How does someone turn around a child headed for gang involvement? Estefaine Jimenez knows a way.
His mom committed suicide when he was 5 and his father was a gangbanger who spent more time in prison than on the outside with his son. This was the life the boy was born into.
He had to join the Jeopardy Program at the North Hollywood police station. He had to make the effort not to become his father. She knew he had a rough early childhood, but it wasn’t too late to save him from gangs.Estefanie Jimenez was 12 when she decided she wanted to be a police officer. Gang violence was no stranger to her East Los Angeles neighborhood. She grew up in a strong, loving family, but every extended family had one black sheep in it.
They didn’t all want to become police officers, but they knew what they didn’t want — to become another gang homicide statistic. Last week, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michael Moore announced that homicides were up 14% in its Valley Bureau.We’re not winning this war. You do that with trust, she said. It’s the only way. She knew she couldn’t force the boy whose mom had committed suicide and dad was in prison to listen to her without that mutual trust.“One day we were sitting there, in silence, when he actually let out a tear and said, ‘I hate crime.’ I said I did, too. When he saw me getting teary-eyed with him, he let it all out.
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