by Reggie DeHaro
Greetings ladies and gentlemen,
My name is Reggie DeHaro and I’d like to share the story of my life with you in hopes that it’ll make a difference in your life and help you make better decisions. Because although “Life” is all about choices, it’s the decisions you make now that will determine your destiny.
It’s a sad truth that the youth struggle with peer pressure. Peer pressure to join a gang, to commit crime, to use drugs and or alcohol, to bully someone or not say something when they see someone being bullied.
That’s the reason for these types of programs and that’s why there is the term: “Troubled Youth.” Troubled youth means that you are on a “self-destructive” path. If you are involved in any of those things I mentioned: gangs, crime, drugs or if you’re a bully, then you are in fact on this path of self-destruction. Let me tell you from personal experience, “this path,” it’s full of misery, of shame, of guilt, and pain! Which only leads to two places, to prison, where I’m at, or a grave yard.
I’m 48 years old. I’ve been in prison for the last 27 years. I’m serving a sentence of 60 years with half time. That means that I only have to serve 30 years and I say “only” 30 years because my crime was attempted murder on a police officer and that means I should be serving life! Because that’s what 99.9% of people who shoot a cop get, life in prison. I just happened to get extremely lucky.
I grew up with a loving mother, a father, a younger sister and an older brother. At the age of ten my mom and dad divorced and that was the hardest thing that I had to experience as a kid. I loved my father and I wanted him in my life. More so, I needed him in my life but he walked away from his marriage and in doing so, walked away from his kids as well.
Growing up in Santa Ana California, a gang infested city, I looked up to my older brother whom I loved, and respected because he was a member of a gang. So I, wanted to be just like him and followed in his footsteps.
The first time I went to Juvenile Hall I was in junior high school. This kid who lived in East Side Santa Ana started going to this same school as me and the gang that my brother was from didn’t get along with the East Side so I thought that I shouldn’t like them either just because of that, even though they never did nothing to me.
So one day I pick a fight with this kid. We fought inside the classroom. The teacher trying to stop us accidentally got hit in the face so we both ended up in the principal’s office.
Now, I had an attitude. I thought that I was a bad ass and can’t nobody tell me anything. So when the principal tried to talk to me like a man in his position should talk to a kid who is causing trouble in his school, what did I do? Like a dumbass I got in his face and told him: “Man, I don’t care about what you got to say.” He put his hand on my shoulder to try and sit me back down and I slapped his hand away. That’s when he and the teacher took me down by force! They slammed me down on the ground and held me there till the cops came and took me away to Juvie.
I was a young kid handcuffed in the back seat of a cop car. You’d think I’d be scared but no. I was actually proud! Yeah, I was proud, because now the whole school seen me as what I thought I was, a badass.
Man, how stupid does that sound? I can’t believe how ignorant I was back then. I only did 3 days in Juvie and was sent home. Now, I was on probation and didn’t have a school to go to because I was expelled.
But I didn’t care, I rather be in the hood anyways kicking it with the homies. I’d hang around with my brother and his homeboys. They were all like 5 years older. I was the youngest one. I wasn’t officially put on yet until one day we took a walk around the block and one of the homies had a spray can hitting up the wall. He tagged up the hood and his nickname next to it then he looked at me and asked me “What’s up lil’ homie, you want your name up on that wall?” I was like, Hell Yea! I want my name up on that wall! That’s when I got jumped in.
I became an official gang member and that meant that I had to put in work, real work. I carried a gun every day. I was mobbin’ for reals. My name started to get known. I had what you call in the hood a “rep” (a reputation) and that made me feel good and gave me a sense of power. But with this new fame came consequences. I was involved in many gang shootings and I myself was shot. My homeboys retaliated for my rivals shooting me and I retaliated myself as soon as I got better. This would go on back and forth. They would come and bust on us. We’d go right back and bust on them.
Then one day someone got killed. That someone was my brother. My brother whom I loved, respected and looked up to was now dead. He died in my arms, killed due to gang violence. Gang violence that I was involved in. So you see, in a sense because of me my brother got killed. My mom lost a son and I felt the blame and I blamed myself! But I still didn’t stop. I became even more involved within the gang that I was from.
In 1993 I was 20 years old and I was asked by one of my big homies to rob a drug dealer who owed him a lot of money. I did it. This went bad real fast. The cops got there and I ended up shooting a police officer. There was a high speed chase which ended in a shootout. I was real lucky not to get shot but my mom still lost her second son that day. Because you see, although I didn’t get killed or get life in prison, even though I will make it out some day, my mom will never see that. She passed away on July 1st 2009.
You guys see how real this is? My actions hurt the people whom I loved the most. Please take a moment and think about that. You see, when you’re doing time, you are not the only one doing time. You drag your whole family into this. That’s the “ripple effect.” They are hurting and suffering because you’re in here and this pain, this terrible heartache, is the result of bad decisions.
I’ve made some incredibly bad decisions in my life. I have many regrets. One of the biggest is shooting Pomona police officer Roger Mathews.
I live with the pain of not having my brother or my mom in my life anymore. I couldn’t even be there for my mom’s final days to hold her hand, to comfort her and tell her how much I love her. I will forever live with that pain in my heart. Don’t allow yourself to feel that type of pain or regret. Believe me when I say: That’s a cross no one wants to carry.
I want to close with saying that I hope that each and every one of you really gets this message and I pray that I may have reached my goal which is to have diverted you from ending up in prison like me. Thank you.
Respectfully,