What was life like at old Paso Robles boys’ school in 1980s? This ward shared his story
Across from Paso Robles Municipal Airport is a retired prison.
The property, formerly home to the El Paso de Robles Youth Correction Facility, could be converted for commercial use, perhaps as a warehouse facility.
The former military base served as a training facility for pilots during World War II.
After the war, Paso Robles bought part of the property to turn into a commercial airport and the California Division of Juvenile Justice, then known as the California Youth Authority, purchased the land next door.
Wooden wartime barracks were replaced by mid-century modern brick, block and flagstone buildings designed to last 100 years, according to a photo caption in the Jan. 30, 1954, edition of the Telegram-Tribune.
The El Paso de Robles Youth Correction Facility opened in September 1947, with then-Gov. Goodwin Knight on hand to dedicate what was commonly known as “the boys’ school.”
The hope was that giving troubled young men a structured environment would help them reform.
But the facility, which closed briefly from 1972 to 1974 due to declining commitments and then reopened, had mixed success.
Some wards took the opportunity to hit the reset button on their lives and get their high school diplomas and skill training. A number worked on fire crews that did the gritty work of cutting containment lines.
By the late 1990s, the culture at El Paso de Robles Youth Correction Facility had drifted from reform to punishment and sometimes brutality.
On Dec 24, 1999, the Los Angeles Times quoted San Luis Obispo County chief probation officer John Lum as saying that abuse was so pervasive he asked judges not to send wards to the facilities.
“In many cases we are making them worse, which is a real threat to society,” Lum told the Times.
According to the Times article, wards were punished at at least eight times from 1996 to 1999 by kneeling in handcuffs on the gym floor, sometimes until their legs went numb. Some threw up or fainted, while others had to sit in urine-soaked clothing.
The Paso Robles facility closed permanently on July 31, 2008.
On Oct. 14, a time capsule sealed in 1954 was opened during a ceremony organized by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
In 1988, as gangs were rising in public awareness, Telegram-Tribune reporter Phil Dirkx wrote a series of stories.
Black and Hispanic inmates outnumbered the white population at the California Youth Authority facility, and the majority of inmates came from urban areas where gangs offered security, status and cash.
Joe Quiroz, a gang expert on the staff, told the newspaper that gangs were a way of life. “It’s exciting to do shootings, to be shot at and to get high on PCP,” he said.
Quiroz asked inmates if they knew how they were likely to end up. Most said “yes.”
“I can’t remember talking to a guy who has been in gangs more than eight or nine years,” Quiroz said.
Phil Dirkx interviewed four inmates of El Paso de Robles Youth Correction Facility for a story published on Feb. 6, 1988.
The following is an excerpted version focusing on an inmate with the gang name Donnzelle Ru. His name shows up with the spelling “Donzelle” on a listserv about street gangs; entries, which are dated 2005 to 2008, say he is name-checked in a DJ Quik song, “Total Auto.”
Donnzelle: Drugs, Uzis and hand grenades
Donnzelle Ru, 19, is also black and from Compton.
His hair was cut short and he wore a gold-colored chain outside the neck of his sweater.
In Compton he was a member of the Treetop Piru gang.
At El Paso de Robles School he is shop foreman in a work-experience program.
He said he is not going back to his old neighborhood, because he has a job waiting for him when he gets out.
“A lot of people want to quit (gangs),” he said, “but they don’t want to lose their pride.”
He joined his gang when he was in junior high school, but said he had been hanging around it since he was in second grade.
“I grew up into it,” he said.
He doesn’t think street gangs will ever be eliminated.
The younger children in the neighborhoods grow up wanting to join the gangs like he did, he said.
“The little kids looked up to us and said, ‘Can we hang out with you?’ ”
He got into a big gang battle in 1985, he said.
One of his friends bought a car from a member of an enemy gang.
The enemy gang then took the car back and beat up his friend.
Members of his gang gathered at a neighborhood hamburger stand to plan revenge.
Donnzelle Ru said he got his Uzi submachine gun, and headed toward the enemy gang’s neighborhood on his motorcycle.
A friend riding on the back of the motorcycle was to use the Uzi, he said, but that raid was called off for lack of troops.
“A lot of people really didn’t want to go,” he said. They finally got enough people together and rode back into the enemy neighborhood.
This time, the Uzi was left behind, but Donnzelle Ru, still had his .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol.
Other gang members had 9-millimeter, .38-caliber and .25-caliber pistols.
They found enemy gang members hanging out at a house where they sold drugs, he said.
When the shooting stopped, two people were wounded.
The friend who bought the car had been shot in the mouth, and another member of his gang was grazed on the head by a bullet.
That boy had his head stuck out a car window when someone else in the car shot out through the window.
Donnzelle Ru said he was arrested later when members of his gang snitched on him to the police.
Getting guns, like the Uzi, wasn’t hard, he said.
People trade guns for drugs, and half the gang members sell dope, he said.
People have also traded hand grenades and dynamite for drugs, he said.
Drug dealers give phone-beepers to their salesmen, he said, and invest profits in legal businesses such as record shops and hamburger stands.
But Donnzelle Rue is disenchanted with gangs.
“Your friends snitch on you, and try to score with your girlfriend while you’re in here,” he said.
