@@CHAP@@ Foreword
@@CHAP@@ by Rene “Boxer” Enriquez
ON MARCH 22, 2002, I DEFECTED FROM THE MEXICAN MAFIA. AT THE time, I knew it would be a life-altering decision, but I didn’t have a clue as to how much. Now I’m housed at an undisclosed location nearly a thousand miles away from my old haunt at Pelican Bay State Prison, and my life seems so removed from the man I used to be—Boxer from the Mexican Mafia.
Today I’m just Rene Enriquez. I’m no longer a Mafioso or a figurehead for a crew of murderous, drug-dealing gangsters, but just a regular Joe clawing my way out of a dark, evil abyss and back into the grasp of humanity.
The transition has been a difficult challenge for me, as if I were Superman turning back into Clark Kent forever. But each day that passes I feel a little bit closer to becoming a normal person.
I no longer have to wake up with a fear of Mafia politics—plotting someone else’s death before they plot mine. There is no longer a need to constantly arm myself with a prison shank in an unceasing state of “war-readiness.” Nor do I have to continually question the motivations of supposed brothers in crime—men of poor intellect who can’t think beyond their own megalomaniacal sense of entitlement.
Even though I am still living behind bars, life now has a true, unfamiliar sweetness to it that is almost beyond my ability to describe with words. I’ll try by saying that simple pleasures mean so much more to me. Things I had given up hope of ever feeling again have enriched me: the touch of my wife’s hair, the smell of perfume on her neck, the occasional warmth of an embrace by my mother and father, and kisses from my children. These are all experiences that were lost during years of prison visits where I was separated from loved ones behind glass partitions. Under my current housing conditions, I even get to taste the gift of home-cooked food with some regularity. And for a man who loves to eat, that is truly heaven.
Most importantly, I’ve pulled from the ashes of my past life what I believe is a nobler calling. Every time I am given the opportunity I strive to educate law enforcement, academics, behavioral scientists, and the general public about the national threat of urban street terrorism and nontraditional organized crime.
In reality, it’s not the threat of Al-Qaeda–improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that imperils the streets of Los Angeles. It’s street gangs that pose the greatest single threat to public safety and that contaminate our youth with a bankrupt moral code. Gang proliferation and gang migration—mostly emanating from southern California—has spread across the United States and into a number of foreign countries as if it were a disease.
Clearly, I don’t possess a cure for that plague, but what I can do is offer the reader an insider’s view into a prison and criminal subculture that should scare the hell out of the public.
The Mexican Mafia’s tentacles reach far beyond the walls and razor-wire fences of prisons. And sadly, its influence also continues to ignite racial violence between blacks and Latinos in schools, as well as racially motivated street gang wars. The Mafia-induced subculture destroys our most precious commodity—the minds of our young people.
There is no doubt that some skeptics will say this book is nothing more than a glorification of the Mexican Mafia and gang violence. I believe the opposite is true. Laying out the stark brutality in the pages of this book is an attempt to deglamorize the gang philosophy that many young people embrace as a viable status mobility system.
If the publication of this story dissuades one person from participating in the gang lifestyle, enhances the knowledge of even a few law enforcement officers, or enlightens a handful of educators, then the author and I have accomplished our goal.