Once he killed; now he’s back as peacemaker

Sareth Kim was slashed on his 7th birthday. Imprisoned for killing at 17, he’s back on the street, trying to settle disputes among rival gangs.

Friday, February 8, 2008
The Providence Journal (Providence, Rhode Island, USA)

PROVIDENCE — Sareth “Tony” Kim, a founding member of the Providence Street Boys gang, had killed a man.

At the time, he was still a teenager, but his life had been in a downward spiral for the better part of a decade.

Kim sat in his prison cell and wondered about his infant daughter. He also wondered why his so-called friends for life in the gang didn’t bother to visit or write him at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

Really, he thought, why continue to live life as a gang member?

“Everything is drama,” he said. “It’s all about putting other people down. It’s so negative.”

He had made peace with rival gang members from the Oriental Rascals and Laos Pride. He had also earned his GED — high school graduation equivalent degree — and took classes in anger management and developing life skills.

Today, Kim, 32, is a free man and father of three who lives a productive life as a senior streetworker for the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence on the city’s South Side. He uses his experiences as a former gang member to resolve disputes between rival gangs and keep kids out of trouble. He helps them stay in school and find jobs.

“They know that I’ve been through it,” he said. “The main thing is that they trust me. They can come to me for anything.”

Kim was part of the gang culture back in the early ’90s, when it first took hold in the city’s West End and South Side. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, the first son of a family that had escaped the killing fields of Cambodia. His childhood in Providence was entrenched in violence that he experienced or witnessed as a first generation immigrant. He quickly learned that it was safer to hang with a gang than to be “punked” by other gangs or ethnic groups.

“I was just full of anger,” he said. “I decided that I would rather victimize someone else than be a victim.”

Kim was just 7 when he had his first bad experience on the street. It was his birthday, Jan. 1, 1983, and his mother, Savoeun, who worked long hours in a factory, gave him $5. He was excited about the prospect of buying goodies at a corner store on Elmwood Avenue, a short walk from the family’s apartment.

Kim bought candy and stuffed the change in his pants pocket. As he left, a man approached and grabbed his candy. Then, he reached into the boy’s pockets and stole his change.

“Let me see your hand!” the robber yelled.

Kim extended his hand and the guy sliced his palm. He ran home dripping blood on the newly fallen snow.

A year or two later, the Kim family bought a house on Waverly Street in the West End. Tony Kim remembered seeing a man shot outside his home and hobbling toward Cranston Street with a gunshot wound. Once he reached Cranston Street, a car pulled up and a barrage of gunfire finished him off.

There was no escape from the bloodshed.

One afternoon, a few years later, Kim was heading home from Samuel Bridgham Middle School. He and his friends were planning to play volleyball in the park near the Messer Street firehouse.

Suddenly, a wild shootout broke out between the Asian Boyz and Tiny Raskal Gang.

Bullets were flying and several gang members were hit. Kim saw one man get shot in the head, and he thought, “This is the world that I have to accept and live in.”

Kim said the Asian Boyz and Oriental Rascals both wanted him to join their gangs. He was hanging out with the gang members on a daily basis and one of his best friends was part of the Asian Boyz.

One day, several of the gang members asked Kim whether he wanted to join them on a trip to Minnesota. He was thrilled with the possibility of taking a vacation to a faraway place. Since he had arrived in Rhode Island when he was 3, Kim had never left the state.

Now, this group of older teenage boys wanted to include him in a getaway trip. Kim, who had little adult supervision, agreed to go.

“I never told my parents anything,” he said. “My dad worked two jobs all through my childhood, and my mom worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. I’d hardly see my parents. They worked hard, but they missed out on my childhood.”

Kim joined about 8 to 10 other Asian Boyz and Oriental Rascals and they took two cars to Minnesota. Halfway there, Kim learned that the gang members were plotting a home invasion of a Cambodian gambling operation.

In Minnesota, they stayed in an apartment and someone delivered a bag with about 30 handguns and shotguns. Kim said two of the gang members argued over a handgun. One of them grabbed the gun and jokingly pointed it at him and another gang member. Then, he loaded a bullet into the gun and spun the chamber. He placed the barrel to his head and pulled the trigger.

The explosion of the report was deafening. Kim’s friend had blown his brains out. The gang members got rid of the guns and the police arrived. The home invasion never went down, and the Rhode Island boys headed home.

“I came back traumatized again,” he said.

Kim decided to turn his back on the Asian Boyz and Oriental Rascals. He told them that he was done with the gang life. He was a freshman at Central High School, but he was skipping more classes than he was attending. He was constantly getting into fights and getting suspended.

Kim spent most days hanging out with friends in the attic of a house. They would head out and steal bikes in Warwick and Cranston. One day, a group of Oriental Rascals burst into the attic and warned them against forming their own gang. Kim said they had no intention of forming a gang until the Oriental Rascals confronted them.

In response, they formed the Providence Street Boys. They set out and desecrated all the Oriental Rascals graffiti in the West End. In no time, scores of young people across the city wanted to join the new gang. Most of the gang members were Cambodian and Laotian.

The gang members had no great master plan. They hung out, played volleyball and basketball and watched one another’s backs.

About six months later, the Providence Street Boys were involved in a large rumble with the Oriental Rascals at the public park off Messer Street. The newcomers outnumbered the Oriental Rascals and won the battle.

Tony Kim and the Providence Street Boys had become a force on the streets of the city.

A few weeks later, though, the Laotian boys broke away from the Providence Street Boys and formed their own gang — Laos Pride.

A few weeks before Christmas and his 18th birthday, Kim’s world came crashing down.

On the afternoon of Dec. 9, 1993, the police received a report that a man driving a van had been shot and killed on Waverly Street. The day before, Kim’s older sister had been raped by the van driver, Samang Pha, 27, of Providence.

Tony Kim and five of the Providence Street Boys decided to take justice into their own hands.

They had planned on abducting the man at gunpoint and bringing him to the basement of Kim’s house at 48-50 Waverly St. But during the confrontation, Kim’s .357-magnum handgun discharged, sending a bullet into Pha’s face. Kim told police that he intended to wound — not kill — Pha.

Kim pleaded no contest to manslaughter and received a 30-year sentence —10 years to serve and 20 years suspended. The other five gang members also were arrested and spent time in the state Training School or the ACI.

Kim spent about four years in prison before, on his first attempt, he was paroled. He feels fortunate that he is able to work for the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence and give back to the same streets where he wasted his adolescence. He worries about young people who seem more impressed than ever with the gang lifestyle.

“It’s more accepted,” he said. “Now, it’s more of a trend. Everybody wants to be a gangster.”

Teny Gross, executive director of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, said that Kim’s ethnic background and experiences as a gang leader are critical in resolving disputes.

He said Kim has placed himself in harm’s way on many occasions, and he likened his role in the community to that of a soldier in Iraq.

“He has a strong passion for his community,” Gross said. “He is doing something that we should all be grateful for.”