Project A.W.A.R.E: San Diego Public Defender and TLC faculty member Zaki Zehawi collaborates with ex-Gang Member Reggie Washington to Help Keep Kids Out of Prison

Interview conducted by TLC Warrior Editor and Faculty  member, Connie Henderson.  To read the full interview, subscribe to The Warrior Magazine and read the 2017 Summer Issue.

It was a major part of why I was released because I was not only doing the work and going to the classes, but I was participating in helping others.  I was involved in a program called CROP, which stands for Convicts Reaching Out to People.  It was sort of like a Scared Straight program where kids or young adults would come into the prison, but different because I wanted kids to understand the emotional aspect that goes with being locked up. So I didn’t talk about the violence, I talked about being away from family, being away from society, not having the ability to, you know, pet a dog.  All those things hurt more than anything, not being around my mother or being able to hug my father, or being around my daughter. So I spoke about those issues when the kids would come in, instead of talking about staying out so you didn’t get stabbed.  See, a lot of our kids are already used to violence so exposing them to more violence doesn’t do anything but give them a goal to reach, to prove they can become more violent and can survive in prison.  It’s not about surviving, it’s about living.  So I focused on that.   I was the president of the program so I had a say about who was there to speak to the kids, because some people have secret agendas. So, I had to oversee that and that’s when I really started learning how to be a CEO: learning how to be a director by having the opportunity to say who could and who could not be in certain programs while I was in prison.

When I first got out in 2005, I tried at it at a teen recovery center. Kids were dealing with substance abuse issues and doing their time with a twelve-week program. I really focused on not so much the substance abuse, but why they got involved in it in the first place.  Because for me,  when I got disappointed, I got high and a lot of those kids in the substance abuse program had problems dealing with disappointment and anger.  What was unique about my program was I, as the teacher, had gone through those very steps they found themselves in, and the kids were able to learn to work with their peers.  There are a lot of teachers in this world but how many are willing to build a relationship before starting to teach?  I think that’s the real true connection, building a relationship with our kids and young adults.  They’re disconnected from the community and that disconnection might be because they got involved in gangs or in drugs. But it’s hard for them to come back because the community doesn’t accept them. And when an individual is disconnected from their community, they act out.  And if you don’t belong anywhere, you will find anywhere to belong. And that’s when you have gangs popping up. It’s really because the community disconnected themselves from them, instead of working with them.

I met Reggie in February of 2015. I was defending a documented gang member accused, with a co-defendant, of attempted murder. We had tried the case the first time and the majority of the charges were hung.  In preparing for the retrial, the co-defendant’s counsel told me they were working on finding a gang expert to talk about how this was not a gang-related crime. The alleged crime itself was that my client went to a house and basically just shot it up. It was a house of a friend of his who he had known since they were kids. The real story behind the case was that he went over there to collect some money for some drugs he had fronted to this guy. And this other person at this house didn’t like my client being there and was the first to open fire on my client. My client returned fire, so it was a self-defense case that they tried to make into just a random gang shooting.

In comes Reggie. I met Reggie as the co-defendant’s expert, and he was the first gang expert that I had used in a trial or had even seen work in a trial. The jury came back on all the hung counts from the first trial as Not Guilty, across the board. I was completely blown away, obviously by the verdict, but by the way Reggie presented to the jury. I mean, he’s untouchable. His life experiences make up his resume and there is nobody that can testify about gangs like he does.  Like Reggie says, “If you don’t belong anywhere, anywhere will do, anywhere you’ll belong.”  He was phenomenal.

After the trial, Reggie said, “You know, Zaki, I have this group … why don’t you come by?” There was one in Southeast San Diego, which is predominantly in gang area, so I went and wow, it was just like our Trial Lawyers College groups. We circled up and we dealt with emotions and got to the core of what our issues were and you know, little by little, we were introducing a little bit of the TLC techniques:  the doubling, the empty chair, the listening exercise … obviously I’m not a psychodramatist  so I stay away from full-on psychodramas with these kids but it’s amazing how they can open up, just like we do on the Ranch. Because a lot of times these kids don’t need to be told what to do – everyone’s telling them what to do – they just need someone to listen to them. And they’re intelligent enough to find their own answers.

While we do our check in, we ask how the kids are feeling.   I created the reasoning for this check in because first of all, I might be the only one ever to even ask them how they’re feeling. It also lets me know how to interact: if they are angry, I know not to play with them and it gives me an opportunity to know how to approach them for them to feel safe and not be judged, by  not having to explain why they feel angry. I personally believe everyone should be allowed to have those feelings. A lot of our kids have felt wrong for having a certain feelings because that’s how society puts it, like everyone is supposed to be happy all the time.  So I just try to see how we can make our kids more emotionally literate, to help them understand they can be able to have those feelings and work through them them without getting high, without becoming violent.  Because they always thought anger and violence went together, they always thought disappointment and depression went with getting high.   So we have to learn how to deal with those things without turning to those things that are disruptive.

Yeah, there is a huge need for such a program.  There was one time I was in a preliminary hearing on a gang case.  One of the criteria that can be used by the Department of Justice and State and Federal Law Enforcement agencies to determine whether someone is a gang member is whether they are found in a gang area. I gave a detective on the stand a huge map of San Diego and asked: “Okay in this area, can you show me one part of this map that is not claimed by a gang?” He looked at me and said, “I can’t.” So they use this against these kids, because they were in the area, boom, that’s one strike against them and soon they’ll be documented. And then if they commit a crime, they’ll have a gang affiliation slapped on them,  and now we are talking State Prison.  It’s ugly, and so when you ask if we need something in this community? If they are saying that huge sections of San Diego are claimed by gangs then yeah, we need it. If we’re dealing with kids, teaching emotional literacy is in a community’s and society’s best interest.  Because sometimes parents aren’t equipped to deal with that.  I’m not saying that we can solve all these kid’s problems, but what we can do is just listen to them and hopefully guide them.