As part of its strategy to reduce violence and prevent gangs from establishing themselves in Greater Sudbury, Greater Sudbury Police asked Rick Osborne, a former bike gang member, to speak about the realities of gang life.
On April 20, local residents and teens came to Sudbury Secondary School to listen to Osborne speak about his story. In the next week, he will speak at seven high schools, one elementary school, and Cecil Facer Youth Centre. He has already spoken at the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth (SACY).
"It's about letting the kids know about what the life is," Osborne said. "And when I mean the life, a gangster, this whole myth of gangsterism, what's in media. Gangster line of clothing, gangster music, different things that bring kids into the whole mystique of what gangster is."
"So I talk to them about what it really is. I talk to them about what drugs really are, how drugs affect you, choices, different things like that."
Though Osborne joked at the beginning of his presentation, he quickly settled into telling his story.
Rick Osborne speaks to a crowd at Sudbury Secondary School on April 20. Photo by Stacey Lavallie.
He told the audience about how he became hooked on drugs at 14 years of age, how he had been raped by a pedophile in Florida at 16, and how he became involved in a biker gang. By 20 he was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant, and by 21 was in prison.
He shared stories about his time in the penitentiary, kicking his drug habit, and the people who helped him become the 17th person in Canadian history to get a university degree while imprisoned.
Osborne said there's no easy way to say what attracts people to gangs. The circumstances are different, depending on the situations going on in the area the gang forms. It could be a lack of family, a troubled upbringing, bullying, acceptance, or retaliatory gangs.
"There's a no set answer," Osborne said. "There's a lot of reasons why some kid would choose that as an empowerment. The problem is, we need to let them know that it's not an empowerment."
Osborne currently spends about half his year travelling between schools, police services, youth groups and other organizations. The other half is being spent in northern Quebec with Cree teens and young adults. His wife, a teacher he met when she taught inmates in the penitentiary, will be joining him to help create youth and young adult programs specifically for the area.
Osborne's visit to Sudbury is part of Provincial Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (PAVIS), which saw the creation of the Greater Sudbury Police's guns and gangs task force. In the first phase of PAVIS, the guns and gangs task force began investigations which led to the seizure of thousands of dollars worth of drugs, vehicles, and the proceeds of crime.
In February, Anna Maria Barsanti, the education co-ordinator with PAVIS and Greater Sudbury Police Insp. Bob Keetch brought Ron "Cook" Barrett to Sudbury Secondary to speak about street gangs and what communities can do to prevent them from establishing a foothold.
This started the PAVIS' second phase, which is to educate and engage the community.
For more information about PAVIS, contact Barsanti at 675-9171 ext. 231.
For more information about Rick Osborne, visit www.truthforteens.com.
Rick Osborne tells his story
"I'll tell you how I became a monster," Rick Osborne said.
Osborne said he didn't have any of excuses, as he came from a "good family," but one where his father was away often on business. He was bullied during Grades 6, 7, and 8, and when he began high school, became friends with a 20-something man who lived near the school.
It started because of the man's sports car. Billy, the man who owned the car, let Osborne stop by after school to help him work on it, and after a month, offered to take him for a ride. After the ride they stopped at an apartment, where Billy and a friend injected Osborne with methamphetamine and heroin.
Osborne became addicted to drugs and moved onto the streets, and eventually down to Florida, where he got a job cleaning beaches at night. He met an older man there, and one day went on a ride to get high with him.
The man was a pedophile.
Osborne escaped from his attacker, but had been stabbed several times. He survived and was returned to Canada by police, where his father picked him up. And then, Osborne got out of the car and walked away.
His encounter with a pedophile had given Osborne a hate for men, so he began working the streets as a wrecker, a term Osborne said was used for people who beat other drug users and dealers for their drugs and money. Eventually, he ended up in a biker gang, and by age 20, had a Canada-wide warrant. By 21, he was in a penitentiary.
"There's a synergy that exists in this world," Osborne said. "When you move in the right direction, people come in and work with you and you move along. You can't see it, you have to trust it and move in that direction."
After being returned to jail after a brief period out on parole, Osborne decided to go clean, and tried to turn his life around. A few weeks after this decision, a lawyer from a Queen's University came by, and asked if he could help Osborne.
"We had a good laugh," Osborne said. "Talk about an absurd question, right? So I go 'Since we're being stupid, I'd like to go to (a) drug treatment centre. Sault Ste. Marie would be nice. I quit drugs.'"
The lawyer spoke with the warden, and the warden got Osborne into a 10-day drug treatment plan at a different centre.
"Saved my life, saved my life, saved my life from the yard, saved my life from my addiction."
He came back clean, and managed to stay that way despite friends trying to give him drugs. A psychologist helped him face the psychological damage done that had caused Osborne to cut himself, and he eventually even faced the pedophile's assault against him in Florida.
The next person to come into the prison and help Osborne was an old professor from Queen's University."The most decrepit old man I've ever seen in my life (walks in)," Osborne said. "I spent two and a half hours with him...and he looks at me and goes... 'Rick, you seem like a smart guy, how come you don't have a university degree?'"
Rick Osborne's Queen's University ring, worth $887 when he graduated, could be worth up to $1,400 today, Dustin Silver, a Queen's University bookstore employee said. Photo by Stacey Lavallie.
The professor, who's name was Wilf, helped Osborne get his GED, and then helped him apply to Queen's University. To get in, he had to pass two courses with As and pay for the courses before taking them. Wilf helped Osborne the entire way, and he passed his courses, got into Queen's, and graduated. And Wilf kept a special promise to Osborne.
"'And when you graduate, I'll have your Queen's ring waiting for you,'" Wilf had promised, explained Osborne. "Guess what? In a box, with my gown, that professor did everything he said he was gonna do."
He showed off the gold ring, set with a large red stone, to the audience.
"The price tag on this was $887. So I'm the guy from the penitentiary that's got the $887 ring."But Wilf died before Osborne was out of prison. The older man had slipped and fallen.
"In 1999, when I started coming out of prison on passes...I went to see his wife Helen. And I sat with her... and thanked her for her husband. 'You gave me your husband the last three years, four years of his life. I could never thank you enough.'
"And she looked at me in the eyes, and said 'No, the other way around.'"
