Youth ALIVE!
Oakland, CA

As written by Jose Ibarra-Virgen, Program Coordinator

A Dream Comes True

The photograph of Sherman Spears that stands out in my mind is one of him surrounded by five unsmiling young men, Sherman’s five cars in the background, and ropes of gold sparkling around his muscular neck.

Sherman told me that he left that life at age 19, and moved from a rough neighborhood in Oakland, CA to a nice apartment in the suburbs. He got rid of the chains, most of the cars, and, he thought, the young men in the photo. He started to train as a painter.

One night soon after his move, Sherman answered a knock at the door. At that moment, he didn’t know that when he left Oakland, he had left a lot of angry people who had gotten used to his powerful protection. One moment later, Sherman’s blood flowed onto the carpet of the apartment, as he lay, waiting to die, with a bullet in his spine. As his life passed before him, he promised himself that if he lived, he would not seek revenge, but would try to stop the circle of violence.

Sherman lived, one of 3,000 other young people recovering from violence that year. But he would never walk again. As he lay in bed he pulled the sheet over his head, not wanting to talk with the doctors and nurses who stopped by. How could they understand how he was feeling? He dreamed that someone who looked like him, someone who had lived through being shot like him, would come to his bedside to help him with a plan to stay safe, and thrive, instead of how to get back, and make someone die.

Several years after his injury, Sherman had a follow-up visit with a trauma doctor. Sherman asked, “Can you help me with my dream of having trained young people in the hospital to help their peers when they are injured by violence?” That doctor introduced him to the staff director of Youth ALIVE!, a youth violence prevention agency working in the schools, who had seen the need to intervene in the hospital and prevent retaliation, but needed someone on staff who could provide the link to the dream and the patients.

Sherman was immediately hired by Youth ALIVE!, and with the Trauma Department at Highland Hospital, the Caught in the Crossfire Program was born in Oakland. Within five years, Sherman and other staff had met with over 150 youth at their bedsides. To break the cycle of retaliation and violence they provided ongoing education, counseling and job, legal, documentation, and housing services for up to one year. For youth receiving the services, re-injury and arrest rates dropped to almost zero, compared to youth in the hospital who did not receive the same services.

15 years later: August 2006 at 4:00 pm on a Sunday afternoon in East Los Angeles, Ruben, 20 years old, a heavy alcohol and drug user, leaving a friend’s house and on his way to his grandparents, became victim number 2,468 of a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. Taken by ambulance to the closest hospital, Ruben was recovering in his bed when Humberto “Beto” Jimenez rolled up in his wheelchair and introduced himself as a case manager for Caught in the Crossfire. A former victim of crime, Beto is now giving back by helping those that are going through what he went through.

Ruben told Beto how upset he was that he had been a victim of a shooting. Beto encouraged him to talk about it. Ruben said, “I think I know who did it, and I’m thinking about taking revenge.”

Beto immediately asked Ruben “What if you got put in jail while you were retaliating? What if you shoot the wrong person? What if they shoot back at you and you get shot again? Do you want to be like me and end up in a wheelchair?” Ruben paused and thought about it for a while, and said, “It’s not worth it. I just have to start looking forward.” Beto replied, “I’ll help you!”

In the next several months Ruben went through several tough trials. His recovery from his injury was going slowly. His grandfather died and his grandmother became very ill. Ruben was scared; he called Beto and asked, “What will I do, if both of my grandparents die?” They’ve taken care of me since the age of 10, when both of my parents were sent to jail.” Beto told him, “This is the time for you to step up and start getting your own act together.”

As Ruben’s wounds finally healed, Beto helped him by following up on his court dates and finding out how he could complete the terms of probation. As part of the terms, Ruben needed to enroll in drug counseling classes and finish by his next court date. It was a long process to get him into drug counseling because Beto first had to help Ruben get a California ID, then he had to apply for General Relief funds to pay his drug counseling. Soon after Ruben started attending drug counseling classes, Beto decided that Ruben needed to attend anger management classes at the same site. Ruben was willing to sign up.

Ruben attended classes for several months and then started to fall out. He missed classes or, at the last minute, when Beto got to his house to pick him up, Ruben wouldn’t want to go. Beto decided it was time to put his foot down and told Ruben, “I’m going to stop chasing you around. You need to call me a day before and let me know you are going to class!”

Since Beto’s talk, Ruben has not missed one single class. Beto helped Ruben start a job training program, then opened his eyes to the difference that having an education makes on the amount of zeros on your paycheck and convinced him to enroll in a GED program.

Through Beto and the Caught in the Crossfire services, Ruben has been able to do something positive in his life. He is near completion of his drug counseling and is still attending his anger management classes. He hopes to finish his GED so he can get a job to provide for his grandmother, who is still alive.

Ruben and his grandmother are two of the hundreds of youth and their family members who have been helped by staff like Beto and Youth ALIVE!’s Caught in the Crossfire program. Sherman Spears’ dream lives on in Oakland, Los Angeles, and now Milwaukee, WI, Tempe, AZ, Boston, MA and Philadelphia, PA.

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