JOY RIDE TO JAIL

Miami Herald, The (FL)
September 18, 1988
Author: JOEL ACHENBACH Herald Staff Writer

Hialeah detective Bill O'Connell drove to Babcock Park on East Fourth Avenue, stomping ground of a gang that calls itself CTO -- Car Thieves Only.

"They all think they're untouchable. The police can't touch them; the schools can't touch them; their parents can't touch them," O'Connell said, speaking of gangs in general. "They just enjoy beating up other people. It gives them a sense of power. We call them pussies. . . . They can't fight one-on-one."

At the park, three gang members walked out of the game room, where they had been playing ping-pong. They looked like a lot of gang members--startlingly short and skinny. Children, to be exact.

Miles Diegel, 15, said he had stopped stealing cars and that CTO had disbanded. He was now a member of YLO, the Young Latin Organization, one of the big gangs. "The worst thing I do now is fights," he said. But he had an auto theft charge pending and he was worried about it. He might have to go to jail.

"You don't think about that until you're locked up," he said.

He's been in Youth Hall. But there he's just surrounded by more gang members, and they form new alliances, make plans for the action when they get out.

Miguel Reynes, one of Miles' friends and a former CTO member, said, "You say you'll never steal a car again. But when you get out, you see your partners again, and they say let's go."

"They'll never stop the gangs," Miles said. "They just can't. They catch 'em. They lock 'em up. They get out. The only way you stop 'em is to kill 'em."

Miles is a quiet, slightly spooky boy who claims to have stolen 600 cars, usually just to ride around for a few minutes, park and steal another. All he needed was a screwdriver. He'd steal a car first thing in the morning and drive directly to his junior high school. He had a master key to 280ZXs and Toyota Corollas.

"It takes eight seconds to steal a car," Miles said.

"The longest I ever took to steal a car was 20 seconds," Miguel said.

Miles gave him a look -- like, what kind of car thief are you, to need 20 seconds?

CTO may have been good at heisting autos but it had a knack for getting busted. The fundamental problem: They looked like children behind the wheel. No one in CTO was taller than five- feet, seven-inches. Cops would see them and immediately flick on the blue light. Miguel said he once drove 110 miles an hour through a school zone and then a gas station trying to elude police. He crashed into a parked station wagon. When he woke up he saw a cop's gun pointed at his head.

"I've stolen maybe 150," Miguel said. "You just ride them around until you get bored."

Getting bored -- like, there's nothing worse imaginable.

"I've been going through this bulls--- with Miles for two years," said Miles' mother, Martha Dubon. She was divorced eight years ago from Miles' father, who works for a traveling carnival. "Two years. You beg and plead for them to stop, but what can you do?"

She said he stole his first bike when he was 10. A prosecutor gave him a tour of Youth Hall to scare him. Miles stayed out of serious trouble for a few years. But shortly before Christmas 1986 he was initiated by some older kids into the secrets of stealing cars. Like everyone else, he got caught. He was in and out of Youth Hall and special schools for delinquent kids. Early this year he escaped from the Biscayne Bay Marine Institute and stole a car, driving it to Bayside. A cop pulled him over. "Where'd you get that car?" the cop asked. Miles, calm as ever, said, "I stole it."

Miles was tried in adult court, pleading guilty to burglary and grand theft. Judge Ursula Ungaro sentenced him to a year and a day in a youthful offender program. He was given 24 hours to get his affairs in order and report to the county jail. There, he was placed in a maximum security cell for inmates who have already been convicted and are awaiting transfer to prison. There were 28 other people in the cell. Most were at least 10 years his senior, by his estimate, and were charged with violent felonies.

"Murder, armed robbery, rape. Most of them are there for armed robbery. They're all right. They're not bad people. Just about all of them have been in prison before," he said one day while he waited for his transfer. His clothes looked dirty. His expression lacked any emotion.

"I sleep on a mat on the floor. I wish I was at Juvenile. What can you do? There's no point in philosophy. I can't do nothing."

A few days later he was sent to a prison near Vero Beach. He figures he'll be out in a few months. Maybe he can even get back in school. He's supposed to be in the ninth grade.

Section: TROPIC
Page: 16
Copyright (c) 1988 The Miami Herald