Escondido gang team preaches a better life

By: PAUL EAKINS - Staff Writer | Saturday, March 17, 2007 9:27 PM PDT ∞

ESCONDIDO ---- Members of the Victory Outreach Church gang team gathered in a circle and prayed Thursday evening outside their chapel near Washington Avenue and Ash Street.
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Talking all at once, each team member said his own prayer, their voices weaving and intertwining as the team members clasped hands or draped their arms across one anothers' shoulders.

They prayed for their church, they prayed for Escondido, and they prayed most of all for the city's gang members to leave behind their destructive lifestyles.

Then the dozen team members, mostly reformed gang members themselves, piled into a van and headed to some of the area's most troubled neighborhoods to preach the word of God and to steer people away from gang life.

The church's leaders have been expanding their efforts to reach out to gangs over the last year with the gang team, especially after recent court-ordered gang injunctions that restrict the activity of known gang members in Escondido.

Some team members were in and out of prison for years before finding religion and in many cases getting drug and alcohol addiction treatment through Victory Outreach. The church is part of Victory Outreach International, which opened its Escondido ministry 18 years ago.

The injunctions will give gang members "an opportunity to say, 'Well, maybe I do need help,' and that's where we come in," said Pastor Agner Medrano, 30, himself a former Carlsbad and Oceanside gang member.

Reaching out

Like Medrano, most of the dozen team members who beat the streets Thursday evening are reformed gang members. Many of them tattooed, dressed casually in baggy T-shirts, and wearing necklaces and white athletic shoes, they looked more like just a group of homeys than they did messengers of God.

But that has helped them gain acceptance among gang members and neighborhood youths through the years, as has their own history as gang members, they said.

About 80 percent of the congregation of Victory Outreach in Escondido is former gang members, Medrano said.

On Thursday, the team headed to a low-income apartment community at Aster Street and Washington Avenue in central Escondido, which is known gang territory, as perhaps evidenced by the graffiti on street signs and sidewalks.

The group handed out fliers and spoke briefly with men, women, teenagers and children about their mission, their church, and a life without gangs, drugs or violence. The gang team's goal is not only to help gang members, but also to prevent youths living in gang areas from joining up.

"We just want to invite you to our church and let you know that there's a better way than gangs," team member Nicolas Mancillas, a former Los Angeles gang member, told Nestor Bulle, 17, of Vista, outside an apartment building.

Bulle said he was visiting friends in Escondido, and that it was nice to see someone taking a positive message to the neighborhood.

"It's pretty good that someone's gonna come to help the kids," Bulle said, after several team members had placed their hands on him and prayed for him.

But as they walked the community, the team members noticed that many of the gang members who normally would be outside in the evening weren't to be found.

The injunctions issued last month have forced many gang members into hiding, Medrano said.

Injunctions creating fear

The injunctions issued by a Superior Court judge at the end of February restrict the activities of more than 100 alleged members of two rival Escondido gangs within two areas known as "safety zones."

Those listed in the injunctions are prohibited from associating with other known gang members, possessing guns or other dangerous weapons, fighting, graffiti, vandalism, making gang hand signs, wearing gang clothes and exhibiting other behavior in the two areas.

Medrano said the injunctions have made the gang members cautious and afraid. But Medrano said he doesn't see the injunctions as a cure for the city's gang problem, merely a temporary "Band-Aid."

"The gang problem is not going to stop by the gang injunction," Medrano said. "The gang problem is going to stop when they (gang members) get help."

But Medrano and his team know just how difficult abandoning gang life can be. Gangs are often a member's closest friends, he said.

"You fought together, you cried together, you were behind bars together," Medrano said. "It's hard to leave a gang."

Gang team leader Mike Macliz, 46, who grew up in Vista and Escondido, came from a family tradition of gangs. His father and seven brothers all were in gangs, he said.

Macliz hopes to break the cycle for other young people growing up in the gang environment, he said.

"We don't want them to go through the things that we had to go through," Macliz said.

A community effort

Victory Outreach isn't alone in its effort to keep young people out of gangs.

Area schools, community organizations and other churches all provide programs to keep youths off the streets and give them a positive outlet.

Medrano is hoping to bring these groups together, along with city leaders, the police and others to work on community-wide solutions to gang problems.

Iglesia Monte de los Olivos, a Latino church at West Fourth and Orange avenues, for years has worked with gang members as well. Members of that church also have gone into the community to talk to gang members and youths with the hope of drawing them out of a destructive lifestyle, said Pastor Frank Salas.

"Over the years, we've had a lot of them that have left the gang world," he said last week.

Both Salas and the gang team from Victory Outreach have similar philosophies.

They realize gang members usually won't leave their gangs immediately, but they want gang members to be aware there are alternatives. Victory Outreach and the entire community have a responsibility to help gang members who want to change their lives.

"There's a time when you get tired of it (gang life)," Medrano said. "And when somebody gets tired of it, we gotta be there."

Contact staff writer Paul Eakins at (760) 740-5420 or peakins@nctimes.com.

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