AURORA —Marissa Vinson was 9 years old when her teenage brother was murdered by a local gang in Aurora.
“It encouraged me to get into gangs,” said Vinson, 17. “I wanted to be just like him. I thought, ‘somebody took him from me and I’m going to live his life.’ “
Vinson joined up with a local gang when she was 10 years old.
“The first time I was ever put in handcuffs was when I was about 14,” she said. “It was for assault and battery in a King Soopers.”
It took a dedicated gang intervention program through the city’s police department and the mentorship of a former Aurora gang member to alter Vinson’s path.
“I was going to (Aurora) Central at the time, and one of the security guards caught me fighting,” she said. “This was in April 2012. The school referred me to Ron after that.”
Ron Blan, 41, began working for Aurora’s Gang Reduction Impact Program (A-GRIP) in January 2012 — a few months after the program got running with a four-year, $478,000 grant from the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.
“Back then, nonprofits and youth-serving organizations were all frustrated with the gang issue,” said Dawn Barrett, the Aurora Police youth program manager who initiated the anti-gang program. “They were working in isolation of one another and they didn’t know what to do with all the gang members.”
She said she pulled dozens of resources and started working on a comprehensive plan for gang reduction. The plan identified three primary components: intervention, prevention and suppression (by law enforcement). The Division of Criminal Justice grant kick-started the first goal — intervention.
“There are more than 175 gang factions in Aurora,” Barrett said. “It became very obvious that we can’t arrest our way out of this issue.”
Barrett met Blan in 2011 while he was speaking about his involvement with a 25-year-old “Gang Rescue and Support Project” (GRASP) and his own nonprofit called 180 Gang Alternatives. Blan started 180 in Adams County in 2008 — exactly two weeks after he dodged a near life prison sentence for second-degree assault with a deadly weapon.
The charge came when Blan tried to leave a gang in Five Points in 2007.
“My nephew, my best friend growing up and two other homeboys tried to kill me that night,” Blan said. “I fought back, but I also got the charges. I was looking at a 32-year sentence in prison.”
On his trial day, 48 witnesses didn’t show up, and arresting officers lost the evidence.
“I was given a second chance,” Blan said. “And I want to give that to these kids. I believe they have a future ahead of them.”
As part of his intervention work, Blan takes student referrals like Vinson and works them through group therapy programs, which he leads at least twice a week at locations in Denver and Aurora.
“The greatest need in our community (in 2012) was getting someone on the ground to do what Ron is doing — direct intervention,” Barrett said. “When we got the funding, we entered into a contract with GRASP to employ Ron. The kids trust him. He gets results.”
Aurora’s anti-gang program is ever-evolving, drawing funds from all municipal tickets issued in Aurora. Barrett said she just received another four-year, $670,000 grant from the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice to implement a prevention program, which will start this November after she hires a prevention coordinator.
“The A-GRIP steering committee is also looking to more than double the size of the existing target area, which currently serves a population of about 80,000,” Barrett said. “With the new grant money, we’ll be able to reach people from ages four to 24. It’s in constant growth.”
But it is getting results.
Vinson is currently completing high school and taking college classes at an online academy in Aurora. She is among the first graduates of the anti-gang program, with which she still is heavily involved.
“Getting the strength to leave, to walk away from the lifestyle was the hardest thing,” Vinson said. “It took me a while to trust Ron, but I realized I didn’t want to live my brother’s life. I wanted to just live.”
Megan Mitchell: 303-954-26590, mmitchell@denverpost.com or
