The man who brought big-city gangs to Denver sits these days alone in a jail cell and waits and wonders where it all went wrong.
Once, when he needed to go somewhere, four people from the neighborhood formed a diamond around him. His haircuts were free. Women in the inner city wanted his autograph. The press chronicled his every move.
Now, he’s just another no-name defendant, ignored, alone, facing a possible third felony conviction. Nobody calls. Nobody comes. His mother died two years ago of cancer.
“I like to try to look people in the eyes, but I can’t anymore,” he said to a rare visitor at the Denver jail. “These days, I tend to drop my head because I don’t want people to see my sadness.”
Monday, Michael Asberry, 38, faces arraignment in Denver District Judge Morris Hoffman’s courtroom on five felony counts and a misdemeanor stemming from a June 20 struggle with police.
The officers say they caught him pestering a beauty-shop worker near a downtown alley, with two bags of crack cocaine and a bag of marijuana in his pockets.
Asberry said he’s a marked man. The police, he said, won’t give him a break. And the gangs he helped spawn are now gunning for him, he said.
Legacy of violence
He brought Los Angeles-style gangs to Denver when he and two of his buddies formed Denver’s version of the Crips in the 1980s.
The movement has since spiraled out of control, with Denver becoming home to 8,811 confirmed gang members affiliated with 78 gangs, according to a database maintained by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
“It’s an evil mind-set these days,” Asberry said. “These kids now think they are invincible. My stuff is small now.”
Gone are the days when he had a city-supplied cellphone and former Denver Police Chief David Michaud’s personal cellphone number – part of an ill-conceived gang de-escalation project.
Asberry’s children don’t accept his collect calls from the Denver jail. In court papers, he said he fears his family will be evicted if he remains jailed.
“I don’t have nobody,” he said last week. “I just got me.”
Back in 1985, he had his friends from the neighborhood. Asberry, then 15, and two of his friends – Albert Jones and Phillip Jefferson – formed their version of California’s Crips gang, according to his account and that of the police.
Jefferson and Jones grew up in California. Asberry knew Watts from summer visits to an aunt.
“It was us sticking together, and us having a strong little brotherhood,” Asberry recalled.
They named themselves the Rollin’ 30 Crips, a reference to Jones’ home at East 30th Avenue and Gilpin Street.
Now, Jefferson has a bullet stuck in his brain. He’s partially paralyzed in the left side. He has a right eye smaller than his left. He’s served time in prison for killing two men at a party.
Jones is serving life in prison in California for his role in the shooting death of a 63-year-old store clerk who died from a gunshot blast to the chest.
Then there’s Asberry, a man nicknamed “Cyco” on the streets. He said the nickname stood for the vicious cycle he was stuck in, the one that always seemed to pull him back to the ghetto.
For police, the nickname was always “Psycho,” for Asberry’s explosive temper. They remember how he kicked out the window of squad car and left the car door too mangled to open.
Taunts of gang officers
“Of all the gangsters that stick out in your mind, he sticks out the most,” said Kurt Peterson, a former Denver gang unit officer who now is a detective in the bomb squad. “He’s the kind of guy that in any other setting, a company setting, a military setting, would have been a leader, without a doubt.”
Alone, Asberry could talk eloquently with police about his dreams for a better life, Peterson said. Other times, he taunted the gang officers.
“I can remember seeing him holding a 2-year-old as I drove by and holding his hand out like a gun and making gun noises and telling the child, ‘Those are the cops. We kill the cops,”‘ Peterson said.
By Asberry’s account, at least 10 of his friends have been killed. Two of the deaths, Asberry said, he saw personally. He said he’s been stabbed three times and shot six times, and pulled up his shirt to show the scars.
“When I was young, it was like funerals were sacred,” Asberry said. “Then they became normal. After your fourth, fifth funeral, you start to see where people are getting numb.”
Ultra-religious now, he blamed an evil spirit for his role in founding Denver’s most prolific gang.
“It’s the spirit realm,” he said. “I know people don’t believe in that.”
The Rev. Leon Kelly, who runs the Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives program, has been working with Asberry for more than 20 years now.
“He’s like an old gunfighter,” Kelly said. “He’s been wanting to put up his gun for so many years, but he’s always challenged.”
Both Asberry and police say he formed the Crips subset known as the Tre Tres, a second-generation gang and a group now considered among the most violent in Denver.
New generation of gangsters
He said that they’ve bypassed him and that he’s been away from the gang life for years. He went to prison for four years in 1990 for breaking into another Crip’s house with a loaded .32-caliber revolver.
By the time he came out, younger, more violent gangsters had taken control, Asberry said.
He said Brian Hicks, identified as a current leader of the Tre Tres, tried to form an alliance, but he rejected Hicks, whose sport utility vehicle police have identified as the source of the gunfire that killed Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams on New Year’s Day.
Others say Asberry is the master manipulator.
“He’s a chameleon,” said former gang unit officer Paul Baca, now a detective in Denver’s robbery unit. “He’ll adapt to his situation and use it to his advantage.”
Another police source said Asberry may still be a player in the gang world and there are indications he was trying to fill a void left by federal gang indictments in April.
Baca battled with Asberry on May 17, 1995, and the aftermath divided Denver. Baca said Asberry threatened his family, spit on him and assaulted him, breaking out a squad car window.
Denver District Judge Lynne Hufnagel gave Asberry probation for the Baca fight, outraging police by sending Asberry to Compton, Calif., to take part in former NFL running back Jim Brown’s Amer-I-Can program.
“To be honest, he really did not take advantage of the opportunity,” Brown said. “Michael was an engaging person, and deep down inside I think he’s a good person, but whatever the psychological problem, it’s something deep-rooted.”
Less than a year later, Asberry lost that probation after Los Angeles police found him with a loaded handgun in his pocket and wearing gang clothes.
He was ordered to serve four more years in prison.
In his latest arrest, police say they moved in after they saw him throw a cup on the ground as he pestered the beauty-shop worker.
Denies resisting arrest
He bolted, and when they apprehended him, he fought back and then reached for an officer’s loaded gun.
Asberry said the police report is wrong and they won’t let him escape his past.
Monday, Asberry will be in the holding cell as he waits for his court appearance. He suspects the gang graffiti he always sees there will still be there.
“I look up at that stuff, and I just can’t relate to it anymore,” Asberry said.
Staff writer Christopher N. Osher can be reached at 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com.
