Hours after getting kicked out of the state of Washington, 17-year-old Sam Elfay sat in his father’s Aurora home and pondered what was next.
He had just avoided a lengthy prison sentence after being arrested in 2017 for robbery in Seattle. But back home in March 2018, his family worried that he would continue to get involved in gangs and crime. His father said he couldn’t leave the house until he met someone who could help him. Elfay expected a nerdy therapist-type with a clipboard.
Instead, Jason McBride — all 6-foot-4 of him — knocked at the door.
“To my surprise, I see a big black dude with tattoos,” Elfay said.
The next morning, McBride was back at the house. He picked up Elfay, and the teenager went with him as he did his work for Gang Rescue and Support Project, then dropped him off late at night. The next day? The same.
It was all part of McBride’s plan to save Elfay from the pull of gangs and crime.
“For the first 365 days, there had probably been five days I hadn’t seen him,” McBride said.
And it worked.
Now 19, Elfay graduated from high school under McBride’s guidance. He serves on Denver’s restorative justice advisory board and the governance board of My Brother’s Keeper Initiative Denver. Elfay has also become an adviser for other teens struggling to leave gangs at a time when an increasing number of young people are dying in gun homicides and juvenile gangs are becoming more dangerous and complex.
Elfay’s ability to talk to teens as a contemporary and his understanding of their world has been crucial to anti-gang work, McBride said.
“In five years, he’s going to be the one sitting in my seat,” McBride said. “He’s the future of the city.”
But Elfay’s path to his new future wasn’t always straightforward. Like the day he almost died.
Relapse
In his first years at Smoky Hill High School, Elfay found community and purpose by playing on the basketball team. But after an injury took him off the court his sophomore year, he started to get into trouble.
His father became so concerned that his son would be locked up or killed, he sent Elfay to live with an aunt in Seattle. The move didn’t help. His aunt lived in the heart of Crips territory, and the teen soon found himself wrapped up in the gang.
“Just a lot of stealing, robbing, theft of cars,” Elfay said.
Police eventually arrested him as he left the scene of a robbery.
At age 16, Elfay faced 20 years in prison if convicted on all the charges he faced. His attorney worked out a plea deal that allowed him to serve only eight months in a juvenile facility as long as he left the state after he was released. Elfay flew back to Denver on March 27, 2018.
When Elfay started spending time with McBride, he was doing so only because he thought McBride could help him find a job and a recording studio that he could use to record his rap.
When McBride spoke at meetings, Elfay listened. When McBride conducted group meetings for teens, Elfay watched. When McBride volunteered for local organizations, Elfay did too.
For the first few months, however, Elfay was still living a double life. He would spend his day with McBride, but as soon as he was dropped off, he’d hang out with friends and steal. He continued to carry a gun in his backpack, even when he was with McBride, just in case.
“He was just doing everything he could to be locked up or killed,” McBride said.
The path to leaving a gang is never straightforward, said Paul Callanan, who ran the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver for eight years before stepping down this month. Each person faces their own struggles, which depend on how long they have been involved in the gang lifestyle and outside support they have helping them to leave.
“You don’t just get to raise your hand and say ‘I quit,’ ” Callanan said.
People trying to leave gangs have to make the decision to do so, build a new identity, find a new social group and convince others in their life — including rival gang members — that they are no longer involved, Callanan said.
Outreach from people like McBride are crucial in that process, he said.
“Having someone in their corner, that moral voice, really makes a difference,” he said. “Kind of like what Jason did with Sam.”
But even with a mentor, sometimes people leaving gangs step back on the progress they have made.
While walking into a mall one day in November 2018, McBride could only watch as Elfay launched himself into a fight with another teen with whom he had a disagreement.
A few weeks later, Elfay and McBride made a stop in Aurora while on their way to a group meeting for teens trying to leave gangs. Elfay told McBride that he needed to pick up some money from a friend and that it would only take a few seconds.
McBride was sitting in his car waiting for Elfay to come back from meeting his friend when he heard the gunshots ring out. Elfay sprinted back toward the car and got in. The teen lied at first — that he didn’t know what happened or who fired the weapon.
But McBride knew better. He was furious. Sitting in the car, he asked Elfay a question: Who did he want to be?
“I was hurt,” McBride said. “But part of this life is relapsing. It’s like a drug.”
The near brush with death terrified Elfay. That wasn’t the first time he had been shot at — he’d even fired at people before — but it was the first time he had been under fire without a weapon with him. He had left his gun at home because he knew he would be going to the youth group that night.
Fear seeped into him. He wrote McBride a letter, promising to do better.
“I will do my best,” Elfay wrote.
A new generation
Five months later, Elfay shared a stage in Oakland with President Barack Obama.
He and Jason were attending a conference for My Brother’s Keeper Alliance — an organization started by Obama dedicated to bettering the lives of young men of color — and Elfay was one of the young people selected to meet the president.
The teenager beamed as he watched the country’s first black president speak. McBride sobbed.
“That was one of the greatest moments of my life, seeing Sam up on that stage,” McBride said.
In that five-month period, Elfay committed to his work with McBride. He stopped stealing. Even the way he talked changed, McBride said.
“At the end of the day it just fell together beautifully, naturally,” Elfay said.
McBride mentors hundreds of young people every year. Some teens he can help. Others never extract themselves from gang life. With Elfay, he was determined to succeed. Saving just one life means so much.
“He reminds me of myself, a little bit,” McBride said. “I saw a kid who has ambitions. He just didn’t know how to reach for them.”
Elfay graduated from high school from AIM Global this past summer and is now scoping out college classes. He wants to keep working in the community, on issues such as violence and affordable housing, he said.
And a new generation of people dedicated to change is exactly what Denver needs, McBride said.
“The kids that are Sam’s age are really going to have to help,” he said. “They have the power.”
