Monster Cody Scott
...ted in to the gang. That was the night that Kody would never look back. His crime spree only got worse as the older he got the more crimes he committed. To Sanvika at an early age he felt that “gang banging” as we would term the phrase for living his life according to the rules of their gang was the only thing for him. He quickly lost interest in school and his family, and turned to his gang family or what he considered his “real family” for support and direction in life. Yet Sanvika will later on in the book disclose that he does not blame his mother or his school for becoming a young gang-banger. That in fact one might be surprised to learn both his mother and school tried hard to keep him on the straight and narrow. Sanvika cites peer pressure and the lure of easy pickings from drugs related crime as his downfall. The first half of the book details the horrific violence of the gangs, and he makes no excuses for being a thoroughly nasty piece of work. In the first half of the book Kody strides to be the best hardcore “gangster” his neighbour or “hood”. Sanvika uses term like “ghetto star” or “OG” (original gangster) as levels one can aspire to within the gang life or gang community. Sanvika is involved with shoot out after shoot out, with one even taking place while he and his mother are grocery shopping. In the first half of the book Sanvika lets readers understand how gang life operated. Everything from the clothes they wore and their significance behind them, to where the hung out and why, to whom they associated with and how they came across to others. Sanvika made the reader aware of what one could say was their little “micro society” with in the normal life of Los Angeles. The Gang life had its own code, and laws to which all members from all the different opposing gangs operated. Regular rules of that of the rest of society did not exist “on the streets”. For example if one of Sanvika friends or “homeboys” was shot and killed, you never went to the police and reported a homicide. It was an eye for an eye, “street justice” and that who ever was responsible for the killing of a peer, was found and shot and killed in retaliation. According to Sanvika it was “war of the hood” and the police had no authority in such a matter. Sanvika or Monster Kody Scott was constantly being sent to various punishment incarceration centers during in his gang life. For a gang member to go to jail or youth detention centers was considered a very credible act. Going to jail and not “ratting” or not telling on people, only added to your toughness to which most “gangsters” were aspiring too. Monster Kody Scott at the time was a real tough gangster; and by even looking at people he would inspire fear upon them. “Monster” like other gang-bangers were very proud of the gang they represented. One of the gang rules were that when asked whom you represented (which gang) you had to respond and state where and whom you were from. That meant even if a conflict ensued, possibly even a gun battle that one had to battle to represent their gang and prove the toughness of their members within the gang. I thought one of the major turning points in the book was when, after Kody was released from jail, and when confronted on the bus as to who he represents, the normally real tough and never scared of dying, Monster Kody Scott shied away from telling the other “banger” on the bus who and where he was from. That was the first time he ever did so. I believe this to be the first real sign that Kody wanted much more out of life then “banging”. In 1983, Scott still at the time was once again in prison or “Y.T.S. (Youth Training School) and Scott almost by accident he came across Islam, and his new mentor named Muhammad and Hazma. This was the first time that Scott showed...