A Blog By Tony Hicks

Second Chances

• What motivates you to keep going?

  My main motivation is Tariq. I know that I can never do anything to undo or make up for killing Tariq but I can live my life atoning for my actions; striving every day to make amends for the life I took and the lives I’ve traumatically impacted when I murdered Tariq and much later while I struggled to make the necessary changes in myself. My motivation now is to honor Tariq; acknowledging that I took his life away from him and living every day trying to make amends for that. I will forever carry the responsibility of what I’ve done to Tariq, his family and the community with me in my heart and at the fore front of my mind; the pain and suffering that I caused, the joy and time I stole. It propels me forward in this life constantly reminding me to be better than I was yesterday, to create peace where I can, to make better decisions striving to be the solution and not the problem.

  I’m inspired by that fact that Azim and my grandfather have taken the tragedy that I caused and reshaped it in order to help others; not allowing Tariq’s death to be in vain. I aspire to live my life rather free or incarcerated with that same sense of purpose. I hope to honor, in word and deed, the man that I murdered 24 years ago.

• What if you had one chance to talk to Tariq what would you say?

  Tariq, there are no words to express how sorry I am for taking your life and putting your family through so much pain. I bear the responsibility for what happened that night on January 21 1995 not just for murdering you but for the role I played leading up to my attempting to rob you and ultimately shooting and killing you. I could have prevented this senseless tragedy in a number of ways: by speaking out against it when the idea was first introduced in that small apartment to rob a pizza man or refusing to return to the apartment with the bogus address that you would be sent to. I could have said no to the gun that was handed to me as I watched you from across the street unable to find an address that I knew didn’t exist. But I did none of these because my need to be accepted by my peers meant more to me, at that time, then your wellbeing or your life.

  It’s sad as I look back on it, how I fought to hide my insecurities from the world instead of speaking to someone about them, getting help for them. I filtered my life through those insecurities and made decisions based on the distorted perception they provided me and one of those decisions ended your life, shattered the lives of all those that loved you and traumatized the community.

  I can’t comprehend what you must have felt that night I ambushed you, turning around to see me standing there with a loaded gun pointing at you demanding the pizza that you had already returned to the back of the car of your car. You were courageous in that moment refusing to allow yourself to be robbed and for standing for what was right.

  I often wonder if I would have your strength now? I know that I didn’t have it then. I was scared and weak inside trying to hide those feelings and others behind the mask that being a part of a gang provided me and the gun that I pointed at you. I wish I had been stronger then instead I acted out of my cowardness when I murdered you. I robbed you of the life you should have had, the love that you shared, the unlimited potential that you possess and I am extremely sorry for that. I don’t want to insult you by saying that I have the capacity to fully understand the impact on your family that your murder has had. I know that it has sent a ripple effect of confusion, pain and loss through their lives and it shames me now to know that I am responsible for not just your murder but the effect that your murder has had on so many others.

  Your father Azim forgave me for killing you after I was arrested. He even came to visit me in prison 3 years after your death. The compassion that he has shown me is humbling. I also communicate with Tasreen often, she has opened her life up to me and I feel so blessed to know her. Through them I have learned more about you and through you then I’ve learned about myself.

  You may not know this but I’ve begun to appreciate how your death has impacted so many young lives in a positive way. Through the foundation, named in your honor, Azim and my grandfather share our story to countless numbers of people providing a message of empathy, nonviolence, and forgiveness which continues to resonate for so many even after all these years.

  I greatly admire the work that they are doing with the foundation. It is an honor for me to be able to be a part of the good work that is being done in your name. I know that I can never do enough to make right what I’ve done. Murdering you was a decision I would take back if I could, I would give you back to your family if I had that power. I am striving, every day, to be a better person then I was yesterday. Over the years I’ve resolved the insecurities that I filtered my life through. I hope to be of service to others in a positive way now. I will spend my life making amends for taking your life and those I have hurt along this journey, I will do it all in your name Tariq.

• Are you okay?

  I am well. I still struggle with what I’ve done to hurt the Khamisa family as well as the community as a whole when I murdered Tariq. I will always carry the shame of my actions with me as a reminder of the person I was and the destructive impact I had on so many people lives.

  This has been a long journey for me, one I may not have been able to make without the love and support of my grandfather Ples Felix, the encouragement and reassurance of Azim and Tasreen Khamisa as well as other members of the TKF family. I am grateful to all of them for not giving up on hope for me even in those moments when I lacked hope for myself.

  Today, as a 37 year old man, I am in a better place mentally and emotionally then I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve in time, been able to identify and address the emotional issues that I carried with me the night I murdered Tariq and through the early years of my incarceration. I can now speak honestly about my past and the person I was without trying to run from the painful reality of what I’ve done. Honesty was something that, I know now, I lacked when it came to myself as well as the courage to wield it. It was also the first step in the journey from who I was to the person I am today. I’m grateful to have been given this opportunity for change. I am mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually well but the shame that I bear for Tariq’s murder will always be there because I took from him the same opportunity for change and growth that I’ve been afforded. Thank you.

• What do I think about TKF?

  I’m so glad that something extraordinary good like TKF was able to come out of tragedy of my murdering Tariq. It’s not often seen that out of senseless and chaos purpose is found. Azim having the strength to see into his own pain, after losing his own son, and recognize a desire to stop others from having to go through what I had gone through is a beautiful love letter to Tariq’s life and an example of service that I greatly admire and hope to emulate one day.

  I think the Tariq Khamisa foundation is a great organization that does a lot of good work speaking to kids about the importance of non-violence, forgiveness and peace. Their message is one that should be heard in every school and community in our nation because where reading, writing and arithmetic are important for a child’s future: empathy, compassion and personal responsibility through self-awareness are important for their development. I am impressed by the work that TKF does and I look forward to helping them make positive impacts in the lives of young people and the community.

• What are you plans for the future?

  As of right now I hope to get back to take college courses through correspondence. I would really like to finish getting a degree if possible so I will have something relevant to fall back on regardless of how old I am once I’m released from prison. I hope to assist in the work that the Tariq Khamisa Foundation is doing. I look forward to being able to work directly with Tasreen, Azim, my grandfather, and the many great people that are dedicated to the foundation & the kids that they hope to impact.

   

• Was it worth it?

  No, but if you ask anyone sitting in prison especially those serving life sentences “if it was worth it” and the vast majority of them would say “NO”. But beyond the lost of my freedom, it wasn’t worth the pain, & the lost that I had brought to the Khamisa family, as well as those that knew and cared for Tariq. It wasn’t worth the pain that I had caused my own family & the people that cared for me. And nothing that I was going through during the time up to my encounter with Tariq was worth his life. So no it wasn’t worth it at all.

• What Did You Feel Or Regret After You Killed Tariq?

  I was a child when I took Tariq’s life, in age, mentality and emotional maturity. Overwhelmed by all of the events leading up to my encounter with Tariq I felt numb immediately after taking his life. I wasn’t equipped to process about myself, my life or the life that I had just taken so the numbness felt more like a survival instinct then slow drift into oblivion. I was aware. I knew what was taking place but the numbness keep me from having to face the gravity of my actions. Only peers, all juveniles and members of the gang. allowed me the pressures to do any self assessment, as well as, providing the distraction I needed to maintain that numbness.

  The regret didn’t come until after I was arrested. Not because of my loss of freedom, which I’m sure everybody who ends up in jail feels but jail (juvenile hall at that time) isolated me from my peers and those distractions that helped to feed my numbness. Inside the walls of the juvenile center that numbness began to slowly fade; the space (at times in a single man cell) and solitude of incarceration, although restrictive, allowed me the room, emotionally to examine myself in some small why and what I had done. I had taken a life and in the process I had hurt a lot of people, people that I loved and cared about and people that never deserved that pain.

• Did You Want To Pull The Trigger?

  A few days after being arrested and placed in juvenile hall I was asleep in my cell and in the middle of the night a guy that worked there opened my door and asked me why I had killed Tariq. I only vaguely remembered this happening later and thought I had dreamt it. Almost a year later while talking to a staff member that had only worked my unit a handful of times he, the staffer, asked me if I remembered him. I didn’t. He told me that he knew Tariq and had went to school with him.

  “When I heard you were in this unit” he told me “I asked to get overtime here.” I didn’t know where this conversation was heading.

  “I opened the door to your cell and asked you why did you kill him? Do you remember what you told me?” he asked.

  I started to recall the dream-like encounter but I shook my head no.

  “You woke up out of your sleep and told me that you didn’t mean too and I believed that.”

  I think that what I told that staffer in the middle of the night, after being awaken and asked that question, is the truest thing said about that tragic night. I didn’t go out with the intention to hurt Tariq let alone kill him. It’s difficult to understand from the outside looking-in; it wasn’t easy to make sense of for myself. I was confused in that moment, my decision making felt like and slow-moving while the world around me sped up I was present and removed at the same time. When the command to pull the trigger came it was heard but in away that I was unfamiliar with and the response happen before I could process it. The sound of the shot is what woke my mind to my reality but it didn’t bring with it clarity only the acknowledgement of what I’d done; I’d killed a man.

  I don’t like to say that “I didn’t mean/want to pull the trigger” because I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to absolve myself of the responsibility of what I’d done or paint it as an accident when I alone supplied the pressure to the trigger that fired the gun. It wasn’t something that I thought through in the moment, my intentions at that time would not be weighed against my actions because the loss was to great.

• If you could give advice to your younger self, what would it be?

  If I could give advice to my younger self? I would tell myself that the horror moments in our lives are only temporary. Although they sometimes seem like forever you just have to keep going through it to get through it. That’s something that help me once I got older and I can understand it.

• What do you do for self-care?

  I spend time with my family when I can. It’s something that I was not able to do while I was incarcerated. It is something that a lot of us take for granted. I especially took it for granted myself when I was younger. Family can be so present in your life that is easy to lose track of how important they are in your life. So, when I want to I have self-care and kind of decompress from everything that’s going on around me, I spend time with my family and my friends.

   

• Was is hard to find forgiveness for yourself?

  Yes, I find forgiveness for myself is one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do. I still struggle with the knowledge that I have taken a life and there is nothing that I can do to change that. I’ve grown very close to the Khamisa family. They’ve helped me in so many ways and when I think about how much I have hurt them it’s still something that I struggle with.

   

• How do you feel participating in trainings, school programs and meetings for TKF?

   I love the energy, honesty and courage that it takes to participate in the training and school programs. Also, working with other people that are striving to positively impact our society is both inspiring and motivating.

   

• How are you doing now? Where are you finding your purpose and passion?

  I’m doing really well. I’m working full time as a plumber. I also continue to work towards building stronger relationships with my family and love ones, as well as volunteering with TKF. I’m staying pretty busy working to balance my work/life flow. I’m still discovering my purpose and passion; it’s something that is on my mind.

• What is your hope for the younger generation and how do you wish to impact them?

  My hope for the younger generation is that they have the opportunity to be exposed, to the ideas of restorative justice. Restorative practices have been so impactful on my personal journey, and I wouldn’t be here without them, or the support of the Khamisa family and my own. I want to be able to provide a true-life example of triumph over tragedy. We all deal with ‘things’ in our lives. We all have trauma and/or made mistakes at some point, but those ‘things’ aren’t the end result of who we are. We can change, we can grow, we can improve…even when it seems difficult. That’s how I hope to impact everyone.

   

• How did you get exposed to gang violence at such a young age?

  I unfortunately grew up in a neighborhood that was heavily impacted by gangs in what was South Central Los Angeles. A lot of members of my family had chosen a life of a gangster and when I was 8 years old a cousin that I was close to was ambushed, along with three other teenagers by a rival gang member and he was murdered. He was not the last family member to be lost to gang violence and I did not understand how this effected me or my world view at such a young age or how it feed the anger building in my young self.

   

• Tony, can you tell us what has surprised you the most about your life since prison? And, what has been your biggest challenge?

  What really surprised me is how fast the world moves outside the prison walls. When you’re incarcerated your time isn’t your own; your life is pretty regimented, which makes for a slow ticking clock. Here in a free world, you’re in charge of your own time management and everyone seems to be in a rush of some sort. One of my biggest challenges since I’ve been home is dealing with that time management after years of having an institution manage my life for me. It’s been a little bit of a shock to now be expected to manage for myself, as well as, to learn all the ways of the current world.

• Forgiveness is a process. Can you describe the process you have taken towards self-forgiveness?

  My process to self-forgiveness began with Azim forgiving me for murdering his son. it gave me the space to begin to examine my life and how I thought it directly connected to my life experiences up to that point. I worked backwards. First working to find forgiveness for those that I felt had harmed me, then examining my own actions against others one by one. Diving deep into the individual actions, I peeled back the layers of my emotional state during those moments, along with the trauma connected to them. Unpacking whatever pride, entitlement, anger, resentment or jealousy that had left my young ego bruised and ready to lash out. Exposing those layers was a long and difficult journey that was needed for my continued growth and healing.

• With the gift of hindsight, what advice would you give to young Tony on his 14th birthday (exactly 3 months before Tariq’s death)?

  That the things you go through and your day-to-day life are only temporary. They only hold as much weight on you as you allow them to.

• How has your association with TKF helped you in reaching vulnerable youth? What is the most impactful experience you’ve had in talking to kids today?

  My association with TKF provides me with the opportunity to go into schools and speak with young people about my life choices and where they’ve taken me. I’m hopeful that it connects with young people in a way that allows them to reflect on their own choices, and strive to make decisions that they can be proud of. The most impactful moments for me when speaking with young people is when I’m on stage and I’m answering questions from students. The depth and thoughtfulness of their questions shine through and shows that they have connected with the story in some way, and that hopefully will have a positive impact on them.

   

• As you contemplate the next 5 years, what do you hope to personally accomplish?

  I hope to continue to be of use in the restorative justice space and continue to build a life that makes all those who support me throughout these years, as well as myself, proud.

From Tony - Gratitude