Both had been shot and seriously wounded by rival gangs before Chuckie got there in 1993. For brothers he chose Midget and Woody, two Veteran members only a few years older than Chuckie. He had been sexually molested by a neighbor after his father abandoned his mother. Like the other surrounding Hispanic gangs they have devolved into violent psychopathic thugs with drug fried brains and no honor or ethics, they victimize their own race, neighborhood, and even their own homeboys.Ĭhuckie was nine when he ran away from his home in South Gate to hang out with the Compton Tortilla Flats gang. Nobody in that gang today ever read Steinbeck.

I was gone into the service and for Vietnam (1966-1969), but in 1970 I joined the Sheriff's Department and returned to Willowbrook as a patrol officer in 1976. The gang continued to grow in numbers and violent reputation in my absence. After junior high school, Ronnie Gutierrez, like most of the T-Flats, dropped out of school to be a kind of leader of the gang.

Tortilla flats gang torrance