At 13 years old, Gary Armstrong and his friends were confronted by Denver police officers at the corner of Bruce Randolph Avenue and Columbine Street, telling them to pose for a photograph and to throw up their gang signs.
“They assumed I was already in it, but I was not a part of it yet. I was just a baby,” Armstrong said.
Now 36, Armstrong says it wasn’t fair for police to put him on a list of Rolling 30s gang members. He says he and his friends had hung out since childhood — years before there was a gang in Denver.
But the boy who dreamed of becoming a police officer or a firefighter dropped out of Montbello High. He admits he turned to crime to support himself.
“I was going through a lot at home,” he said. “I ended up hanging around the wrong people. Mom and Dad could not afford the shoes I liked, and I found a way to come up with new shoes and a new Nike outfit.”
At times, Armstrong says, there were 13 people living in his mom’s house.
“Mom was the type of mother to take people in,” he said.
He believes that police labeled him a criminal early on in life and that the association hindered his chances of getting ahead.
“They made that decision for me,” he said.
Armstrong, also known as “Scarface,” does not admit or deny that he is a member of the Rolling 30s Crips.
He spent a total of 6 1/2 years in prison for crimes involving drug possession and theft in Colorado and Arkansas, where some of his family lives.
Along the way, he fathered two children and survived two shootings.
He’s homeless now and carries around two bottles of pills in his backpack that are prescribed for his mental problems.
Armstrong has learned that turning to crime may only temporarily get him out of his circumstances.
“There ain’t nothin’ around that corner but death and destruction,” he said.
