Darren "Bo" Taylor, a former Los Angeles gang member who became a peacekeeper respected by street toughs as well as by law enforcement and community activists struggling to reduce inner-city violence, has died. He was 42.
Taylor died of cancer Monday in San Diego, according to his brother, Le-Chein.
After the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Taylor founded Unity One, a grass-roots organization that attacked gang violence through life-skills training as well as through conflict resolution on the front lines.
Taylor was a consummate mediator, whose years as a Crip gave him credibility and insight into problems that had divided the community and law enforcement into warring camps.
When the Los Angeles County jails were roiled by race riots five years ago, Taylor quickly assembled the gang leaders responsible for the violence and persuaded them to call off the fighting that left dozens injured.
He later led a program in the jails that reached 3,000 inmates with sessions to increase cultural awareness and impart concrete skills for managing anger and resolving conflict nonviolently.
"It was an unprecedented program in county jails," Sheriff Lee Baca said Tuesday, because it relied on the counsel of a man who had once been firmly on the other side of the law.
The classes were demanding, Baca said, but "Bo knew how to change lives for the better. He did it very well."
His organization received major funding from A Better L.A., a group founded by USC football coach Pete Carroll to empower communities to address urban violence.
Taylor took Carroll to some of the city's toughest neighborhoods to help him understand the origins of gang problems.
"We floundered around until we met Bo," Carroll said Tuesday. "He gave us inroads. He showed that only people with the community in their soul were the ones who could be effective."
Taylor was born in Memphis, Tenn., on Jan. 20, 1966, and moved to Los Angeles when he was about 5. When he was 14, he became a Crip.
He graduated from Los Angeles High School and at 18 joined the Navy. After four years, he was honorably discharged and returned to the city but drifted back into criminal life when he could not find a job. Involved in drug trafficking, he recalled being shot at seven times in one month in the same phone booth.
After repeatedly dodging death, he had a spiritual awakening and decided to change course. He figured he had attended 200 funerals of victims of street violence and, as he told National Public Radio last year, he "couldn't cry no more."
