safe. And, of course, I couldn’t snitch to the staff as to who gave it to me if they found it on me. I was supposed to keep my mouth shut, take whatever staff punishment I got, and not rat out another Sureno. That was part of being a good soldier.

  I was also told that if I saw a Sureno getting jumped by mayates, I was supposed to jump in and help him no matter what the odds were. If there were ten guys beating a Sureno, I had to jump in even if there was a chance I’d get killed too. That’s the way you show heart. That’s the way you build up a reputation and earn some blood stripes.

  I was amazed at how eagerly I jumped at the chance to prove myself. I jumped in with both feet because I felt like I was finally part of something that wanted me. It wasn’t until decades later that I realized why I was so ready to show heart. With my father, I could never do anything to get his approval. No matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough. Ironically, it was easier to get respect from gangsters than it was from a Marine gunnery sergeant. The path to acceptance was the path of the warrior. My father was a warrior in his world. I would become a warrior in my world. In my mind, my world was a lot tougher than his. And I was going to prove it to him.

  While I was in YA, my cousin Yolanda came to visit. She told me that it wasn’t her who snitched me out to the principal but she knew who did. By that time I didn’t care who ratted me out. I was in a place that felt more comfortable than the streets or my own house. I was surrounded by homies whose respect I was slowly earning. I got to know the staff guys that could smuggle in dope and I’d sell it for a small profit and then break off the extra to give to the guys I was close to. Giving a guy with higher status than you free dope was a way of showing them you were part of the clica (clique). You wanted to be one of them and if they thought you were worth something, they’d school you and start to give you some responsibilities and assignments. They became your prison mentors.

  I adjusted pretty quick to my new situation. And because my neighborhood didn’t have a lot of enemies, it gave me an opportunity to get to know fellow camaradas (Southsiders) from other neighborhoods. You have to remember that we were basically a bunch of twelve- to seventeen-year-old delinquents who couldn’t function according to society’s rules but still felt we needed to belong to something or prove ourselves in some way. These juvenile facilities were organized to try to do the job that our parents and teachers couldn’t do.

  I started to clique pretty good with a few dudes and we got pretty close. Probably the same way soldiers clique up in boot camp and on the battlefield. Sleepy from National City and Gallo from Encanto were both from different hoods, but it felt like we were cut from the same piece of stone. We’ve all had the experience of running across people that you feel you have everything in common with. We laughed at the same humor, liked the same music, and were interested in the same things. Gallo was there for having a sawed-off shotgun and Sleepy was there for gangbanging. We basically became our own crew and we were always together.

  One night we were given dining room detail. All we had to do was clear and wipe down the dining room tables. We were clowning around the way we usually do, when all of a sudden Sleepy started arguing with a white guy. Before we could react, the arguing turned into a full-on fistfight. We jumped in on Sleepy’s side and other guys jumped in on the white guy’s side and it turned into a mini riot.

  One of the cooks came out of the kitchen and got on the radio to call for help and started yelling at us to break it up. For some reason, Sleepy breaks off the fight and runs out the door. Not knowing why he did that, Gallo and I followed him out. We ended up near the school, still pumped up on adrenaline and wondering why Sleepy took off.

  We were there for less than a minute when Sleepy says, “Fuck this. Let’s blow this pop stand.” I don’t know how or why, but it seemed like a really good idea at the time. And just like that, we went from just doing our time and programming (being good inmates) to “let’s bust out.” It was clearly reckless and there was no purpose to it. But at the time, we were so bonded together that we felt we had to support each other no matter how crazy the idea was. It was a deeper brotherhood than I had ever felt to that time. Years later, Gallo and I would end up as cellies (cellmates) in Soledad Central prison. I’ll get to that in time.

  5

  The Ones That Got Away

  We knew we couldn’t just walk out. We needed a plan. We figured if we’re going to do this, we’ll do it better than anyone else had ever done it. Rancho Del Campo was a juvenile camp with no fences and it was only three miles from Tecate. And Tecate is a border town—half in the US and the other half in Mexico. We knew that a lot of other inmates had escaped but they were all caught within hours. We figured we would be the ones that got away.

  Our first plan of action was to dump the jail clothes we all wore so we wouldn’t stick out in public. Next, instead of taking the highway to Tecate, we would hike over the hills into Mexico, make our way back to Tijuana, and then find a way back across the border into San Diego.

  We knew that when they found us missing, they’d alert the local cops, the Border Patrol, the California Highway Patrol, sheriff, and any other law enforcement they could think of. So instead of leaving camp, we decided to break into the camp woodshop and lay low until all the excitement calmed down. In retrospect, it was a good idea. There we were in the woodshop while all that chaos of cops and camp counselors were out there uselessly beating the bushes for us.

  Around two or three in the morning, when we didn’t hear any more commotion outside and we were pretty sure they’d all gone to sleep for the night, we made our way to the clothing room. When you’re processed, they take your street clothes, box them up, and put them in storage until you leave. So we had a lot of clothes to pick from.

  When we finally picked our clothes from the dozens of boxes we searched through, we headed out of camp. You have to picture the fact that Gallo and I were thirteen years old. Sleepy was fifteen. And we’re hiking into the hills in absolute zero visibility because we couldn’t find a flashlight. We could hear rattlesnakes getting alarmed as we walked by. And we knew there were scorpions out there. And every few steps the thick brush was scraping our skin and clothes. We walked as best we could until dawn started breaking.

  When the light was bright enough, we could see a roadway down a very steep hill. We started running toward it because we wanted to make the road before too much traffic built up and the cops would be out looking for us. As luck would have it, Sleepy trips and lands hard directly into a patch of cactus. He starts screaming because he’s got cactus thorns all up and down the front of his legs. He looks like a mess.

  Gallo and I help Sleepy pull out the thorns we could see and then Sleepy pulls his pants down to get the ones we couldn’t see. It took about three hours to finally get most of the thorns out of his skin. By this time, of course, the traffic on the road had picked up considerably and the chances of getting caught were growing.

  We made it to the road and eventually a truck pulled over and Sleepy tells the
driver that we’re going to Tijuana. The driver says he’s only going as far as Tecate. That was good enough for us. We had to get off the road and he was the best chance we had.

  The three of us were exhausted and wished the ride were a little longer. But it was only a few miles to Tecate, and before we had a chance to catch our breath, we were standing in the middle of a dusty street in Tecate, Mexico, wondering what our next move would be. We felt good that we actually made it farther than anyone else had ever made it from Rancho Del Campo. But we still needed to get back to the streets of San Diego if we really wanted to stay under the radar.

  Gallo and Sleepy found some pay phones and started making calls. We needed to find someone who could come down there and give us a ride back to the US. After a while Gallo hooked up with one of his homegirls who could give us a ride but she didn’t want to drive into Mexico. She’d pick us up on the US side of Tecate. So now we had to cross back into the US on foot.

  We didn’t have that far to walk because the border crossing was right there in town. But we were nervous as hell as we approached the border checkpoint. We were smart enough to get our stories straight in case the border agent started asking questions. Which of course he did. The first was “Where you guys going?” We told him the truth: “San Diego.” Then he asked where we were coming from. Sleepy said we were coming from visiting his uncle in Tecate.