http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 48937.html

June 7, 2006, 11:48PM

A sad and familiar story that ended with tragedy
By ROBERT CROWE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

After Gabriel Granillo's father was deported last year, relatives of the teen and his older brother opened up their homes to the boys, but the youths had already chosen their street family above all else.

Granillo's affiliations with a street gang cost him his life Tuesday when he was savagely beaten and stabbed by a rival group. Police did not identify the gangs, but family members think the teen victim and his 17-year-old brother were linked to the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

Although police and the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office have said Gabriel Granillo was 14, family members say the teen would have celebrated his 16th birthday in August.

Two youths with Granillo at the time of his death were taken into custody by police, who would not identify the young men, but family members said one youth is Granillo's brother.

"They deported the father, and everything went down, but (Granillo) was a good kid," said Art Martinez, an older cousin who took Granillo and his brother in when their father was sent to his native El Salvador. "I tried helping them out, but it didn't work ... I felt kind of guilty because maybe I didn't do everything I could to help them."


'A sense of belonging'
To those who work with Houston's Hispanic youth gangs, Granillo's story is a familiar one: The son of an illegal immigrant, left largely to fend for himself when his father was deported, got into trouble as he fell under the sway of similar youths involved in gangs in Houston's immigrant neighborhoods.

"They come together around a sense of belonging or some place where they feel comfortable with people like them," said Charles Rotramel, executive director of Youth Advocates, a group that counsels teens in the juvenile justice system.

Rotramel said he has seen an increase of youths with gang affiliations enter his program. MS-13, authorities say, is an especially violent gang with roots in El Salvador, Guatemala and Los Angeles.

Typical teen members of Hispanic gangs today are likely first-generation American or the children of immigrants who grow up with conflicting cultural identities, he said. For the increasing number of youths who have seen parents deported, gang life has become an alternative to moving to a parent's strange and foreign native country.

As gang activity by notorious groups like MS-13 has increased in Houston, the desire to fall into that lifestyle becomes too great for some at-risk youth. In Granillo's case, he and his brother had many family members in Houston, though they weren't that close. Peer pressure and distress of losing a father to deportation may have led him to gangs, family members said.

Granillo, born and raised in Houston, was one of three children whose parents immigrated to the United States from El Salvador in the early 1980s. Their father, Ivan Gabriel Granillo, 40, and mother, both from El Salvador, met and married in Houston. The children's mother died 13 years ago when she gave birth to Granillo's younger sister, who lives in California with her grandmother.

"He was the one I loved the most, why did they take him from me?" said the grandmother, Ofelia Granillo, 59, through tears. She flew to Houston on Wednesday upon hearing of her grandson's death Tuesday.

In the 24 years Ivan Gabriel Granillo lived here illegally, he never attempted to become a legal resident, Martinez said. His alien status caught up to him when he was arrested by Houston police for a misdemeanor charge. He spent about six months in jail before being deported for failing to provide immigration papers.


In his brother's footsteps
Before he was deported, the father had worked hard to provide for his two sons and daughter. His 13-year-old daughter had lived with her father off and on, but recently, she has been living with her grandmother because her father wanted her to have a mother figure, Martinez said.

"Kids like this, they feel isolated and alienated and completely lost," Rotramel said.

Martinez thinks Granillo followed in his older brother's footsteps. He said the 17-year-old has not spoken with family since his brother's death.

"He wouldn't even talk to his grandmother," said Martinez. "He's in shock."

Records show the last regular Houston Independent School District campus Gabriel Granillo attended was Tinsley Elementary School. Granillo was sent to a juvenile detention center last year after he and other youths attempted to steal a car. After Granillo was released, he went to live with Martinez and enrolled in the Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program as part of his probation. He attended only six days in April. Martinez and family members said they would occasionally see him on the street, and they think he was living with a girlfriend. They don't know where the brothers were living.


Father hospitalized
Martinez said Granillo's father began having problems with the older brother shortly before he was deported, but it wasn't until after he was sent to El Salvador that the youths seriously fell into gangs.

"Their father even told them, 'I would rather see you in jail than dead,' " Martinez said. He added that the father, who has been ill, was hospitalized after hearing of his son's death.

Granillo's cousin, Iris Moreira, 15, had lived in Houston her whole life but only met Granillo a year ago. The two quickly developed a close bond.

"He was really funny, always made you laugh when you had bad times. He was a true friend," Moreira said. "He was young but he knew how to handle stuff."

Though Rotramel has seen an increase in Houston's gang activity, the level of violence by teenage gang members has remained relatively low.

"This could be one of those things that tips the violence," he said. "It's not like the early '90s when you had frequent murders of 14- to 16-year-olds."

robert.crowe@chron.com