Erasing signs of former life

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EAGLE. Idaho (AP) - Enrique Martinez has begun shedding the reminders of his former life as a member of a street gang in Caldwell.

It's a little painful.

Martinez, 25, dropped out of school in the fifth grade and turn to stealing and drugs, part of a gang life he advertised with tattoos.

On Friday, Martinez, a Boise sheet-metal worker who wants to study mechanical engineering in college, began parting with his tattoos, the last reminders of his life as the gang member ''Cholo.''

Second Chance Grace, a Meridian-ministry, is partnering with the Dr. Ink-Off program of Eagle River Medical Aesthetics, to make the tattoo removal procedure affordable for Martinez and others like him.

Ex-gang members can get laser tattoo removal for about $25 a treatment, regardless of the tattoo's size. That's cheaper than the going rate of between $35 to $45 per square inch, the staff said. Those under age 18 get tattoos removed for free.

In return, participants in the program must pass on kindness to others through community service, the Idaho Statesman reported Saturday.

As Dr. Ink-Off staff numbed his skin for the removal, Martinez explained that kids join gangs because they want to belong.

''A lot of people are looking to the streets for love,'' he said. ''It's a rough lifestyle. A person gets harder, and you don't really care about nothing.''

That no longer is true for Martinez, who says religion helped him find the way out in November 2005. He now helps out at Calvary Chapel, steering other kids away from gang life.

''I am denouncing it,'' he said of his former life, which included more than six years in prison. ''It is not my life anymore.''

His tattoo removal program will take several sessions, each about a month apart.

Lowell Urwin was among those scheduled to have tattoos removed.

Urwin, 25, Nampa, said he got into a gang because it was part of his family's lifestyle.

''I went down, all the way down,'' he said as he waited to have his tattoos removed.

His wife, Yolanda, 28, cried as she talked about how much the couple's life has improved since the lived in a tent in his mother's yard. They now live in a house of their own.

Yolanda said she never was involved in gangs, and gives credit to her family and God for helping pull Lowell out of the lifestyle.

She works as a baker, cosmetologist and real estate broker, and he is a merchandiser for soda products, they said.

''We can't get any better than we are now,'' Yolanda said.

Ryan McLaughlin, 30, Meridian, was a gang member in Oregon who moved to Idaho to sell drugs.

While he was in prison on a drug conviction, he got a tattoo below his collar bone that he was having removed. His 9-year-old daughter wanted the tattoo removed because it annoyed his wife and he has to wear clothes to cover it while he works as manager of a pizza restaurant.

''When I got out (of prison), I wanted to do something different with my life, raise my child, be a father,'' he said.

Julian Leon, 16, a student at Nampa's Skyview High School, and his nephew Juan Castillo, 16, got tattoos removed that read ''208.''

The tattoos weren't really gang-related, but some people thought they were and they violated school rules. A basketball coach helped them find the tattoo ministry.

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