Santa Ana police detective talks with Petaluma high school students about her time on the streets

"As much as I said 'I'm not into gang banging, I'm not like that,' ... every day we would get jumped," she said. "I lied to myself. I told myself 'I'm just going to kick it.' But as things happen, as things go on, you get caught up in the moment."

Ruiz eventually joined a gang. More notably, she eventually got out. More impressive still, she became a police officer and wrote the book "Two Badges -- The Lives of Mona Ruiz."

Now a detective in the Santa Ana Police Department gang unit, Ruiz spent Friday at Casa Grande High School in Petaluma. She addressed about 250 students in the morning and spent the day talking with small groups of students and their teachers.

"It was cool," said Casa sophomore Antonio Medrano. "We always hear presentations, but it's never from people who actually went through it. What she said, it was true. She didn't make it up, you could hear it in her voice."

The students in the morning assembly, which included about 40 from Petaluma High School, were primarily English-language learners who sat in rapt silence as the diminutive 49-year-old talked of giving and receiving beatings, deciding to get out of the life and working her way through the police academy.

Ruiz's two badges refer to her police shield and the now-lasered-off street tattoo on the top of her right wrist.

"It was like a security blanket, if that makes sense," Ruiz said of the tattoo that was an homage to her then-husband.

Ruiz was asked repeatedly by the students if she had any regrets. She answered in the negative, saying that even poor choices built the person she is now.

"Too often, when I was young, I took the wrong road," she read from her book. "Everyone is responsible for their own actions and I have to live with what I did and that isn't easy. Like my cousin Eddie used to say, 'The bad you do doesn't end with the act.' "

She admitted that her background made the transition from gang banger to cop rough at times.

"When I was young and just out of the academy, the cops didn't want to work with me because they thought I was a spy for the gangs," she said. "And the gangs thought I was a spy for the cops. I was like an island by myself for awhile, but I made it."

She told of being a young cop who still looked so tough that a frightened, elderly woman refused to open the door for her, fearing she was wearing a disguise.

Those stories, and the tales told in her book, rang true to the students, some of whom said they or friends and family members have struggled with steering clear of gangs.

"Instead of an adult saying 'Do this, do that,' she actually went through it. She can prove it," said Stephanie Martin, a 10th grader at Casa who had Ruiz sign a copy of her book.

Judi DeChesere-Boyle is an English-learner resource teacher at Casa who coordinated Ruiz's visit. She acknowledged that Ruiz's story gives her certain bona fides that many adults in the students' lives are lacking.

"I'm a teacher and a mom, they are not going to listen to me as well as someone who has been there," DeChesere-Boyle said.

The school used about $1,500 in grant funds to pay for Ruiz's visit, and DeChesere-Boyle credited junior Poulima Lutu for recruiting Ruiz to come.

An hour after the assembly, students were still waiting to speak personally with Ruiz.

Two classes crammed into DeChesere-Boyle's classroom hoping to hear more from Ruiz. But she was in another room, talking with a student wearing baggy black jeans and a big, black sweat shirt who had waited through autographs, interviews and greetings to have a word with Ruiz.

"I want to tell her my story," he said.

Staff Writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.pressdemocrat.com. She can be reached at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com.

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