2: Violated Into The PeeWees

What period of time were you a member of the Simon City Royals? From 1991 until I got out of prison. Until 2009. The first time I met TJ, I believe, was at his deposition. This video deposition, that he is, him and him, and being taken on behalf of the defense. Soon after TJ was exonerated for murder and released from prison, he sued the police in the city of Chicago. This case is captioned. Sadious, him and his, versus the city of Chicago at all. This tape is the only lengthy interview with TJ that I could get access to. He's been questioned by Andy Hale, the attorney who was hired to take the lead in defending the city. I thought TJ was remarkably charming. You know, polite. Didn't ever appear angry at me, or, you know, just very smart, too. For a kid to grow up, you know, in the setting he did, I was, you know, it was like, wow, you know. That what I was expecting. At the time of this deposition with Andy Hale, that he cemented as was a 31-year-old adult. How would you describe the way you were prior to being arrested in February '93? I was troubled. I didn't have a good life. That's the TJ we're going to look at. He was a kid before he was put through the system. Before TJ spent millions of dollars to start a gang war. Before he sued the city, before he spent 16 years in prison, he was a 13-year-old kid accused of a murder that he always said he didn't do. It was easy for the police to believe that TJ could kill someone. He liked carrying a gun, flashing gang signs, and acting like a tough guy. He also just a kid. He liked bikes. He played basketball. He liked doing art in school. He even wrote poems. TJ had a big family that cared about him, and they tried to stop him from joining a gang. But TJ did it anyway, and that put him in the crosshairs of tough on crime policies in the 1990s. From WBZ Chicago, I'm Frank Maine, and this is Motive. Violated into the P-wees. Even among former gang members, there's a code of silence. They don't like talking to cops or newspaper reporters for that matter. Snitches get stitches. When did you first meet Larry Tuffle? I can't remember the exact date. Did I cross the right Tuffle? It's a two-four. Two-four. Larry was a friend of yours, correct? Yeah. According to TJ at his deposition, Larry was a friend of his, but he wasn't anymore. As kids, Larry and TJ both joined the same street gang. TJ was 11 years old. Larry was 12. I couldn't find a phone number for TJ's old friend, but I did find an address. With two in apartment building on the north side, I started flipping through names on the directory. Then a man who I guessed was a superintendent popped his head through a window above me. Yeah. Where? Right here. How are you? Looking for Larry. Larry Tuffle. Is Laura Tuffle? The super buzzer's in and told us he would go get him. Lawrence? Yeah. Larry. What does a man in Lawrence say? I have to see. I explained that we were doing a project about TJ. I wanted to see what Larry, the adult, could tell me about TJ the boy. I thought this was over with, I really don't like to dig through the past and talk about it again. Larry Tuffle had a lot to do with TJ's murder case. The guy who was killed was a good friend of his, and Larry pretty much wanted to be left alone. I still feel like I'm in danger because if I ever ran into any of those games in the past, is there any way that I could think about that you guys would come back or something before I say anything more? Just to be at the safe side. Is that okay? Yeah. A couple days later, Larry had a change of heart and he agreed to sit down and talk. I figured what can it hurt? I just tell my story. I got nothing to hide. I was wrong. I was the perfect kid. I was evil-riding a little bastard too. I'm not good. I never said I was a good person. I learned from a lot of my mistakes. Okay, what do you want me to start from the very beginning? How I got into the neighborhood? I want to start. You want me to explain to you everything how the neighborhood was at the beginning and everything? I do. The neighborhood that Larry and TJ ran around in the early 1990s is called Aventail. After school, they hung out around the intersection of Belmont and Sacramento Avenue. It was just really ganging and festive back then. The neighborhood was really bad at the time. A lot of stuff happened. A lot of bad stuff. In the 90s, gang violence in Chicago was exploding. News reports were warning about kids carrying guns and shooting other kids. A lot of those stories focused on the south and west sides in African-American and Latino neighborhoods. But the mostly white neighborhoods on the north side had their own gangs that stood on corners, fired guns, and fought over territory. People were always talking, "Oh, it's crazy on the south side." No, the north side was just as crazy as the south side. Same thing. This was the tough on crime era. Soring murder rates became a talking point for politicians. Gang kids were described as "super predators." And the police felt a lot of pressure to take back the streets. To reach out to the youth, three Chicago police officers created this anti-gang rap video. It wasn't the most successful police outreach initiative. I was just stupid. I follow them in people, trying to be cool. For Larry, there were lots of reasons to join a gang. I just joined so I could have girlfriends. Back then, being a gang bringer, they thought it was cool to be like that. It had parties, it's steel stuff, they break stuff. It was fun. The brick people's cars were bricks. They would go by, beat up people, you know, get into all kinds of trouble. We got to rush off it, you know. And if that rush wasn't enough, there were plenty of drugs. Powdered cocaine, blottered acid. There were just drugs everywhere. You know, everybody was doing it. And there was the thing to do at the time. There was also some stuff going around the neighborhood called wiki sticks. There was embombing fluid and PCP dip joints. I even smoked some of that shit. I'm telling you, you don't want to do that shit, man. That was a strong shit. In those days, it was gang graffiti all over the neighborhood. At the top of one building on West Belmont, there was a big mural that said, "SCR." That stands for Simon City Royals. That's the gang that TG and Larry joined as kids. And to join, they had to go through an initiation. Here's TGA again in his deposition. How was it that you became a member of the Royals gang in 1991? Oh, we, uh, took a beating in. A group of gang members would punch and kick you for a certain number of minutes. It's called being violated in or "V"ed in for short. Larry Tufel. I got a V-ed in for like two minutes. A bunch of guys jumped on me and beat me up. What's that like? Uh, it was terrible. I mean, you know, I'm just a skinny bag of bones at the time. They were bigger guys, you know. I was probably the skiddingest guy, the youngest guy that joined besides TGA. Um, now, were you, I've seen some reference to being a member of the Peewee Royals? Is that a fair characterization? Great. What does that mean? The Peewee Royals was kind of a junior division of the larger Simon City Royals. Peewee would, um, encompass like what ages? 15, 16 and under. Okay. TGA and Larry had some things in common. They were both mixed race, half white, half Latino. They both didn't really know their fathers. And Larry was just six months older than TGA. We were all basically just kids. You know, we just reached puberty at the time. You know, when you first meet TGA, and what did you think of them? He came to the neighborhood. You know, he was a younger guy. We hung out, you know, we did some bad stuff. Drugs, alcohol, they all goes with it. And, um, I didn't really like him at first. Larry says TGA was trying to prove himself all the time. TGA was small, only five, four and 115 pounds, but he was a fighter. He loved his gang that he was true to his gang, though. He was down for the Royals, you know? He felt empowered by the Royals, and he'd punish other kids for breaking gang rules. He was the first one that would jump out of anything happened. He was pretty down. Walking around the neighborhood, these Peewee members of the Royals, these 12-year-olds, they'd be armed. Prior to your arrest in '93, did you ever possess any type of gun? Yes. He always had a gun on him all the time. I mean, I had a gun on me too. A good thing that I never shot anybody when any of those guns, man, because, man, I could have been in prison myself. Where would you get these guns from? The older members of the Royals. One of the main jobs assigned to the Peewee Royals was packing a gun and patrolling the neighborhood for rival gang members to defend their territory. They called it "working security." When you're working security, who would be the main opposition gangs that you might encounter? The insane dooses. The Lion Kings, the Gay Lords. According to the Chicago gangs, there's two different types of families. They're either people or folks. People or folks. Those were the two alliances that almost all the gangs in Chicago fell under. It was a system set up by gang leaders years earlier, sort of like the American League and the National League. Simon City Royals were folks, so if you were in another gang under folks, like maniac Latin disciples or the Spanish cobras, then the royals were cool with you. If you're a gang member under people, like the Latin Kings or the Bicellords, you were definitely not okay with the royals. That's how it went back in the neighborhood. You were either folks or people. So a kid from the Latin Kings comes on your block. What happens? Oh, if they would either get beat up or killed, that's how it was. Like, if we walked into the neighborhood, we get shot and killed, too. Gun violence is still one of the biggest political issues in Chicago, but in the early 90s, there are almost twice as many gun deaths in the city as there are now. In 1991, there were 922 murders. Nearly a third of all victims were under the age of 21, more than ever before. One summer day in Avondale in the early 90s, Larry was in his first gun battle. All the royals were in the park. We were hanging out in two carloads of these other gang came. I think they were deuces. They came out with a bunch of bats and pipes. They came to attack us and boy, did they make a mistake? Because one of the royals came, bring out a gun and started shooting at them. They were running for their life. This would happen in broad daylight. It was crazy. I never seen anything like that before. That was too much for Larry. He decided to get out of the royals for a little while. Titu was down for his gang in East State. Did you ever shoot a gun? Yes. How many occasions? I don't remember. Do you ever shoot? Can anybody? No. So the time he would shot a gun would just be what fool around? Yeah, I'm talking about this. But shooting real bullets? Yes. Okay. Where would you do target practice then? On a band in real-world tracks. A 13-year-old kid in a violent gang, doing drugs, carrying a gun, a bit angry. Later, at his murder trial, T.J. was described as, quote, "one kid crime wave." The judge called T.J. a little punk, too young to shave, but old enough to commit a vicious murder. When T.J. was found guilty of murder, his mother broke down. He was originally sentenced to 50 years in prison, but his mom's anguish caught the judge's attention. The judge told T.J. "I'm going to take five years off your sentence because of your mother's reaction when the verdict was read, but it makes me wonder where she was when you joined a gang." That comment still stings. I was working, keeping our asses off the wolf, or that's where I was. You can't, I don't care. You could be the best, out. There's no book on kids. Nobody tells you how to raise them. And you cannot be with your kid 24/7. It sounds like you really didn't have much of a relationship with your father growing up, is that true? Correct. Okay. Your mom, his name is Victoria, correct? Yes. How often do you talk to your mother? Almost every week. Do you have a, are you on good terms with your mom? Yes. All right. I wanted to interview Victoria Hementas for some time. So, in a diner, on a busy street in your old hair airport, I finally got to sit down with her. Uh, yeah, do you want to find that one? You know hungry? Well, are you hungry? I used to have, um, two eggs over medium. Before I started recording, Vicki had asked the server what her name was. Once I finished ordering, Vicki made a point of saying her name. Okay, that sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, Claudia. So you're a good memory, huh? Yes. You remember her name? That's part of, I did this on my life. Oh, the server. Where are you really? Vicki drinks a cup of coffee with cream, but she won't eat anything. She's wearing a red, white, and blue cup shirt. She seems tired, but she's a really good company. Vicki tells me about her first restaurant job. She was 11. My sister was in a restaurant. She got me a part-time job on weekends. She put a wig and falsies on me. To make me look 16. Coffee was only 12 cents. In all the court documents and articles, Vicki comes across like a lioness. She's a fierce defender of her son. I ask her about TJ's father. What was his full name? With Cardinal McGallor, he managed. And Vicki went by Rick? Yes. I call him Rick Ash. Everybody calls him Rick Ash. Rick is Mexican. Vicki is Polish. A hundred percent both side, she tells me. Vicki's dad was a Chicago firefighter. Her mom was a homemaker who had 10 kids. I do, thanks. You know, thank you. Vicki had two kids with Rick, Angela and Thaddeus. When the kids were really young, the family moved between Chicago and California. Rick was a paramedic. Vicki a bank teller. We have two blocks on Disneyland. Do you really? Yeah, so the kids were going to the pool and we could see the fireworks on Disneyland. TJ and Angela only got to watch the fireworks though. They never went inside Disneyland. They couldn't afford it. I wanted to house the white pick of things, sit around the porch waiting for the grandkids. That's the life I wanted. Vicki doesn't have many good memories of her marriage to Rick, or Rick Ash, as she calls him. He was abusive and TJ tried to protect his mom. One time Rick went to hit me. And TJ was in the peanut butter rejoice. And he threw it at his dad. He said, "Don't touch my mother." And he was funny because the sandwich was tucked through his face. And then he went to go hit. TJ and I grabbed a knife. And I said, "You don't touch my kid." And nobody got the right to touch my kids. Oh, me and me. And then my mom started recognizing the sign. I'd have a black eye or a bus at two. She goes, "What happened?" And it's those, "Hit the cabinet." You know, running to the door. Hit the dashboard, had a slammer and a brakes. You know, always making up stories. And she goes, "I raised you for 18 years." And obviously you get married and now you're the clumsiest person in the world. So, didn't she tell me? Yes, thank you. But then she told my dad. I never seen my dad so angry. Did he approach Rick about it? Oh, yeah. He grabbed him by his collar, put him against the wall. And said he goes, "I'm old school Chicago." They could drain and empty Lake Michigan still won't find you. Because you put one more hand in my daughter. Vicki got fed up with it. And one day, just packed up and hitch-tike back to Chicago with her two kids. She became a single mom. After we left the diner, I stayed in touch with Vicki. She messaged me on Facebook saying, "I'd like to do a story on TJ. Our life, our family, the good, and the bad." We started meeting up a lot more. Sometimes she'd been nursing a Miller light and getting through a pack of menthol cigarettes. I say, "No jumping on the couch." In the early 1990s in Chicago, away from Rick, Vicki struggled to raise two kids. You know what they did? They were dancing too. I can't help falling in love with you by Elvis Presley. And they would fall on the couch and throw the pillows and broke about nine pieces of Norman Rockwell. And then they thought they were slick. They just like glued them together. Once there's a crack in a Norman Rockwell, it ain't worth shit. Yeah, from our essence. As much as Vicki tried to keep a nice home, their lives are pretty unstable. Do you remember where you went for a fifth grade at school? Riley. Do you attend any other schools in fifth grade other than Riley? I don't know. During his deposition, TJ struggled to remember all the grade schools he went to. I don't remember. Do you remember what school you went to in third grade? I can't recall. Second grade, do you remember? TJ said he was enrolled in eight different elementary schools during his childhood. Why did he bounce around so much? Either landlord raised a rent, so we would have to move. I could have stayed with my mom or something, but I wanted to just us. I was raised in the same house from kindergarten to eighth grade. And I wanted my kids to go to the same school like, you know, too much pride. Do you want to stop for a second? Mom, okay. Thank you. I asked Vicki if there was anything she would have done differently if she had to do it all over again. Yeah. I want to drink so much. I had more patients with the kids, but working two and three jobs. And I'm not looking for an excuse. I just wish I had more patients. Vicki didn't have much control in her life, so she focused on the things she could control, like how her house looked. I wanted my housing back in. I wanted my kids to close folded this way. Wanted where you can lock on my floor, with white socks. I just like a clean house. It was difficult to keep a clean house with two young kids. If TJ didn't do what Vicki said, he'd feel his mother's wrath. He got his ass kicked. Even the angel said the other day, she says that I never remember you hitting me when you were sober, only when you were drinking. So, and if there was a spoonward dish in the sink, I walked the rest of the way up at three o'clock in the morning and made a washer. I said, "You think I'm working two jobs for me? You were in Nike's, I'm working pay less." When he was in the fifth grade, TJ started escaping the house and spending more and more time away from home. Vicki heard a rumor that he was trying to join the Simon City Royals. And I grabbed him, the only gang you got is your family. In big cities like Chicago and LA, a gang and your family are often intertwined. Gangs have been around for a long time and they're generational. Did you have any family members that were members of the Royals prior to you being a member of the Royals? Yes. Who said? My uncle, Mark. My uncle, Kermit. His uncles were his only father figure. Mark and Kermit were Vicki's brothers. She went to have a little talk with Mark. And I said, "Look at Mark, your punk gang is trying to get my son to join. To pee, wheeze, whatever the hell you guys call it." I said, "If my son joins this gang, it's I knew. I will never, ever, ever forgive you for that." And he goes, "Ah, he ain't joining, but TG went behind their backs." TG was beaten, violated into the pee-wee Royals. He's got a bunch of new friends. He and Larry are doing drugs, partying. He's carrying a gun around the neighborhood. Vicki claims she didn't see much evidence of all that, but she was working two or three jobs. I know he didn't bring no damn gun in my house. You know, I did his clothes. I did everything. Never found no drugs. Maybe he was different than he was at home, because all he cared about was what's for dinner. You know. On February 3rd, 1993, at 6.25 pm, Larry Tufull was walking east on Belmont Avenue with his friend, Eric Moro. Larry was 14. Eric was older. 19. I don't know how those minors overpowered him in the first place and how he got shot like that. You know. He was such a strong person, Eric. He was a tough guy. You know, he was never involved in gangs or anything. Two kids approached them from behind, a fight ensues next to a honey-baked ham store. One of the kids pushes Eric up against the wall. He pulls out a gun and shoots Eric once in the chest. The two kids run away. Larry goes to help Eric. He was holding his chest and then he just collapsed and I grabbed him and I was holding them. And that's when everybody came out after them. People were screaming, "Call the police. I was screaming, "Call the police." Minutes later, Eric dies. The day Eric Moro got shot. Your recollection is that you did go to school that day? Yes. After school, what do you recall happening? I got on the bus. It's what I usually do. And I got off the bus at the intersection of Belmont Sacramento. And why did you get off the Belmont Sacramento? Because I see Eric and Larry hanging out right there in the corner. Eric was friends with royals like Larry and TJ, but he was an in a gang. While they were all standing on the corner, Larry and TJ see a school bus go by. There were some gang bangers inside the school bus and they were flashing gang signs. So we started flashing back. Eric supposedly got mad and yelled at TJ to cut out the stupid gang signs. Prosecutors cited that altercation as TJ's motive for later shooting Eric. TJ admits to throwing gang signs, but says there wasn't a fight. Prosecutors also said TJ had a gun earlier in the day and they had some evidence for it. That same day, TJ, Larry and Eric were visiting a friend in the neighborhood. TJ had a gun and it was in the hallway and he was bragging about it and flashing around waving it around and Eric seemed dead and told him to get the fuck out of the hallway at leave. That happened earlier before he got shot. TJ says he didn't even have a gun that day. What happens next? We went to the playground and we played basketball for a while there. And why did you leave? I had to go home. Why? Because I was supposed to go straight home that day from school. Vicki had given TJ a curfew because he was failing seventh grade. That day he was supposed to go straight to his grandmother's house and do his homework. He was a little late. I got mad at him. I told you to come straight home. You know, well, we called Granny's house home. So I know he was there by 5 o'clock. Vicki was at Granny's that evening before working the graveyard shift at a restaurant. Do you remember actually seeing your mom was she present? Yeah, she was there. And you actually talked to her? Yeah. TJ says he didn't start his homework right away. He got distracted. My cousin, Chester, was there. He had brought his video game over. I was a Sega. I believe he got for Christmas or something like that. That's what we did. We played video games. He was on the game and I stood in the head. I said, get off the goddamn game and get the guy they want them now. Before he went off to work. Right. According to TJ and Vicki, TJ then started his homework. And that's what TJ was doing at 6.25 pm, while Eric Moro was being shot about a mile away. Around 7 o'clock, Vicki went to work at the restaurant. Several hours later, TJ climbed onto a couch in his grandmother's front room and went to sleep. Around 3.30 in the morning. So, let's talk when the police came to your house. What do you remember happening? I remember them banging on the doors and on the windows, waking everybody up in the apartment that was there. We were all scared. Most of the people there went in front of me were kids. Who answered the door? My grandmother. Then what happens? The police, they come in. They exit TJ. What did you do if anything? I told them I was TJ. Did the police say anything else to you? Inside the house. They told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back. They told my grandmother they were taking me to a house being arrested for murder. Vicki left work around 6 in the morning. She then went to her mom's house. And I walked in about, say 6.30. And everybody jumped up. The police came into TJ. My mom didn't call me because she said that TJ's last words were, "Don't worry, Granny, I'll be right back. It's a mistake." So I didn't think I needed to call you. And I said, "Mom, that's my son. You call me." She goes, "You were to walk off the job." I said, "Damn right, I would have walked off the job." You know, she goes, "But he said it would be right back." TJ wouldn't come home again for 16 years. Next time on Motive. We have a vision of what a kid locked up is like. He's a really thug gang banger, as they say. And when you meet him, wait a minute. It's like I'm my grand kid. I'm like, "Neth you." You know? It really seemed to me that a lot of this case was based on a public narrative of fear. I believed in our justice system. Now you can take it and shove it up your ass. Motive is a production of WBZ Chicago based on original reporting from the Chicago Sun times. I'm Frank Maine, the producer is Colin McNulty, the executive producer is Kevin Dawson, our engineer is Shelley Stephens, special thanks to listeners whose financial support of WBZ made this podcast possible.