In N.Va. Gang, A Brutal Sense Of Belonging

As Flores' sophomore year progressed, his parents were called to school again and again for meetings. At first, they said, school authorities were willing to give Hayner more chances. But then he began to cut classes. He was given detention but skipped it. He got a tattoo, which authorities told the parents was a sign of gang involvement.

"They were just helpless to deal with it," Clausen said. "Here comes this kid in your house at 16 who's involved in a gang and criminal activity. What do you do?"

Flores' parents scolded their son and he would promise to behave. But nothing changed. They tried to keep him at home, but the phone kept ringing, as friends called to insist that he go out. "We never knew their last names," Hernandez said.

"With me and his mother working, and with watching the other kids, we couldn't go after him," the father said.

Then, Flores' parents called the police after their son disappeared for several days. Officers picked up the youth and interrogated him for hours, his parents said.

Flores' mother was suddenly awash in guilt.

"My soul hurt. I thought, 'Poor boy,' " she said.

All the warnings seemed to have little effect on Flores. Eventually, he was suspended from school for throwing another student against the wall. He was charged with truancy but skipped some of his court dates, his parents said. And he started disappearing from home for days at a time.

"Every time he came home, he had a new tattoo," his mother said.

A New Identity

At first, the tattoos were just a lark. Flores' friends had them, and he wanted one, too.

"He just thought it was fun," said friend Carolina de Paz, 18.

To his friends, Flores was a kid who loved to dance and sing the romantic bachata tunes popular in El Salvador. Although occasionally hot-tempered, he was protective of women. De Paz remembers how he would bring her McDonald's hamburgers when she was pregnant, and tenderly give a bottle to her baby.

But something made him change. De Paz thinks it was a painful breakup with his girlfriend.

"After that, he started to say weird things, about gangs," she said.

Other friends said Flores joined MS-13 after many of his friends moved away in his sophomore year. "These kids feel alone. That's why they do this," said Tomasa Trejo, Carolina's mother, who befriended Flores.

Flores gradually assumed a new identity. He donned the Dickies twill work pants favored by his MS-13 friends, and looped a plastic rosary around his neck, acquaintances said. He shaved his head. Tattoos climbed his arms -- a rose, praying hands, the number 13. Like most gang members, he was known by his nickname: Spike.