No Matter How Loud I Shout Read Online Free PDF Page A

vicious punch so he could steal the six-pack of beer she had just bought from a liquor store that had refused him service.
    â€œI wanted a beer,” he later said, when asked if he felt bad about hurting the woman. The question seemed to perplex him. “If you’re strong enough to take something, why not take it?”
    This was Richard’s fifth arrest, but no weapons were used in the robbery, so the case was sent to the back of the line with the other “nonserious” felonies, and Richard walked free again, told to come back in four months.
    The Juvenile Court could have revoked his probation at this point (or long before, given his abysmal record), locking him up for months or even years in county boot camps or the state-run Youth Authority juvenile prison system. His contempt for a system that had never held himaccountable was clear from the way he laughed in court when his latest victim’s nose was mentioned. He flicked spitballs and threw gang signs in the courtroom when he thought no one was looking. His offenses had grown more bold and violent with each passing arrest. Yet, once more, the system turned him loose, as it had always done. And, finally, Richard graduated to the big time.
    It happened two months after the beer robbery, before the overworked DA’s juvenile operation had even waded through its backlog far enough to file formal assault charges. Two boys, David and Enrique, sat down in a small restaurant in the LA County city of Lynnwood to eat meat burritos and drink Cokes. A thin, short, Hispanic kid with a wispy mustache and a hand in his coat pocket materialized beside their table after a few minutes. The kid wore the uniform of the street: an oversized black hooded jacket, the baggy trousers hanging low, the underwear tops peeking out of the waistband. He had been milling around outside with members of the Young Crowd, muttering things like “traitor” and “nigger lover” because Enrique was Hispanic, while David was black—a pairing certain Latino street gang members find intolerable.
    â€œWhere are you vatos from?” the kid in the black jacket asked fifteen-year-old David. This is derogatory street code for “What gang are you in?” It is the standard question uttered before drive-by shootings and gang firefights on the street. It is a declaration of war.
    â€œNowhere,” David said, the only potentially neutral reply.
    The skinny kid in the black jacket jutted his lower lip and turned slightly toward seventeen-year-old Enrique. “Where are you from?”
    Enrique put his burrito down. “Nowhere,” he repeated.
    Without another word, the kid pulled out a twenty-five-caliber handgun and fired three times, then ran out. One bullet slapped into the table a few inches from David. The other two slugs plowed into Enrique, who shouted, “I’m hit, I’m hit, go get my mom!” Blood spurted from his shoulder and chest. Forty minutes later, Enrique Diaz Nunez, an eleventh grader whose only crime had been eating a burrito with a friend, lay dead on a bloody emergency room gurney, his mother and sister weeping beside him.
    A few days later, David drove with investigators past a crash pad kept by the Young Crowd. He pointed out a thin, short kid in an oversized black coat sauntering out the door. “That’s him,” David hissed. “That’s him.” They arrested Richard Perez on the spot and charged him with murder. He hadn’t even bothered changing clothes.
    At the police station after his arrest, detectives pulled out the inevitable Miranda card, explained to Richard his rights, and, hoping for a confession, asked if he had anything to say.
    â€œYeah, I have something to say,” the savvy street urchin said, well trained by his many encounters with the system. “I want my lawyer.” 2
    Administrative Headquarters
    Los Angeles County Probation Department
    Downey, California
    Though he