17th Streeters Say Real Justice Has Yet to Be Delivered

Two former members of the 17th Street gang, now on the verge of self-described “retirement,” are sitting at a back-yard picnic table and talking about the first anniversary of the worst drive-by shooting in Orange County.

One is 19, a gang member since seventh grade. The other is 20, a 17th Streeter since high school.

A year ago today, rival members of the 5th Street gang drove down La Bonita Avenue in Garden Grove in a pickup truck and sprayed semiautomatic rifle fire into a crowd of people who had known associations with the 17th Street gang. The fusillade left two dead and six wounded. One of the dead was a 4-year-old boy; the other an 18-year-old gang member.

Three members of the rival 5th Street gang were charged and convicted of the murders. A juvenile court hearing for a fourth suspect is nearing an end.

For once, it seemed, gang violence had been avenged in the courthouse instead of the street.

The two 17th Streeters shake their heads at that scenario.

“A lot of guys look at it like, yeah, they’re going to jail, let’s forget about it, that’s the pay-back,” says the 19-year-old. “But then a lot of other people still think, ‘No, the law dealt with it, now it’s the street that has to deal with it too.’ ”

The two, both bearing 17th Street tattoos, say the killing of 4-year-old Frankie Fernandez Jr. made the assault especially unforgivable. Even in the violent cycle of the street, there are supposed to be rules.

“They wounded more women and children than they did men. That’s what separates us from them,” the 19-year-old says. “You could say we’ve got more class. We could have done the same thing, catch them with all their girlfriends, their kids and all their homeboys.”

Why not just leave it here, I ask.

“If you lived here, you could see it’s not that way, because they keep coming,” one says.

“It has to be done,” his friend says.

Why?

“Because if we didn’t, then people would say that these guys got hit so hard, now they’re not going to do nothing. That’s going to make 17th look vulnerable where any other neighborhood could come in and do the same thing without anything happening.”

The 20-year-old says he’s “deactivated right now. I’ve still got my friends here, but I’m not a mission man no more.”

His friend is less sure. “I’m kind of retired, too, but sometimes I think and think and think. I sometimes think, ‘Take the risk.’ I want something done before I do retire. When something big happens, then I’ll be satisfied. When they get what they deserve, then I’ll be satisfied. They’re in debt.”

Would you want your younger brothers to get involved in gangs, I ask.

“I try to tell them to stay in the neighborhood,” the 19-year-old says. “But if they (other gangs) come, get ready to defend yourself. Do what you got to do to survive.”

The 19-year-old had known Mike Navarro, the teen-ager killed in the La Bonita drive-by, since Head Start days. Navarro was about to drop out of the gang, his friend says.

“Anybody can get out,” he says. “It’s all a matter of if you want to. Nobody’s going to say you’re no good, you’re not my friend. You could even be respected for getting out. If you wanted to change your life and you got things going for yourself, and other people could see that you’re going good, they would say, ‘You got things going on, what do you keep doing it for? You want to lose it all?’ ”

The 20-year-old, soft-spoken and looking not much older than a high school sophomore, said he often thinks of Navarro. “When I think about him, I feel good because he accepted God before he died. He got that chance. I think about him being up there, and it makes me feel better.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t have to deal with this stuff no more,” the 19-year-old says.

So far, there have been no murderous pay-backs for the La Bonita shootings. “There have been guys shot over there, but not seriously,” the 19-year-old says. “Maybe in the arms or legs.”

Is there a feeling there has to be a killing to avenge the La Bonita shootings? I ask.

“There will be,” the 19-year-old says. “It’s unpredictable, but what it boils down to is, yeah.”

The two 17th Streeters are so matter-of-fact about the violence, so accepting of its inevitability, that there isn’t much more to say.

I ask one more question.

If the 5th Streeters packed it in tomorrow and said they’d had enough of the fighting, would you guys follow suit? “Yeah,” the 19-year-old says. “After we kicked their ass.”