Excerpts from

Babydoll, Gangster Disciple - Oral History

Part I - The Beginning

I’m 23 years old and from Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Some of the guys use to call me Babydoll, you can use that name. I was 13. Well, my boyfriend, he ran drugs from the cities [Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota] back and forth. He lived in Hibbing and just had affiliation with the Gangster Disciples through the cities and he ran drugs for them up north. Cuz there’s big money in drugs up north. So, that’s how he became affiliated.

But back when I was 13, I had been dating Kevin for a while by the time I became aware of everything that was going on. I had been dating him for about six months by then. He was five years older than me and I dated him for four years. I had never even touched a cigarette at that point.

My cousin died I got real angry, I just said well fuck the world then. I wanted him to take away my pain, in doing that he gave me the drugs that I needed. Over all I mostly used marijuana. I did some speed and experimented with cocaine.

The first night I tried anything, I did everything. I just didn’t wanna feel anything else, and so I said just take it away. I didn’t actually start with marijuana, so not necessarily does everybody start smoking pot. I didn’t wanna smoke pot, but I ended up doing that last.

I was angry at the world an decided, "what the hell, I might as well join in an do what I could." I didn’t really wanna live anymore, so I figured this was an easy way to do it without actually hurting myself on purpose. I guess I had a death wish. . . . . . . .

I got sexed in, cuz I told them that I wanted to be a member and I really wanted that secure family feeling and that’s how he kind a made it seem to me. I had to sleep with six members of the gang. Six members at different times, within three nights, it wasn’t all in one night. Most of them had come down from the cities, so it was not people that I knew or saw on a regular basis. And Kevin didn’t count, so that wasn’t fair.

After I became a member I just kind a got use to the way things were. I went through a period of adjustment where I was having a hard time adjusting to keeping the one life separate from the next. But then I got pretty good at it. I had a really good cover. I did not want my family to know what was going on, or what I was doing, or who I was in love with at all. I wanted to protect my family kinda from that, cuz I knew it was not something that they would be accepting of. . . . When I was in Grand Rapids I was a good student. I was studious, I was quiet, I stayed at home, I was involved in many community service projects, I was a Girl Scout, I was earning high wards in Girl Scouting. And then when I was in Hibbing I was a totally other person. I was able to let loose and be free and kind of do my thing and not have any consequences for it, cuz I never got in trouble for anything that I did. We never got caught. We were selling, and partying, and I never really got into the thievery or however you wanna say it, but that was a big part of the life.

Besides dealing drugs they were involved with a lot of thefts. I kind of was more of a cover than involved in the actual theft of anything in stores. They’d sell stuff that they’d take outa stores and stuff like that. Really in Hibbing that’s pretty much all they really did. There weren’t drive by shootings, or things that you would normally associate with gang activity. There wasn’t any of that, there wasn’t a lot of people that were highly involved. They had weapons to protect themselves, but they weren’t displayed, they weren’t showed, they were just there in case something happened.

In this double life I dressed a little differently when I was in Hibbing. I wore more jeans and t-shirts. I tend to dress preppie when I was in Grand Rapids to go with the cover that I was trying to make. And in Hibbing I did not dress preppie. You just kind of wear comfortable stuff. We wore blue [blue is the Gangster Disciple color], never wore red that’s for sure. But we didn’t wear rags when I was in Hibbing. Other than that., we didn’t really have a dress code. Just whatever you wanted, as long as it wasn’t red. . . . .

After Four years the relationship with Kevin ended. And it ended not very well. . . . By now I’m 17 and I just kinda, I stopped hanging out in Hibbing. I started hanging out in Grand Rapids and at that time I was still real good friends with Brad and Neil, two main guys from Grand Rapids’ Gangster Disciples. We just kinda hung out together. I seen them at Y dances and stuff like that and I knew that they were affiliated, they carried rags, they were very proud of them, they were very proud of it. I just knew them and kind of every once in awhile I’d say, "hey, let’s go do something." I kept in contact with people from the cities and I kept in contact with some people from Hibbing, but not very many....

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