Words from our Executive Director

I understand your pain! My name is A.V. Strong, in the 70’s, I grew up on the west coast and was once trapped in the cycle of the “gang life”. I would spend my summers with my grandmother who had sons (my uncles) who were involved in gangs.
Executive Director A.V. Strong

I would run with them and thought they were so cool. My one uncle, I called “Uncle R” was about 17 years old and very well known by everyone including the police. I thought he was the man! He blessed me into the gang and gave me the nickname “Lil Red”. My job was to fight and try to destroy anyone who disrespected him or the gang! I witnessed numerous drive by shootings, even some deaths... including the horrible gang style murder of my younger brother.

At the age of 14 I knew that this life style was not for me. I wanted out of the hood by doing the right thing such as going to school and getting a good job. I graduated from high school and joined the United States Army and served as a military police (MP). I attended college at night. Following my military career, I joined the Police Force in 1991.

I began to see signs of gang presence and activities in the surrounding communities that I patrolled. I became very concerned, especially after a young man was gunned down in one of the areas I worked. I had a chilling flashback of my younger brother who was approximately the same age of the young man murdered. I said to myself, “there has to be a better way”! We, the community must stop this from ever happening again!

This is how Gang Out came about!