Latest / Drawn of History / Chicago Native Talks About Gang Violence in the 80_s and 90s_(M4A_128K)

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Chicago Native Talks About Gang Violence in the 80_s and 90s_(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Then I started hanging out with the gangs. So like
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: in Chicago, the gang violence was real strong at that point.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It was like mid 80s, early 90s, guns are hitting
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the street. It went from, at first it was like
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: dance crews, like break dancing. And so the break dancers
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: turned into the gangs pretty much. So you had the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: break dancing moments in Chicago and probably New York and LA,
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  Speaker 1: probably everywhere. And then when the break dancing kind of
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: faded out, all those cats turned into Latin Kings or
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Disciples or, I mean, GDs have always been there, right?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: It was before. Which GDs? Gangs Disciples.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they've always been before, you know, and all these
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  Speaker 1: gangs have been there forever, but the breakdancing, when it
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: broke out, that's when a lot of numbers filled it,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: you know?
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  Speaker 4: What do you think caused that breakdancing to kind of
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  Speaker 4: dissipate over there?
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  Speaker 1: I don't, I think because they started fighting, right? So
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: at first it was just like, ah, right? You know,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: grab my nuts and put it in your face, right?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And then they started beefing. And then when they started beefing,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Physical just always enhances, even like wars.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an escalation. There's always escalation with it, man, right?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So if it's a, you know, you step on my toe,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: then I smack you in the face, and you punch
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  Speaker 1: me in the mind, and then.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Boom, boom, boom, boom, right?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's always a way to do it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so anyway, but that's what I think happened. I
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  Speaker 1: think once that, you know, there's just the beefs and
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  Speaker 1: then the guns. That was the thing that really, for me,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: that sticks in my memory harsher than anything because I've
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: been shot, and I've had friends killed. One right there,
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  Speaker 1: you know, got shot in the head.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: With you?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: We were all out there and we heard one shot
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and poof, hit him in the head and he dropped, right?
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I got hit in the side.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: And were you out there like with the gang? Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Because you were just out in the streets? Yeah. Everyone
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  Speaker 3: had their corner. Got it.
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  Speaker 1: We had 32nd and Lithuanica. The Italians, they had Armor Park,
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  Speaker 1: 33rd and Shields. Latin Kings had 33rd and Morgan, the
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  Speaker 1: Spanish Chancellors had 29th and.
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  Speaker 2: Wallace, right?
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  Speaker 3: And who was your favorite gang, looking back?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, the one I was with, right?
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I was a disciple, man, of course. That's a good answer, bro.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I ran the streets real hard from breaking into cars
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to garages to stealing cars.
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  Speaker 3: It escalated. So you were into crime then, that was
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  Speaker 3: your thing? Well, it was to survive, right?
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  Speaker 1: I didn't ever look at crime in the sense, and
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  Speaker 1: even when I got older, in a sense of like,
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  Speaker 1: I imagine that it would make me like a rich
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  Speaker 1: drug lord, right? Like I never had that in my
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  Speaker 1: mind that stealing a car is gonna get, you know,
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  Speaker 1: caused me to have something great like.
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  Speaker 3: Like when i'm gonna have a dealership i'm not gonna.
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  Speaker 1: Have dealership exactly right so so i i always fought
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  Speaker 1: against wanting to.
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  Speaker 4: Do it so so just to do a timeline recap
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  Speaker 4: so um you you grow up in this neighborhood in
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  Speaker 4: chicago yeah it's a hectic environment you get into stuff
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  Speaker 4: on the streets you guys are out there kind of
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: banging stealing this stealing that uh kind of petty crime
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: stuff maybe a little bit aggressive you meet pete you
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  Speaker 4: kind of go under his wing as this sort of
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  Speaker 4: like not exactly an apprentice, but you're there with him
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  Speaker 4: all the time.
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  Speaker 2: His helper.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, his helper. You're watching, you're seeing what he's doing.
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  Speaker 4: And also, he's kind of having conversations with you that
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  Speaker 4: are helping you kind of elevate and expand just how
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: you even think about the world.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Mentally.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, and now Pete disappears, and you're back out on
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  Speaker 4: the streets, and you guys start getting into some heavier stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Pete, yeah, like, you know, when he left, I went back. Actually,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: when that whole situation he took off, I went back
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  Speaker 1: to the streets. I started getting into the gangs, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I started getting into you know, just some real heavy shit,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and we started robbing drug dealers. We dress
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  Speaker 1: up like cops. We had the cop cars, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like I said, the drug dealing was a real big thing.
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  Speaker 1: So I didn't like to sell drugs. Like I had
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  Speaker 1: a lot of friends that did, but I didn't like
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  Speaker 1: to see what it did to people.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: You know, that's why I liked the counterfeiting. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Cause it was like, I didn't feel like I was
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  Speaker 1: really hurting anyone, you know, I'm not stealing. I don't
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  Speaker 1: like to steal. And the drug part, like I seen
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: what it did, but, but we would, so we would
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  Speaker 1: start robbing them.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And one of my dudes, he, um, like my son.
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  Speaker 1: So my, my first son, his mom's a cop.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Right. So like, and yeah, right. That's a whole nother lane.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Well, we won't go down that one, but it, it, it,
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  Speaker 1: it allowed, you know, a lot of my guys, we
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: had friends that were cops so we could get uniforms.
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  Speaker 2: We could get badges. You know, I always loved the
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  Speaker 2: cop car and I had a nice one.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: I always had a real nice one.
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  Speaker 1: Like, And I loved it, because I could move through, see,
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  Speaker 1: I'd wear glasses and make my hair to the side,
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  Speaker 1: and I'd look like a cop. But we'd start robbing
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  Speaker 1: the drug dealers, the ones out in the suburbs. And
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  Speaker 1: basically what would happen, these guys from the suburbs would
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: come in, and they'd like to hang out at the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: clubs downtown, and they'd want to flash their money to
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  Speaker 1: the girls. We'd have girls that were working for us,
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  Speaker 1: so we'd have girls in those clubs, and they'd be like, hey,
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  Speaker 1: this guy, he's doing this, this, and that.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: And we're like, okay, cool.
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  Speaker 1: She wouldn't sleep with them, but she'd go home with them,
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  Speaker 1: become friends, hang out with them, finesse them. And then
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  Speaker 1: we'd come and poof, right? And we'd be like, we'd
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  Speaker 1: have fests on, guns, like, like legit, like dressed like cops.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, dude.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, no, and we did that. And then it
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  Speaker 1: got dangerous. It did start getting dangerous because we started
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: getting stupid. Like, you know, at first it was, and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: that's how- What, y'all.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Throw like a police ball or whatever? Like, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: how stupid do you guys get? Well, that's stupid like that.
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  Speaker 4: Were y'all playing softball against the fire department or something?
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  Speaker 3: Like, what were you guys doing?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: But we were like robbing more dangerous- elements okay got
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it so it escalated it escalated like all crime right
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  Speaker 1: like all crime escalates you go from oh we're gonna
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: hit these white suburban kids from out there they think
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: they're cool and now we get our balls so big
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  Speaker 1: we're like oh we're gonna hit that cat on 18th
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  Speaker 1: street that got 10 guns around them oh yeah right
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  Speaker 1: so you go from like you know it.
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  Speaker 3: Just escalated it's escalation ladder.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: And then i got shot i got shot in my
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  Speaker 1: side And there was a lot of things that happened
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  Speaker 1: that caused me.
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  Speaker 2: To go to my next phase.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, got it.
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  Speaker 2: But we did for that little.
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  Speaker 1: Brief, you know, there was, I guess, for about three
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  Speaker 1: years maybe, I was just running hard on the street,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you know.
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  Speaker 3: And who shot you?
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  Speaker 2: Latin King. Latin King shot me, tried to kill me. Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Did he spare your life?
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  Speaker 2: No, hell no. Yeah, he tried to kill me. Yeah.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: No, I was walking home from a party like 2
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: in the morning. I'm walking through a basketball court. And
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  Speaker 1: I hear two guys behind me. I looked, they got
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  Speaker 1: handkerchiefs on. And I thought it was my dudes from
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the party. And so I'm like, hey, man, take the
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  Speaker 1: handkerchiefs off, man. You know, you're getting me nervous. And
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  Speaker 1: they're like, getting you nervous. And boom, they pulled out
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  Speaker 1: the pistols and just started just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
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  Speaker 1: I turned around. I took off running, put my head
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  Speaker 1: between my legs. I could feel the bullets just see, see, see, see, right?
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  Speaker 1: And then I got hit and I fell to the
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  Speaker 1: ground right as I was almost around the corner from
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  Speaker 1: the projects, you know? I got hit and I stayed on,
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  Speaker 1: when I hit the ground, I was just gonna stay
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  Speaker 1: on the ground and figure they thought they killed me
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  Speaker 1: and they take off. But when I hit the ground,
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  Speaker 1: I looked back, they were running up on me. They
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  Speaker 1: were gonna try to dome shot me. And something real
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  Speaker 1: spiritual happened at that moment. Like I felt something grabbed
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  Speaker 1: me from underneath my armpits and just kind of like
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  Speaker 1: lift me off the ground. And I ran like five blocks.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to 31st and Halston. I was on 32nd.
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  Speaker 3: And was you leaking too?
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  Speaker 2: I was leaking.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: You plug it up. Did you plug up the wound
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  Speaker 3: with like.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: A, there was a Chicago Tribune guy that was helping me.
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  Speaker 1: He might've had a newspaper in it or something. I
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: had to put a newspaper on me. Well, I didn't
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  Speaker 1: even know. I didn't even like feel it. It was
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: weird because when I got to 31st and I sat
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: down on the bus stop and I'm like feeling myself,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you're all like shaking and stuff. And then, uh,
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  Speaker 1: And then I stood back up, and I could feel
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: like something on my side. And when I grabbed it,
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  Speaker 1: it was just all red and just blood. And I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: told the Chicago Sun-Times guy, I said, hey, man, I've
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: been hit, man.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I called the ambulance.
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  Speaker 4: Damn.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: He was delivering papers?
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, delivering papers, yeah. Damn.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: It was like 3 in the morning. But after that,
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  Speaker 1: that's when I went to Texas. You know, I was like,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: my mom was like, man, you got to go. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I've already had at that point like six of my
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  Speaker 1: friends murdered. You know, I'm only like 18, 19 years.
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  Speaker 2: Old, you know.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: So shit was getting hot down there, huh?
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Well, the South Side was dangerous back then, man. Like
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I said, guns hit the street, man. It seemed like
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: everyone had one. They were called Larsons, L-L-A-R-S.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just- For the type of gun?
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like right around 90, I'd say like 92, 93.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Man, everyone had these things. It was a. 22, a. 25,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: and a. 380. Yeah, they were like that, the little guns.
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  Speaker 2: They were real tiny, like that. 22. Yeah, that's what
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  Speaker 2: we had.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, that little- Yeah, that's it.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Those things flooded- Flooded the streets, man.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: A little grocery getter, you think?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were a little tiny, man, but 22, 25, 380,
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  Speaker 1: and you get them for 50 bucks.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: And it's almost like they dumped them on the street.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And then that's, and it just, so it went from,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you know, fighting and bats and, you know, like.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: The old school type to just- Yeah, real shit, double
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: dragon shit.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Double dragon shit, yeah, to like everyone having these little
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: peace shooters that killed.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: That's crazy. I wouldn't be surprised.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: But I lost six of my friends during that time.