A 'clean slate' for ex-gang members

<p>He breathed a deep sigh and clenched his fists.</p><p>Zap. Zap. Zap. The laser beamed painful dots of yellow light on his neck. </p><p>Foamy white welts rose atop the crude black lines of the tiny X4 tattoo behind his ear, signaling Norteno gang allegiance.</p><p>Now reformed and proud of it, Ronnie was a Norteno nearly half his life, joining at age 13 in San Jose to impress his dad, who was in prison for murder. </p><p>That meant robbery, drugs and eight tattoos, he said.</p><p>He will soon have one less, all of them needle-work by “the homeboys,” he said, one with a smuggled needle and melted-down black checkers inside the California Youth Authority. </p><p>With the beam of a laser, Santa Rosa launched its first gang tattoo removal program Thursday to help Ronnie and others like him diminish the most visible imprints of their past lives.</p><p>The “Clean Slate” program location is being kept private, as are the identities of those receiving treatment, for fear of retribution, said Tom Bieri, director of Social Advocates for Youth, one of the partners. It requested that Ronnie’s name be withheld to protect him and others in the program from gang retaliation.</p><p>Bieri told a story of an East Bay program director he knew who was sent the head of a former gang member in a box.</p><p>“Gangs are a business model and a lot of people rely on the ‘little homies’ to run it,” Bieri said. “They’re motivated to put us out of business.”</p><p>Ink on flesh can take any shape. But when a tattoo signals gang affiliation — such as a Roman numeral 13 for Surenos or a 14 for Nortenos — it makes it even tougher for a person to shake former ties, he said.</p><p>Gang tattoos are often the “final barrier to employment” for many seeking a fresh start, Bieri said, and not all of them can be covered.</p><p>“It causes me a lot of problems,” Ronnie said of the tattoo he is getting removed. He was even asked to leave the Santa Rosa Plaza last month by security when handing out flyers for his church, Victory Outreach in Santa Rosa, he said.</p><p>Laser removal is a costly process; from $250 up to $1,000 per treatment. Some can pay 10 times the cost of a tattoo to remove it, and it hurts much more. </p><p>A $19,500 grant from Kaiser Santa Rosa and funding from SAY, the county human services department and Measure O public safety sales tax dollars mean Clean Slate participants need only pay a onetime $50 fee. </p><p>The Clean Slate program will remove gang tattoos from the bodies of 30 people, ages 14 to 24 years old, who have demonstrated they are committed to starting anew, Bieri said.</p><p>That means they’ve entered a program at a nonprofit, or are working to receive GED’s, go to college or get a job, Bieri said.</p><p>Twenty more slots remain open, and will be granted on a first-come, first-serve basis. People can contact Gary Iacini at SAY, 544-3299 x238, to sign up.</p><p>Each person will receive six sessions spaced eight weeks apart. That allows the skin to heal and the body to flush out the dissolved ink pigment.</p>