gilbert

Violence Prevention Advocate
Shot: March 10 1991
Southeast Los Angeles California

It was stolen, I traded drugs for it

Gilbert: "We were at a party; a lot of people were waving guns around, the normal backyard gangster party, people drinking and smoking drugs. I always kept a clear head in case anything happened. I got bored at the party and I went to our enemy's neighborhood. I had a 9 millimeter Lugar in my pants, I got it off the streets, it was stolen, I traded drugs for it. When I came back to the party one of my friends who had been drinking a two liter bottle of Seven-Up with Crown Royal was waving a gun around. He was promising to lend his gun out to another gang. My home boys asked me to check him, seeing that I was the leader I did, and he calmed down. I went to the front porch and I heard somebody scream. I ran to the back and this same friend was holding a gun toward the DJ, trying to steal his equipment. One of my female friends grabbed his arm and he hit her in the face with his elbow and pointed the gun at the crowd and began shooting. I hit him with my motorcycle helmet. He fell, got back up, and pointed the gun at the crowd again. I grabbed the gun and pulled it towards me. The gun just shot me in the stomach; the bullet went straight through my spine. My friend put his head down and I remember him grabbing me and telling me how sorry he was, that he didn't mean to do it. This is the guy I used to shoot marbles with in elementary school; I grew up with this guy. All of a sudden I was just falling on the ground and there was blood on his hands.

Just tell my mom I love her

"I remember thinking my life was over, I kept losing consciousness. The pain in my back was really strong. I remember telling my friend, 'Just tell my mom I love her and I'm sorry.' Then a police officer was standing over me and I was grabbing him by his pant leg, telling him to call the ambulance, and he was telling me, 'You're not going nowhere till you tell me who shot you.' I told him, 'I don't know who shot me.' He said he wouldn't call till I told him. I was bleeding internally pretty bad.

"At the hospital, I remember sitting on a hospital gurney and opening my eyes and there was this big old fat guy with dark hair telling me, 'It's your mind over matter, if you have a strong mind nothing else matters.' I was looking at him and he had a big knife wound and his intestines were coming out of his belly. According to doctors this would not have been possible, they don't keep you in the same room with someone else, but when I woke up twenty-six days later that's what I remembered.

I was in a cell by myself for years

"They had to show me how to live the rest of my life in a wheel chair. After I went home I couldn't stay away from my home boys. I became even more vicious because I figured I was half dead anyway. I ended up getting involved in a shooting and I went to prison, which is the best thing that ever happened to me. I was in the cell by myself for years. All those hours forced me to start dealing with the one person I hated. Was I really that monster on the streets? I began discovering myself. I knew I didn't want to be risking my life for things that had no merit. I'm God father to a bunch of my friends' first born sons, a lot of their fathers are in prison, and they might never get out. I enrolled at Cerritos College. I just didn't have time to hang out on the streets anymore."