For 90 minutes, Abriel Ruiz appealed to a room full of young people, most gang involved, most from the Old South End and East Toledo.
Instead of fighting, he told the warring Locz and Choloz gangs, they could work together for a greater purpose and to improve their community. His experience as a gang member and his 16 years in prison as a convicted killer made him trustworthy. His reformation made him believable.
“He was trying to bring peace to the next generation,” said Elizabeth Ramirez, 35, who hosted the meeting between the gangs.
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That late August meeting ended with a group of men in a circle, their hands piled on top of one another, and they pledged peace. It was supposed to be the start of something bigger, the start of a movement to unify fragmented communities, and an end to hostilities.
Days later, however, while Ruiz was celebrating his sister’s promotion and the news that he was to become a father, a gunman who’d been hiding in the shadows opened fire and shot the 34-year-old in the chest. Ruiz died at the scene, in the same neighborhood he was trying to save.
“It’s real ironic,” said Miguel Dominguez, 20, who was at the meeting and is now another voice of peace for youths in his neighborhood. “He was trying to preach peace in the neighborhood, and he was taken not by peace. It’s real messed up.”
Sunday, on what would have been Ruiz’s 35th birthday, scores of people marched through the Old South End, starting at Broadway and South Hawley streets, where Ruiz was killed Sept. 3. Carrying signs and chanting peace-driven battle cries, representatives of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee led the march to their headquarters at 1221 Broadway. For almost a year inside FLOC’s building, Mr. Dominguez and others, working closely with Baldemar Velasquez, have started the FLOC Homies, promoters of conflict resolution, nonviolence, and negotiating win-win outcomes.
The group already has made an impact on youth-perpetrated crime, Mr. Dominguez and his right-hand man, James Dickens, 20, said.
“Kids I’ve seen fight numerous times sit in the same room and tolerate each other,” Mr. Dominguez said. “People with guns shooting at each other are in the same room sharing food.”
In Homies, the youths have a safe place to exist and to open up about problems in the neighborhood: They can seek guidance, intervention, and mediation there too.
Before anyone can come to Homies meetings, they’re first checked for weapons. If they’re new and serious about belonging, they sign a peace treaty. They also get a breakdown of the rules: no smoking, no weapons, keep the space clean, stay focused, stay in the work area, act your age, stay in your own space, be respectful, and stay positive.
The idea is that people like Mr. Dominguez, who says he wasn’t always “an angel with a halo around his head,” and Mr. Dickens act as peer mentors. They want to, with guidance from Mr. Velasquez, build an institution that youths can speak through so they can be heard. Strength in numbers.
As lifelong residents of the Old South End, a neighborhood that’s often associated with violent crime and Hispanic gangs, the young men are looking for betterment at home and, eventually, in other neighborhoods in the city.
“I grew up around here seeing stuff like that [fighting, robberies, and shootings] and wanting better for myself,” Mr. Dominguez said. “I see a lot of ignorance nowadays, and I don’t want to be like that. It makes me feel better waking up every day knowing I’m helping people.”
Urban organizing is new to Mr. Velasquez, who has spent much of his life working with migrant farm workers to improve working conditions. He came into this experience with an open mind and assumed he knew nothing. He’s finding that much of what he’s learned to do in organizing migrant workers, he can use with youths in poor neighborhoods with crime. To be successful he and other leaders must talk to those most affected by the crime and the gangs and the blight and poverty: the people living it.
“If you want to go to first base to moving things, go talk to the people and go into the homes and have conversations,” Mr. Velasquez said. “Find out what’s in their mind; what bothers them when they get out of bed in the morning.”
Every youth who comes to FLOC Homies talks about what they consider to be the biggest problem in their lives. Many say police harassment is their most pressing issue. For others, lack of jobs and money are tops. Having no money, Mr. Dominguez said, is a pipeline for other issues such as crime and gangs, and being out on the streets could mean more encounters with police.
Mr. Dominguez said he and Toledo police Chief William Moton have talked about improving relationships with officers.
At Sunday’s march, Ruiz’s sister, Juanita Ruiz, said her brother’s mission of bringing peace to Toledo would continue even though he’s gone.
“He’s looking down at us with amazement,” she said.
Ruiz’s death remains unsolved. Police ask that anyone with information call Crime Stoppers at 419-255-1111.
Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.
First Published October 13, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
