Left to right: Caleb, Dr. Dave, Zeb, Austin

On October 11th, Austin Getz, Caleb Siltler and myself went to visit a man named Dr. David J. Ores. Dr. Dave and his organization, called Fresh Start Tattoo Removal, work helps former gang members towards employment by removing their tattoos. Those tattoos often hamper one’s ability to find a job because when people think of gang members, they generally think of bad people. These people usually aren’t bad, but something like a teardrop tattoo could stand in their way. A teardrop tattoo represents the number of people the person has killed; one teardrop per dead guy. Dr. Dave told us about what he had to do to set up his organization, as well as his feelings on children in gangs. He said that one of the most challenging things about setting up the organization was getting other doctors to help. They all wanted to know what was in it for them. The other problem was funding. A laser tattoo removal machine costs somewhere around $300,000. When we asked him about his feelings on children in gangs, he said that he wasn’t allowed to ask those who came to him about their past. He also spoke about was the awkward situation that an adult was put in when they found out about a child in a gang, or dealing with substance abuse or other various problems. He said not betraying the trust of the person was important, but it was hard to tell their guardians without doing so. He said that he tried to get the person to tell their guardians themselves, and have a civilized talk about it. This really showed us the depth of the problem and how difficult it can be to put a stop to it. As we ended the interview, we asked if there was another organization he could point us to, and he gave us a few names, but he also offered to try and set us with a former gang member that could talk to us, and maybe the whole grade about his experiences. That is something we hope to follow up on.