Program Provides Free Tattoo Removal

Five years ago, when she was 13, Tina Roa joined a gang and began covering her body with gang tattoos.

Now the Fillmore teenager has two kids, is going to beauty school and has left gangs behind. But until Wednesday, when she stopped by the Free Gang Tattoo Clinic, the 10 tattoos followed her everywhere she went.

“I want to change my life,” Roa said moments after many of her tattoos were burned off with a laser. “I want to get away from all the violence.”

Roa was one of more than three dozen teenagers and young adults who visited the one-day free clinic at the Port Hueneme Boys & Girls Club.

The clinic was started in the fall of 1994 by the club, the Landon Pediatric Foundation of Ventura and Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo. This time, rather than set up the equipment in the clubhouse, the tattoo removal was performed in a Public Health Services Department van. Organizers hope the van can carry the program to other cities.

The program, which costs about $1,500 to operate, is paid for with donations and staffed mainly by volunteers from hospitals.

The clinic is designed to help former gang members move on with their lives by getting rid of gang-related tattoos. To “pay” for the removal, participants must first perform 40 hours of community service and then another 40 hours to complete the two-part removal process months later.

“If they want to help themselves, they must also help others in the community,” said Jaime Zendejas, program director for the Boys & Girls Club. Participants generally volunteer at the club, after-school programs and church.

“We had one kid who volunteered at a recreation center in Oxnard and now she’s getting hired,” Zendejas said. “That’s the kind of thing we want to happen.”

It took a doctor just 15 minutes to trace over Roa’s many tattoos with the laser.

It’s a painful process that makes the skin bleed, but Roa said it was worth it.

“It’s better than having the tattoos still on,” said the future manicurist as a nurse bandaged over one tattoo on her hand that said “Lazy.”

“I regret the tattoos every day.”