Four Feet Tall and Rising (8 page)

On Tuesday morning, I went to Southgate Municipal Court for my preliminary hearing. It was a media circus. During that time in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the murder rates in Los Angeles and cities like Philadelphia and Chicago were sky-high. Crack cocaine was around on a massive scale, and guys who did that shit were nuts. South Central had the worst crack problem in the country, and that meant violence. Gangs were
on a killing spree. There was so much senseless killing, so many drive-bys. It was on the news every night. There was a spotlight of national media attention on the entire South Central community. Police estimated that there were seventy thousand active gangbangers in Los Angeles alone. The city was the Gang Capital of the World.

At the same time, everybody and their brother wanted to be glorified as a gang member. Gangster rap was all over MTV, kids were getting gang tattoos when they weren’t even in gangs, the movie
Colors
came out, and even white kids in the suburbs were wearing baggy jeans around their knees, red bandanas on their heads, and gold grills across their teeth. It was like the more the media demonized South Central, the more everyone wanted to either pretend to be a part of it or join up. Gangs that had no juice suddenly had juice. New gangs formed.

There was a public outcry for the police and government to “do something,” so politicians were promising to “crack down on crack” and “clean up the streets,” or “gang up on gangs” or whatever stupid thing they could say about it. In Los Angeles, they were passing a Gang Act that essentially labeled anyone involved in a gang a “terrorist” against the city or the state, so they could enforce longer sentences and press for more serious charges in court.

That’s what we were walking into that Tuesday, at our arraignment. Since there were five defendants, and one of them happened to be a midget, the press had a field day. The
L.A. Times
, the
L.A. Sentinel
, and the
Herald Examiner
all covered
the story. We were profiled on the evening news. My mug shot was in the papers. The headlines read: “Four Foot Gunman Leader of a Black Gang.” Leader of a gang? I was on the bottom of the totem pole and anyone who was in the Bloods knew that. But the press didn’t. They made up what they wanted me to be. Or maybe some cop wanted his five minutes of fame and gave them his opinion of my position. Either way, it was all lies. Pure sensationalism that made for great copy. It got picked up by the newswires. My face was splashed all over the L.A. papers. It also ran in the Little People of America quarterly newsletter: “Shorty Rossi, the son of Sonny and Dixie Rossi, was arrested …” Blah, blah, blah. I could just imagine the horror on my dad’s face.

We stood accused of heinous crimes, and ’cause there was a robbery in progress during the shooting, we were considered the instigators of the fight. I was charged with everything: four counts of attempted murder, four counts of attempted robbery, four counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and a whole list of gun charges. The public defender turned to me that day and said, “Shorty, they’re trying to kill you.” She explained to me that the conspiracy charges were a way to prove intent, like we had planned to commit murder, like we had planned the robbery, like we had planned the shoot-out. I had nothing to do with the robbery. I got in that car to pick up girls. I defended myself when the Crips started shooting, but unbelievably, my shots were the only ones that actually hit anyone. Out of fifteen gangbangers shooting God knows how many shots out of God knows how many guns, only my bullets landed. I hit two
of the gangbangers and had accidentally shot that poor innocent bystander that Dante was robbing. My attorney stood up in my defense. “Your Honor, this is the first time Mr. Rossi has ever been arrested.” The judge just looked at me and said, “No, this is just the first time he’s been caught.” It sunk in hard what was going on. I was totally fucked.

Mom said she blamed herself. She was convinced that if she’d stopped me from running away, none of this would have happened. I had to tell her, “Do you know what I was doing in junior high? I was smoking cigars. I was smoking marijuana. I was drinking. I lost my virginity. You never knew none of that. So how can you blame yourself when you didn’t know what your kids were doing?” She cried and said, “I should have known.” There was no way she could have known. I had lied to her face every single day. I even lied about prom night. I went and partied in South Central L.A. instead. Yeah, she could have paid better attention to what I was doing, but I was a liar, plain and simple. I’d gotten myself into this mess. I had no one to blame but me.

They shipped me to Men’s Central Jail, or what we called County. County was a holding pen for all the guys standing trial or awaiting sentencing. The biggest jail in the world, there were thousands of guys there—all of us housed in downtown L.A. near Union Station. They put me in the old Hall of Justice ’cause they didn’t know what to do with me. They were worried I might get hurt ’cause of my size and my gang affiliation as a Blood. They took me to the Young Tank, where they held the kids. A few days later, they transferred me back to Men’s
Central. The Sheriff’s Department told the deputies, “Put the little fuck in the gang tank.” I remember hearing the deputy say, “He’s gonna get killed. He’s gonna get hurt. Something bad could happen to him.” But they moved me anyway. They walked me into 4300, the gang module, and pointed me toward the catwalk.

The gang modules were separated from the main population. Every module had a number: 4200 was general population, 4300 was the Blood tank, 4400 was another general population module, and 4600 was the Ding tank. The Ding tank was the 5150s, the guys that had mental problems. (As in, “Ding, ding, ding. Anybody in there?”) None of them were “in there” if you know what I mean. Modules 4700 and 4800 were the Crip modules. Every module had a chow hall on one end, and though they kept us separated as best they could, there was always a chance of being jumped if you were being transported to another area or going to the roof. The roof was the play yard. The only time you saw the sun.

Being put in a gang module with your crew was the same as protective custody. You could be protected by your own people. If someone claimed to be in a gang, but they actually weren’t, they’d throw them in the gang module and let the inmates take care of them. They’d get the shit beat out of them, royally. Or they’d be stabbed to death.

There were two levels with four different tiers: A, B, C, and D—or April, Baker, Charlie, and Denver. I was pointed toward the April row, where they housed the Bloods together. There were thirty deputies just waiting for a melee. But as I
walked to the April row, I ran into a bunch of friends. Guys were reaching out from behind their cells and shaking my hand. “What the hell are you doing here, Shorty?” That was a fucking peach. I was like the mayor of April row.

The watch commander, a captain, called back to me: “I got five hundred black guys in there, and a little white midget knows half my goddamn population? Who are you?” I said, “I’m nobody.” He stared at me. “Oh no, you’re somebody.” He kept looking me over. “We thought you’d be attacked.” I called him on it. “If you thought I’d be hurt, why’d you walk me down there?” He said, “We don’t like niggers and we don’t like people who like niggers.” He pushed me back toward my cell. “You ain’t gonna make it one week in here.”

Turns out my cellie was Big Will, a guy I grew up with at Nickerson. Big Will schooled me on the system. He told me who everyone was, who to stay away from, what was going on in terms of the racial tensions. He told me about “good time,” how California had a policy that let prisoners cut their sentences in half—serve a day, get a day off—if they did “good time,” meaning they didn’t fight, took a class, behaved themselves. Every prisoner knew about the day-for-day policy. It was a source of hope.

But more than that, Big Will made sure I knew about the animosity between the inmates and the corrections officers and staff. A lot of them were crooked. A lot of them would take you into a corner and beat you with a fucking flashlight. They called it flashlight therapy. There were riots over our treatment, and at one point, they stuck four hundred inmates
into the showers, butt-ass naked, ’cause some deputy lost his keys and they were convinced someone was gonna break out of jail.

I’d never experienced so much racism in my life until I went to County. It was total corruption. Total racism. The corrections officers and the deputy sheriffs treated me like shit ’cause I was with a black gang. It didn’t help that I was an asshole. I was so fucking rebellious. I was constantly getting flashlight therapy. There were cells that were broken or wider than usual and I could squeeze out and visit my friends. I got caught as I was trying to climb over a tier. It was two in the morning. They knotted me up, meaning they beat my head with flashlights, giving me knots all over my skull. They threw me in the hole. That was just hell. I was more scared of getting set up and killed by the deputies than by the inmates.

I entered Men’s Central on January 8, 1988, and I was there until August of 1989, fighting my case in trial. It would turn out to be the hardest place I ever did time.

For my
first trial, they assigned me a dingbat lawyer who was a disaster waiting to happen. The trial ended in a mistrial on a technicality, mostly ’cause of her incompetence. Then I was assigned Carol Telfer as my lawyer. She was behind me one hundred percent. The second trial resulted in a hung jury, so they brought me back for a third trial. For that trial, they hired a special gang prosecutor, Kevin McCormick, a super-smart son of a bitch. I didn’t like the guy, ’cause he was prosecuting
me at the time, but I had to admit, he was good at his job and he wasn’t an asshole.

Going to trial was one of the worst experiences of my life. Not ’cause of the trial itself, but ’cause of the logistics of getting to court every day. Pretrial proceedings could take up to two or three months. These were just the initial hearings and jury selection and setting dates or requests for delays. Every morning that I had to be in court, they’d wake me up at four o’clock in the morning to eat breakfast. The deputies would march me downstairs, where up to five thousand inmates would be heading to court. They’d sort us by gangs and put us on buses.

Once we got to the courthouse, they’d sort us again, putting the gangbangers in separate holding tanks. And then … we’d sit there for hours. Finally, when it was your turn to appear before the judge, they’d walk you in and then the damn judge would ask for an extension for another day. That’s it. Then they’d march you back out. Stick you back in the holding tank and you’d sit and wait for hours for some other corrections officer to come pick you up. Then back on the buses, back to County, where you’d sit in another holding tank until they could get you back to your cell. By the time you got back to your bed, it was eleven or twelve o’clock at night. Next day, you’d start the whole process over again at four o’clock in the morning.

This went on over and over and over again. Carol used to get so angry with me ’cause I’d fall asleep in front of the jury. I couldn’t help it. I was barely getting four hours of sleep a night for months on end. I couldn’t think in a straight line. I was so desperate to be done with the trial process, I told Carol just to
take a deal so I wouldn’t have to go through the daily grind anymore. She didn’t listen to me.

With each new trial, charges were dropped. The conspiracy charges and accessory charges fell away ’cause I could prove I was at work during those hours. But the attempted-murder charge against the innocent bystander was still standing. Out of the five of us that were arrested that night, I was the only one who faced a jury. Dante and Lewis ratted against me. They took deals to save their own asses. When they put T.J. and Bernard on the stand, they had nothing to say. Since they were juveniles, so they got a lot less time. As for the two Crips that were shot, they had, of course, not pressed charges against me, ’cause they had no intention of spending any more time in a courthouse, or with cops, than necessary. The only guy that showed up every day was the bystander. He was there for every session. He’d survived, but he had to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of his life. He wanted justice and I was the only one on trial.

Dante portrayed me as the boss. He gave the jury the impression that I’d told him to rob the bystander and had masterminded the shoot-out. Dante was over six feet tall and solid as a rock. Like I could force him to do anything. When they brought Dante into County, he said he was a Blood. But Dante wasn’t actually a Blood. He ran with guys who were Bloods, but he’d just ratted on me in court, and word spread fast. When the deputies walked him into the Blood module, he got his ass beat. They had to get him out of there and put him back into “gen pop,” general population.

Then the Crips devised a plan to get back at Dante for shooting at their guys. They convinced him to become a Crip, since the Bloods wanted nothing to do with him. They pretended to convert him, and he even got Crip tattoos on his arms. Once the deputies moved him into the Crip module, they ripped him apart. Dante showed up in court and accused me of putting a hit out on him. He thought I had something to do with it, but I didn’t. I didn’t have to say a word. Dante had dug his own grave.