This Des Moines teen knows what it’s like to be in a street gang. Here’s why he wants to get out.

For Paris Garrett, being in a gang meant being with family.

"It was a new family. Every day I was hanging out with them, and they showed me nothing but love," the 16-year-old said. He met those friends a couple of years ago at school in Des Moines.

"At that point I was feeling like, whatever it takes, I just wanted to hang," he said.

But then Garrett started getting into trouble. He would get into fights, and he said he stole a car with friends. He was arrested twice and had friends die as a result of street violence. So Garrett recently decided he no longer wants a gang lifestyle, he said. He wants to improve.

"After a while it was starting to feel like it wasn't worth it. They're not really your blood family, once you think about it," he said. "Knowing that you're putting your real family through pain, with your mom crying because you're getting locked up or you're doing something out there that might jeopardize your life — that stuff hurts."

Garrett is not the only teenager tempted by gangs in Des Moines. Local activists, police and other officials have said they want to reach out to youths to curb increased gun violence.

"We need to develop a strategy where we don't lose any more kids," Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert said during a community meeting at Des Moines' Zion Lutheran Church last month, days after a shooting outside the church killed a 19-year-old man and injured three others.

Des Moines has had 18 homicides so far this year, with five victims younger than 25.

That unusually high number of homicides joins an apparent increase in gun violence, with police saying they’re responding to more reports of gunshots fired and confiscating record-high numbers of firearms. Police have said much of this “reckless” gun use seems to be rooted in personal conflicts among a relatively small group of people, mostly in their late teens or early 20s.

Garrett said he knew some of the young people who were shot to death on Des Moines’ streets this year. He didn’t want to talk about specific details of any of these deaths, but he said that, overall, the violence feels unnecessary.

"You don't have to die so soon. Especially over something so simple like you're dissing someone, or you stole something from someone,” Garrett said.

“I just feel like it's pointless to keep killing each other.”

When Garrett recently decided he wanted to try to get away from street life, he called William Holmes, a local rapper and anti-violence activist who goes by the name Will Keeps. Holmes used to be involved with a gang in Chicago years ago, but now he works with kids in Des Moines to help them stay away from street violence.

Holmes and Garrett had met before, when Holmes was a guest speaker for Garrett's class at Woodward Academy, a residential treatment facility and school that Garrett attended under court order after one of his arrests. Garrett initially wasn't interested in Holmes’ message, he said. But now, he’s ready to change.

Holmes said that many of the kids he sees in street gangs are looking for acceptance or attention that they may not be getting at home.

Garrett has been exposed to some level of gang violence his entire life, he said. He grew up in Chicago, where he said he had family members who were in gangs and had been arrested.

"My whole life, everybody in my family, every male in my family, they gangbanged, they did whatever they had to do. So it was like, I grew up around that," Garrett said.

"It was like ... I knew that lifestyle was bad, but for some reason I wanted it. I don't know why," he said.

Garrett's mother, Nyia Davis, moved her son to Des Moines a few years ago because she wanted him to have the opportunity to grow up away from gang violence, she said. The oldest of four kids, Garrett lives with his mom, his stepdad and his siblings in a house on Des Moines' east side.

Garrett said his mom is a big reason why he wants to get away from gangs. Shortly before Garrett reached out to Holmes for help, his mom had sat him down and told him that she wanted him to do more with his life, he said. 

"Through everything, one thing that was always going through my mind was the pain that I put my mom through," Garrett said. "Every day I'm coming home, late as ever, and she's crying, and every time a police car pulls up to a house by us she's wondering if I'm in that car, or if there's an ambulance driving close she's wondering if I'm in there."

Davis said she found it hard to accept that her son, who she describes as caring and friendly, could be involved with street gangs.

"It's very hard to hear the things that your child has done … things that you couldn't imagine them doing,” she said.

PREVIOUSLY: Des Moines police chief: Loose-knit gangs behind increase in shootings

Garrett said he's been arrested twice in Des Moines. The Des Moines Register could not confirm all of his criminal history because juvenile records are mostly protected by privacy laws. But public court records show that Garrett was found by juvenile court to have committed simple assault and third-degree robbery in connection with an Aug. 9, 2016 fight and robbery.

Garrett said his first arrest happened about a year ago when he stole a car with his friends.

"We saw this car, it was just sitting there. ... It was like, if you want to earn your stripes, go take that car," he said. "So I took the car, and we all got in and rode around for like three hours, and then an officer saw us speeding or whatever, and he pulled us over."

Garrett said his second arrest stemmed from a fight that started while he was hanging out at a friend's house.

"One thing led to another, and we just started fighting in there because some people showed up who we didn't like," he said. "After that, I had earned another stripe for fighting people.

"But it wasn't even worth it really because I got locked up," he said. "I didn't even want to do it really, but I felt like I had to."

Holmes said he knows a lot of kids feel similar peer pressure to fight with each other or commit crimes. Garrett and Holmes explained "earning stripes" and building a reputation as part of street life.

"Earning your stripes is kind of like, you do something to show that you're actually down to hang, or, for the crew that you're rolling with, that you've actually got loyalty and you'll do anything that they tell you," Garrett said. 

For example, Garrett said, if someone gets in a fight with another person and wins, then their friends will post about it on social media, and they can earn a stripe.

"It's just like, that stripe lives with you. Even if you die it's gonna be with you because you earned it," he said. "On the streets, everybody knows you by your name. The more stripes you earn, the more people you know, the more fame you get."

Garrett doesn't hang out with those friends anymore, he said. He misses them sometimes, especially if he looks on social media and sees photos of them, he said.

But, working with Holmes, he's determined to focus on his future, he said.

"It made my mom happy to know that I'm actually going to take steps to improve my life," he said.

Garrett likes writing rap music, and he used to try rapping about gang violence, he said, but now he wants to be involved in more positive music, like Holmes' rap, which is largely focused on showing respect and stopping violence. Holmes sometimes has kids in his local music videos, and Garrett said he would like to be involved with that. He has already been in one of Holmes' videos, called "We Fight," which also featured Des Moines police officers.

"I've seen a lot of deaths and everything. I feel like his music impacted me," Garrett said.

After Garrett was released from Woodward Academy last month, his mom put him on “30-day punishment,” meaning he’s not allowed to leave the house to hang out with friends for 30 days, she said. Garrett said that’s helped him stay focused on his decision to get away from street life. Garrett also remains under supervision of a juvenile court officer in connection with his August arrest, records show.

This fall, Garrett will start his senior year at Scavo High School, the Des Moines school district's alternative high school. He also went to Scavo before he was sent to Woodward. Though he’s 16, Garrett has been a year ahead in school since he was young, and he is expected to graduate next school year, he said.

Garrett has dreamed of being a professional rapper or basketball player, but he joked that "there's not a high risk of getting into that" as a career. More seriously, he hopes to go to college to become a chef.

"When I was younger, I never thought college was in me,” Garrett said. But he has changed his mind recently.

Davis is thrilled to hear her oldest son talking about going to college, she said. There have been moments when she wondered whether he’d even stay alive long enough to graduate.

"It scares me. I can't hold him in the house 24/7. … With all the violence going on, you never know,” she said.

"I'm not saying everything will be easy after today,” she said, “but just to know that he finally sees light at the end of his own tunnel is what makes me feel like everything I prayed for and cried over is going to be all right.”

Holmes also said he believes that Garrett can achieve graduating from college, becoming a chef and other goals that he may decide to pursue — but he'll have to keep working to stay away from street violence.

"I need him to stay out of trouble," Holmes said. "You've got to earn it."

Holmes and Davis said they hope to see more people, especially black men, reach out to mentor children like Garrett, to show them that they have options outside of street life.

But Garrett said that — while he is grateful for Holmes’ guidance and he agrees that it’s important to offer help to kids — he believes people still have to make a personal choice about whether to participate in street violence.

"It's all about if they want to change, if they're looking for a reason to change,” he said. “They've got to find out that there's nothing in the streets but the same old thing.”