STATEMENT OF JAMIE GRAYAN a.k.a. BABY G. My name is Jamie Grayan; my friends call me Baby G. I was born in Chicago and am now 16 years old. My father was an attorney at a large firm, and my mother worked at Gentecho. My brother Ronell and I had to take care of ourselves until Mom and Dad got home around 7:30 or 8:00. Ronell is five years older than I am and he could cook and do other things, but we were not allowed to go outside and play if my parents weren't home. We watched a lot of TV and played video games. Sometimes, we got to go over to one of the neighbors' houses, and we could go outside and play then. When Ronell was fourteen, he began to go outside and hang with some of the neighborhood kids; he figured he was old enough to be outside by himself. I went out with him sometimes, but he wasn't crazy about me hanging around. About that same time, a few of Ronell's friends turned into gang wannabes. They all started hanging out with this gang that called themselves the Double Deuce. Ronell told me that the kids treated him like family; they bought him clothes and other cool stuff our parents would not buy for us. The gang's whole thing was watchin' each other's back. Ronell was unsure, at first, what else they did, like how they got their money. As he became more involved in the group, and more trusted, he figured out that they also sold drugs and got into fights with other gangs over turf.
The Double Deuce gang adopted green and white as its colors. The green stood for money and white for the unity of the group. The gang also adopted gold medallions with interlocking 2's as an identifying mark when the kids were not in their colors-especially when they were around their parents or other adults. The idea for the interlocking 2's came from the movie, We Goin’ to Take it our Way! The movie was about warfare in L.A. It was cool 'cause one of the gangs in the movie also wore green and white.
When my family moved to Whiteacre Bluffs, Ronell was really upset. He had to leave the gang behind and move into a situation where he had no territory, no power, no nothing. Ronell (I only call him Big G in front of the gang) was still living at home so he came with us. He told me everything would be o.k.; he still had his connections in Chicago, our parents were going to let him go back once a month, so he would be able to maintain his contacts. It took Ronell awhile, but he eventually found some kids interested in getting the Double Deuce started in Whiteacre Bluffs. Ronell found this place called the Worldwide Pizza Palace where all the kids who were into the street hung out. When Ronell first met them they weren't about anything; they smoked and drank and a few of them even used drugs-but they were pretty small-time. Ronell saw his opportunity and turned them on to the money they could make by trafficking in drugs and the power they could have by staking out some territory.
Ronell never really wanted me to participate in the gang. It was okay for me to have its protection, and to hang out and have fun, but he didn't want me to do a whole lot else. Ronell was worried about the prospect of me getting involved in drugs. Ronell himself did not use drugs or alcohol; he just found them a convenient way to get money from others. Ronell insisted that Lee Sullivan, a friend of mine from Chicago whose parents had also been relocated, and I were the ones in our families who were going to go to college and stay out of trouble. Lee didn't like it a whole lot, s/he really wanted to be a part of the gang. But, if Big G didn't want it to happen, it wasn't going to happen. Ronell let us hang out, especially on Friday night but neither Lee nor I ever got involved in any criminal stuff.
Mom and Dad didn't really know that Ronell was into the gang thing. As far as they knew, Ronell and I just hung out with our friends. I guess that's pretty much what we did.
Ronell was always careful to make sure no one from the Double Deuce contacted us at home- at least no gang business was conducted when we were home.  Neither of us used any drugs, we did okay in school; so our parents never really had a clue that the Double Deuce existed.
I enjoy school pretty well in Whitacre Bluffs, the classes are much smaller, and the teachers much better  than those I had in Chicago.  I found some friends before the Double Deuce really got started and I was enrolled in the after school program they used to call “Light in the Window.”  That’s were I first met KJ Tyler.  Unfortunately the district started having to cut back on a lot of programs.  My parents told us it was because certain people who had lived in Whitacre Bluffs for a long time, especially somebody named Roan Lewis, didn’t want to have to pass any new school levies to finance building the new schools that were needed when my mom’s company, Gentecho, and other companies moved into the town.
KJ was pretty cool.  She could paint so well, she even taught me how to do graffiti as art.  Sometimes I would watch KJ play basketball or soccer.  Other times I would be around when she was talking to some other kids about the problems she had had with her parents and the police.  She talked to Lee and me about pulling away from the gang.  One night, I think it was on September 25th or something like that, Lee Sullivan, Bobby Jones, Rene Fontaine, Big G and several others of us were kicking it in front of the Worldwide Pizza Palace.  Big G was bragging about some kind of territorial dispute in downtown Whitacre Bluffs and how the Double Deuce had withstood the challengers.  Big G was describing what had happened the night before.  Sometimes he said too much.  One of the Double Deuce, but not Big G, had really hurt one of the Fuchsia Posse and some of the other kids had gotten hurt too.  So far, the police had not arrested anyone, but we knew they were looking.  Around 9 pm, (I think; it was already pretty dark) Friday we were hanging out until it was time to order pizza. That's what we do every Friday. There were about twelve of us standing around although there had been a few more kids around earlier. Some of the kids were skateboarding and had bumped into a few of the people trying to get into Panache's. It was no big deal; they apologized to anyone they actually hit. Ordinarily, they might have done something to one of the people walking through if they felt dissed, but everyone was kind of low-key because of the situation the night before. There may have been a few kids harassing people who were walking by, but all they were doing was running their mouths. No one ever approached anybody or did anything physical, especially not K.J. Tyler. K.J didn't have a violent streak in her. The group was beginning to get larger; it was almost tine for everyone to go in and get what they wanted from Worldwide. We had the music turned on and were partying outside.
You know, K.J. doesn't really belong to any gang and she doesn't hang out with them when they are doing anything wrong. In fact, that evening she was talking about her favorite thing, the Light in the Window Program (LWP). The LWP had really turned K.J. around. Blake Fischer--s/he runs the LWP--had recognized K.J.'s talent for art and had tried to help her further it. When we were in front of Worldwide, K.J. was trying to talk me into coming back to “Light in the Window” even though it was no longer in school. K.J. was afraid that eventually I might end up like my older brother. In fact, K.J. got into an argument with Big G over me. Big G thinks the 'Light in the Window” program is a bunch of crap. He may not want me to be in the Double Deuce, but he doesn't want me to turn against him either. They were talking pretty loudly to each other, and waving their hands around in the air, but neither one of them walked up on the other one or touched the other one. There's no way it looked like a fight was going to break out. I know Big G is kinda worried about me, but I'm grown and I know I can make the best decisions for myself. Big G was just under a lot of pressure, trying to keep the gang members from getting arrested in connection with the guy who got hurt the night before.
After we had been hanging for awhile, some of the kids noticed a police cruiser had pulled up. A few of the kids ran away, mostly those like Bobby and Rene, who had been involved in the fight the previous night. The cop came over and told us we had to leave or get arrested. S/he started talking all this crap about us harassing people and intimidating them--none of it was true. Even Rae/Ray, the Worldwide Pizza Palace's owner, came running out and stuck up for us and told the cop that s/he was scaring all of his/her customers away. The officer just ignored Locksdale s/he said something about s/he didn't see anyone eating pizza and that Locksdale needed to get the h____ out of his/her way because s/he had a job to do. The officer then went over to K.J., Big G, and Lee and started to hassle them. S/He told them that they had 10 move on. S/he specifically told K.). that she had no business hanging out with these gang members and that if we all didn't do exactly what the officer told us to do s/he would arrest us and charge us under some kind of; I think s/he said, anti-gang loitering statute. K.J. told the officer that she did not have to depart, that she didn't understand why she couldn't stand around with her friends, that she was in a public place where she was liked by the owner, and that she was not doing anything criminal. Locksdale tried to tell the officer that K.J. was going to order a pizza. We all heard the cop tell us to leave, but not everyone left. The officer keyed on K.J. and Big G, but especially K.J., right away. S/He seemed to be determined to arrest her even though all K.J. was doing was standing around listening to Big G brag and talking to me about starting to spend more time in a different, safer environment. Big G told Lee and me to get out of there before we got arrested. Lee and I left - but we were worried about Big G. The cops never really seemed all that interested in Lee and me anyway. Big G came home later that night after he made bail.