Regional Industry & News

Former Santa Fe gang leader who helped broker peace reflects on street life in new book.The wall-mounted crucifix loomed above Phillip Romero as he recalled that wretched night in 1994 when a dozen members of the West Side Locos gang battered down the door of the room where he was partying in a Cerrillos Road Motel 6.In a flash, he was stabbed 15 times and clocked over the head with a gun — a formidable gang leader suddenly rendered helpless, his blood pooling on the floor.Known on the streets as “Wizard” in those days, Romero, a leader of the East Side Homies, had been set up to die.And for an awful spell, he recalled, he could see himself from above as if he were standing outside his body, as if he had already passed over into another realm.He tells the story in a new book about his experiences, Because Of God & A Fortune Cookie: A true story based on the life of a New Mexico gang leader, a 170-page memoir penned on his iPhone.Though legally blind, he was able to finish the book with the help of his daughter, Dawn Romero.The East Side Homies and the West Side Locals were two prominent gangs in Santa Fe in the 1990s, crews with serious beef that engaged in public shootouts and constant fights over territory.Romero — who would eventually turn his life around — was right at the burning center of it.“I’m gonna tell you the truth, I didn’t feel a thing,” Romero said, speaking of the attack in 1994.“I didn’t feel nothing.I mean, I was cut open, man.” He would leave gang life behind after the stabbing, forging a new path for himself as a peace activist while still in his 20s.But the pain, and the scars, too — scars he showed last week from a wheelchair in his south-side apartment — will always persist.‘Helping others learn’ Romero is among the men credited with spurring what was once major news in the City Different: the brokering of a fragile and uncertain peace deal between three warring gangs in September 1994, not long after the stabbing.Widely covered by local media, the moment saw gang members lay down their arms and commit to stop selling drugs at a time when gang violence was rising.Romero and former West Side Locos leader Luis Leyba were central to this movement, speaking from podiums at gang truce meetings.At 58, Romero has spent much of his adult life working as a pipe fitter in the construction industry.As a columnist for The Santa Fe Reporter and as a guest speaker at local high schools, he also has been outspoken about the perils of gang life, stressing to vulnerable youth a better path exists.Because Of God & A Fortune Cookie chronicles his hardscrabble upbringing and descent into gang life, followed by his escape and pleas for healing broken communities.It carries harrowing stories of random beatings, ruthless stabbings and ego — swaggering characters who went by telling monikers such as Psycho, Cartoons and Monkey.The book’s message overall is one of redemption, however.The title of the memoir, published in January by Spines, a self-publishing company, has its origins in a fortune cookie Romero received from a local Chinese restaurant, with the message from the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” “I think that God has been with me since the very first breath I took and has spared my life on several occasions,” Romero writes.“And now, here I am telling my story in hopes of helping others to learn from my mistakes.” Descent into gang life Romero, temporarily in a wheelchair these days following an injury, was born in 1967 and raised in Peña Blanca, a small Sandoval County community near Cochiti Pueblo where his father trained horses.His upbringing, surrounded by addiction and violence, was a difficult one, and he ended up becoming involved in gang life in Albuquerque as a teenager.Romero recalled getting “jumped into” a gang in the Wells Park neighborhood near downtown Albuquerque when he was in high school — the pounding of the fists, the “ranking in” of a young man to the promises of a stoic, violent future.He began to struggle with alcohol use in his early 20s when he was living in Peña Blanca.He eventually became involved with the East Side Homies in Santa Fe, he said, a group that sold cocaine and marijuana, smuggling drugs into the jail, among other rackets.The 1990s was a different era in Santa Fe.Public displays of violence sent shockwaves through the city.It was a time when gang culture was entering the American mainstream, and even children were watching films like 1993’s Blood In, Blood Out — with a screenplay by Santa Fe native and poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, based in part on his own life.Kids were carrying guns and knives.“If either side were to show up at the same mall, there would usually be bloodshed, not to mention any damages that were caused or innocent people getting hurt,” Romero writes of the West Side Locos/East Side Homies dynamic.He doesn’t hold back in his memoir.He recounts how some East Side Homies were partying near Pecos one day when a gang member jumped out of the back of a pickup and hit an innocent pedestrian over the head with plywood for no reason — until the man was bleeding profusely from his head in front of his young son.That moment, Romero said, made him seriously question his affiliation with the gang.The East Side Homies and West Side Locos had a shootout one night in the Ephraim Street area.As bullets were fired, one hit a gas meter and gas began leaking just as liberally as the bullets had been flying.Romero’s life changed quickly after his departure from the gang.He became a peace activist on the streets.Perhaps miraculously, he never did any serious jail time.He never went to prison.A 1995 article in The Santa Fe Reporter features Romero in costume as a member of that year’s Fiesta de Santa Fe pageantry and recounts his winding path.As he made his way through what was then the Villa Linda Mall, now known as Santa Fe Place, he was given a street salute by two members of the West Side Locos — a sure sign of respect in spite of prior animosities.“I’m really proud of the guy he’s become,” said Dennis Garcia, a good friend of Romero’s who helped him with the book.“This dude will give you his heart.” Garcia noted Because Of God & A Fortune Cookie has moved some of his family members to tears.‘I forgave those guys’ Romero recalled the day in September 1994 — shortly after his stabbing — when he and some other East Side Homies were set to meet West Side Locos to discuss a potential truce.Wary of a potential setup, they were were strapped.Romero had a Tec-9 with two clips ready to go.To his crew’s astonishment, the site was teeming with people — and not just West Side Locos.Television news reporters began asking them questions.The peace talks played out publicly, urged on by city officials — Santa Fe Mayor Debbie Jaramillo and police Chief Don Grady II.From the outset, Romero was supportive of the effort, despite the West Side Locos’ attempts to take his life.“I forgave those guys from my heart.That’s the truth.I’m not going to lie about that,” he said.Becoming involved in community activism after their tenures as rival gang leaders, Romero and Leyba would help lift up an organization known as Raza Unida Youth Movement.They would travel around to local schools to talk to at-risk youth.The movement hit obstacles, with certain gang members refusing to abide by the truce.While tremors of gang violence continued, the effort was considered a largely successful one.Former gang rivals even went to a leadership retreat or summer camp together in Peñasco in the fall of 1994 — an intriguing phenomenon captured in an article in The New Mexican.Romero’s message of peace and forgiveness led to a request for his appearance on The Jenny Jones Show — a popular TV talk show in the 1990s.“I have come to realize that there are many other people out there whom I have wronged, and I can only pray that they too will come to forgive me, so that others may learn from their examples as well,” Rome