The untimely death a week ago of America’s most famous black director, John Singleton, rekindled my interest in L.A. gangs. Singleton filmed his groundbreaking movie, Boyz in the Hood, about black gangs in Los Angeles during the early 90s, five blocks from where I grew up. When I watched the movie years ago, I could identify specific homes in the film because I delivered newspapers to them on my paper rout when I was a kid.
A few days after Singleton’s death, I picked up a current edition of Christianity Today and read about Casey Diaz, a Latino gangbanger who lived in Los Angeles – also not far from my boyhood home – around the time Boyz in the Hood was filmed. In his testimony, Casey described how he grew up in an extremely abusive home, got lured into gang life at the age of 11, became a violent leader of his gang (a “shot caller”), and eventually was arrested, convicted and imprisoned for murder and other crimes.
Casey’s testimony intrigued me, so I purchased his autobiography, The Shot Caller, A Latino Gangbanger’s Miraculous Escape from a Life of Violence to a New Life in Christ, and read it.
Warning: The Shot Caller is extremely violent and graphic. But it is so, not to appeal to our morbid interest, but to demonstrate how completely depraved and utterly lost Casey was. Since the State of California considered Casey to be one of its most violent and dangerous criminals, it incarcerated him in its most secure detention center, New Fulsom Prison, in Sacramento. There they put him in permanent solitary confinement, where he languished for four years.
But Casey was not alone in solitary confinement after all. Through a miraculous divine intervention (I’m not going to spoil the book by giving you the details.) Casey fell to the floor of his cell in fear and terror of God, confessed his sins, and trusted Christ as his savior. Casey’s conversion was so dramatic, it began a small revival right in the midst of New Fulsom Prison.
I’ve said in the past that what we are witnessing in American culture, and especially in inner city America, is the loss of the fear of God and the consequences that brings. What The Shot Caller illustrates is what happens when the worst of the worst regain the fear of God and come to Christ.
I highly recommend The Shot Caller. Everyone involved in men’s ministry should read this book.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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