Larry Deminter
Because of boredom, angry parenting, domestic violence, using self-victimization, gangs and criminals in my community, I developed criminal personality disorder, beginning when I was nine years old. I saw my father who was an EMT train and study very hard to become a paramedic for LAFD. He would lift weights, run, and train with fire fighters who were friends. My mother who was a CHP 911 operator would quiz him with flash cards to prepare for the written test ahead. My father is intelligent and fit and he passed both the written and physical exams, however, someone is HR passed him over during the next hiring season, and the next. That’s two years in a row. I never saw Dad so dis appointed. I don’t believe he was ever quite the same afterward. I heard snatches of grown folks conversation that Dad didn’t get hired because of racial discrimination inside LAFD. The system crushed the dreams of my father. He was angry, punching my mom and having an affair. Mom fought back. I absorbed all my parents’ hostility and anger. I was soon a mean kid.
There is no justifiable reason for joining a gang and becoming a violent criminal. However, I made unrealistic assumptions about how I should behave, breaking many non-negotiable rules such as lying, cheating, stealing from and harming others, which led up to murdering Tre and seriously injuring Sherry and Tish. I had no rule book for my life. My working hypothesis was: just because someone else believes that you shouldn’t do something doesn’t make it wrong or non-sensible. That statement alone is evidence of a criminal thinking sociopath.
As a teenager and young adult, I challenged my parents “must, shoulds and oughts” in my life believing that by own actions I can surmount impossible obstacles and fix things to my liking. I was clearly thinking and behaving irrationally while expecting and insisting that things must be as I want them, and that my wants must be fulfilled or life was cheating me. This is a recipe for destructive behavior-it destroyed my morality, subdued my conscious, and fogged my perception till I no longer saw things as they really are, but as I son unrealistically demanded they should be. I was deeply frustrated not achieving the things I want. I failed in life, I gave up, threw my life away and I became a monster. I believed it was me against the world… and the world hated black children like me. The hate you gave, I give to mothers when I kill. That is the thinking of little monsters.
Tre was involved in gangs like me, but that doesn’t mean I had the right to murder him. Sherry and Tish didn’t have any involvement in gangs and I still attempted to murder them because they were witnesses to my despicable acts. I turned Los Angeles into a war zone and made an enemy of a total stranger when I joined a gang. I had a choice to make before the end of my life. The choice was to leave the gang and turn my life over to God. I selfishly decided for Tre when I ended his life. I decided he would never be a father. I decided he would never take his kid to a ball game I decided he would never graduate high school or attend college. I decided he would never again look up to see the sun, moon, and stars. I decided he could never change and live his best life. When I attacked Tre, Sherry and Tish, I forced my views and decisions on them and their families.
All I wanted from people was acknowledgement, validation, empathy and understanding and respect. The very same things I denied my precious victims and their families when I turned them all into statistics of gang and gun violence. Behind every bullet a shockwave follows, and emotions of the shooter are forced on the victim. But the wave of shock and terror don’t end on the sidewalk, at the hospital, or the morgue,. It follows from the victims of gun violence onto the next of kin who grapple with the finality of burying a loved one, nursing a cripple or wiping away an orphaned kid’s tears, all on account of me.
On the steps of Heaven’s Door, I pretend not to notice my own fear. I hold a lotus flower in my hands, my head bowed to hide my eyes. I keep humming a soft, monotonous little prayer. Everywhere, it seems in the trees and water and sky a great worldwide happiness comes lifting me up, a elevating joy, joy like I have never known before. And what is so blissful, I realize, is that Tre has become a mature man, tall and handsome. It’s no longer a question of forgiveness. Right then, with Heaven so close, I understand that God will not take my soul in vain. I will not die without a second chance, and I will not live without giving others a third, fourth, fight, and sixth chance to get it right. With the famous words of Sir Walter Scott: “But with the morning cool repentance came.”