‘Pivotal moment’: Former Baltimore gang members turned mentors reflect after 11 News interview

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    BALTIMORE, Maryland (WBAL) — It was a five-minute interview that garnered nearly 2 million views on YouTube: Baltimore gang members who reached a truce amid unrest that followed Freddie Gray’s police in-custody death 10 years ago.

Hours after Gray’s funeral, while rioting and looting erupted in west Baltimore, a group of gang members asked 11 News to report their real role in the unrest: “This is the Bloods right here. We got the Phirus over here and Bloods over here. We stand as one, we are one right now. It’s Black men united.”

Rival gangs came together to set the record straight to let Baltimore know that, despite a police alert sent out earlier in the day, gangs did not work together to target officers. The FBI later discredited the threat.

They wanted Baltimore to know they were not rioting, looting or targeting police: “We did not come together against the cops. We’re not about to let y’all paint this picture of us.”

Ten years later, I reconnected with Orlando and Gary. I asked whether Orlando ever looks back at the video.

“All the time. It’s nostalgic. I look back at it twice a month. It was a pivotal moment,” he said.

It was also a dangerous one.

“People have to realize, in this country, taking a stand like that, you’re putting your life on the line,” Gary told 11 News.

And, they put their employment on the line because, back then, as gang members in affiliation only, they had real jobs.

“What was crazy is they congratulated me. They was like, ‘You spoke very well for yourself. I like how you spoke for yourself.’ Five minutes later, I was getting called into the office, like, ‘We just, we can’t,'” Orlando told 11 News. “I was fired.”

Today, Gary has both a landscaping company and a moving company. He also mentors young people and volunteers. Orlando, now a contractor, also mentors.

“I train guys from the street organizations — BGFs, Bloods, Crips — I train these guys in the field. I teach these guys how to weatherize houses and do construction, and we teach them how to put solar panels on and things like that, just trying to show them there is a different way,” Orlando told 11 News.

For both men, the uprising was not just happening outside. It was happening inside them, too.

“We really have, like, made it our life’s work to just give back to the community.”

“We really, really wanted to find a way to keep the momentum within ourselves, going past the cameras, leaving town, momentum dying down from the allure of the riots and all those things. We really have, like, made it our life’s work to just give back to the community,” Gary told 11 News.

They are two men who, in the midst of the fires and the violence, just wanted the truth to come out — who, 10 years later, remain committed to that truth and their own.

“I have to continue to be the example, to younger guys coming up, that there is a better way.”

“I feel like we are an example. I have to continue to be the example to younger guys coming up, that there is a better way,” Orlando told 11 News.

“That interview, in that time period, is like a staple for where I’ve come from. So, when I’m in my moment, I look back at that to try and pat myself on the back and say, ‘Look how far you’ve come,'” Gary told 11 News.

As the interview concluded, I asked how the last time we spoke in April 2016 — one year after Gray’s death — I referred to them as former gang members.

Given how their lives have changed, it seemed incredibly superficial and loaded now.

So, I asked, how would I refer to them now?

They said, “We’re men. At the end of the day, we’re men.”

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