Vista Homeboys Gang Members Victims

Thick aromatic smoke from burning sage leaves settled over the salon of La Casa de la Raza as a Chumash elder smudged the crowd gathered for this year’s Cinco de Mayo festival. Teenage girls in red, white, and green dresses from the Alma de Mexico dance troupe hurried purposefully to the stage. Small children played on the floor under mysterious murals of eagles eating snakes.

VISTA -- There's no dispute that Ricardo Magana, a member of an Oceanside street gang, shot at a group of Vista Home Boys immediately after he had been beaten, kicked and robbed of his wallet. Members and 27,900 gangs were estimated to. Increase in gang members from 2002 (Eagley. (San Marcos), and Vista Home Boys (Vista).

They watched curiously as dancers in feathered Aztec headdresses swished. The party celebrating pride in Mexican heritage was peaking with people, laughter, music, and atmosphere. Along one wall, tables offered literature about various services - healthcare, recreation, and immigration law - available to the community. Gathered at the corner table was a group of boys, one of them wearing a “Brown and Proud” T-shirt, asking questions about the Homie Turf to Surf Program. Responding to their inquiries were two young men -active members of Santa Barbara gangs - spreading the word about the unique surf camp they formed together two years ago.

For two weeks in August, Manny Raya (pictured left) and J.J. Ortiz (to his right) take gang members to the beach and teach them to surf. Their hope is that the Pacific Ocean will blow wide open the hearts and minds of the young homies and that they’ll be able to imagine a future outside of street life. That’s what happened to Raya and Ortiz, both of whom are now in college.

Raya is from the Westside, Ortiz is from Goleta Old Town. Hima elop ii crack video. In other circumstances, they would be enemies. But having forged a partnership based on a love of surfing, they recruit gangsters from every neighborhood to be part of their project that promotes discipline, fun, a respect for nature, and a truce among Mexican-American brothers. Raya is from the Westside, Ortiz is from Goleta Old Town.

In other circumstances, they would be enemies. But having forged a partnership based on a love of surfing, they recruit gangsters from every neighborhood to be part of their project that promotes discipline, fun, a respect for nature, and a truce among Mexican-American brothers. The Homie Turf to Surf mission fit in perfectly at La Casa’s Cinco de Mayo fair, of which this year’s theme was Unidad en la Communidad. Unity in the Community. STRANJER A few blocks away, but a whole world removed, the lives of two other homeboys had played out much differently. In Judge Frank Ochoa’s courtroom, the 5th of May was the day the jury in the Jose Romo murder trial retired to begin deliberations.

Romo, affiliated with Varrio Goleta Projects based in Goleta Old Town, was accused of first-degree murder in the shooting of David Montanes, a veteran member of the Rock Creek gang, based in eastern Goleta Valley. As the jury filed out, Montanes’ family stayed in their seats. The air in the quiet courtroom seemed heavy yet full of anticipation now that Romo’s fate was in the hands of the jury who had heard weeks of testimony about guns, drugs, graffiti, tattoos, and rumbles.