(Note: This story originally ran in the Birmingham Post-Herald, a now-defunct newspaper.)

LA CEIBA, Honduras -- Still bloody from being beaten the day before, Oscar Martinez pulled a .38-caliber special from his jeans and shot Raeton Gualino dead.

Second in command for a rival gang, Gualino wasn't a man Martinez said he knew personally. But to prove his loyalty to gang Mara Salvatrucha 13, or MS-13, Martinez said he had to kill Gualino, a Guatemalan who ran with a gang known simply as Mara 18.

"They were our enemy," Martinez said of the 1988 murder, when he was only 16. "So I kill him."

The shooting came after at least 20 MS-13 members first beat Martinez. He didn't fight back, which showed respect, he said. Next came an act of allegiance he said could be shown only through murder.

Throughout Honduras, Central America and the United States, similar initiations play themselves out almost daily as MS-13 grows in numbers. But as violence escalates and membership grows, some members long to escape the savage existence of gang life.

"That way (of gang life), it is death," Martinez said. "But now, I have religion and Jesus and a new way."

MS-13 is found throughout North, Central and South America.

The name signifies its origin: "M" stands for mara, or gang, and "S" for Salvatrucha, which references El Salvador. The number 13 is common for many gangs that are within the wide umbrella of the Mexican mafia, said Bob Clifford, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Mara Salvatrucha gang task force.

With roots in El Salvador, MS-13 developed in Los Angeles during the 1980s. Since then, MS-13 has moved across the country, settling in many cities, such as Washington, Houston and Charlotte, N.C.

"This gang is spread out across the country," said U.S. Customs and Immigrations spokesman Carl Rusnok. "It sometimes surprises me how many cities they are in."

Amy E. Voigt/Post-Herald
Oscar Martinez escaped from the La Ceiba gang MS-13. Martinez's tattoos illustrate much of what he felt as a gang member.
There are an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 MS-13 gang members in the United States, Clifford said.

"But that number is just an estimate," he said.

He said MS-13 gang members often follow the paths of migrant workers, which leads them to areas where day laborers are most often found.

There is little indication the gang is active in Birmingham, although gang-related graffiti has popped up in Hoover and Decatur. Spraypainted letters "M 13" stretched several feet high on a front wall at The Willows apartment complex on Lorna Road in late spring. But that indicates another gang �" with the "M" likely referencing the Spanish word "Malditos," or bad boys, Clifford said.

Immigrations and Customs carried out an antigang sting operation in July and arrested 34 people in connection with gang activity. There is no information available publicly on whether any of these members were part of the MS-13 gang, Rusnok said.

In Honduras, there are an estimated 20,000 MS-13 gang members. But those numbers are declining, said Ramon Romero, special adviser to Honduran President Ricardo Maduro.

"Gang violence is decreasing in Honduras," he said. "The main reason is the capture and prosecution of 1,950 gang leaders .... (since) August 2003."

In 2003, Maduro initiated a zero-tolerance policy that made being a gang member a crime. The policy was announced shortly after his son, Emilio Maduro, a 19-year-old gang member in the crime-ridden Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, was killed by unidentified gunmen in September 2002.

These zero-tolerance policies result in regular raids on gang houses, and the confrontations are deadly. Many are arrested, but often both police and gang members are killed.

On the streets, violence escalates. Bodies are found decapitated throughout the Americas. Fingers are left dangling from hands. A gang member will fight against members from other gangs, and sometimes, ones within his own ranks, both Romero and Martinez said.

It was this sort of violence that drove Martinez to leave MS-13 in 1998, choosing to follow God instead of the gun.

Amy E. Voigt/Post-Herald
Oscar Martinez, escaped gang member of the La Ceiba gang MS-13, shows remnants of the tattoo that read, "sorry mother for my crazy life." The Catholic church removed it for him three years ago. Gang affiliations can be easily recognized by the tattoos members have.
And because of his newfound faith, Martinez said he wants to help others who are in MS-13. At night, he travels to gang houses, talking to members who seem eager to leave. He also will help them get off drugs if they are addicted.

"We seek each other out," he said. "If they mean it, then I help."

If asked, he will smuggle the gang member out and take him to his home, where he will help him find some work.

But this life comes after eight years in the La Ceiba branch of the international gang, an existence he said he will always regret.

He joined the gang shortly after he dropped out of school.

"I needed someone to care for me," he said.

Martinez's father sold drugs and left home when Martinez was a child, Martinez said. Raised by his mother and stepfather, Martinez said he lived in a home riddled with a fierce fury fueled by severe alcoholism.

"My stepfather, he hit my mother, he hit me," Martinez said.

At 16, he said, he sought the friendship and respect of the only ones in town who paid him any attention: gang members.

"They listened to what I said," he said. "They became my friends, my family."

They nicknamed Martinez "Pink Floyd" because he loved the rock band.

"I felt like a brick missing in the wall," he said, referring to the band's song "Another Brick in the Wall."

With the gang, however, he felt companionship.

"I killed. I sold drugs. I stole. I did whatever when it was my turn to do so," Martinez said. "That is the way. That is what we all do."

Each gang member is assigned a particular task by their local leader. Some smuggle drugs, while others act as assassins, Martinez said.

Martinez came to rule the local gang, a position he held for several years, and even traveled throughout the United States, stopping in Los Angeles for six months, where he continued to live the gang life.

Martinez also served several sentences in prison �" including six months in a Guatemalan jail. While there, his leadership of the La Ceiba branch stalled, although the killing continued.

"(I was) so angry, and it was so bad there in prison," Martinez said. "We still killed. (I) still killed. Three people from another gang."

He looked at the ground for more than a minute before continuing, his voice low, his eyes still averted.

"We chopped him up, a bunch of little pieces that we'd carry out in the garbage."

Seven years ago, he left the gang. Two years after that, Martinez married, something he said strengthened his will to stay clean.

"I have a wife, two beautiful young children, a home," he said. Two-year-old daughter Esther Martinez Melendez and 4-year-old son Oscar Martinez Melendez often gaze at their father while he talks. Both are never far from his feet.

"I won't let this happen to him," Martinez said. "But I try to be open about my life before my family. I tell him that before, I did bad things."

Because of his previous life, the family must sequester themselves in their home.

Filtered through thin, white curtains, the afternoon light flooded the front room of Martinez's small, cement home in a small La Ceiba neighborhood. The front door remained closed, and the children stayed near the back of the house, where Fatima Melendez, Oscar Martinez's wife, prepared beans and tortillas for dinner.

"She worries," he said. "But that is to be expected."

The police still suspect Martinez of crimes, he said. Former gang members continue to threaten him. And other members who say they are now reformed often stay at his house, making the home a prime target for retribution violence.

"We don't go out in the front yard much," he said.

Any visitors are quickly ushered through the broken front gate, across a narrow walk and through the rounded front door. Fatima Melendez stays home with the children as much as possible, neither of which have started school.

When work is available, Oscar Martinez is gone from his home. But these days, work is scarce. He said it is hard to get a job once a potential employer sees his face and body.

"They see the tattoos, and they know. They all know who I am and what I did," he said.

Martinez and other MS-13 gang members are marked with tattoos that often spread across their arms, backs, chests and faces.

The tattoos often feature the number "13," the letters "M" or "MS."

"The police, they know the tattoos, and they don't ask questions," he said. "They just assume I am bad."

On his left forearm is a tangle of scar tissue from an attempt at the laser removal of a tattoo a few years back.

"The Catholic church here, they wanted to help," he said. "So they pay for the laser. But it hurt, and you can still see some of the tattoo."

The faint lines of a letter almost like an "M" are discernible through the scarring.

"I just deal with having them (the tattoos) now," Martinez said.

Romero said the tattoos are a mark not easily overlooked.

"The special type of tattoos used by gang members makes them object of discrimination even when they are ex-gang members," Romero said. "The governmental and nongovernmental institutions that work on rehabilitation of ex-gang members also work on tattoo removal."

Recently, Honduran first lady Aguas Ocana de Maduro, a Spaniard, secured money from the city of Madrid to buy a machine to remove tattoos without burning the skin. But to have a tattoo erased, the person must be in a rehabilitation program and undergo psychological and social evaluations, Romero said.

Some gang members simply cover up their tattoos with a turtleneck shirt or sweater. But in the tropical heat, a man in a turtleneck is easily spotted and is still often targeted by police, Martinez said.

"Zero tolerance ... does not mean that police or any other institution has license to act in an illicit way against gang members," Romero said.

In Honduras, it is a crime to be in a gang, an offense punishable by nine to 12 years in prison, plus a fine. In the United States, a gang member can be arrested only when he is in the country as an undocumented immigrant or has committed a crime.

"Our prison system is training these gang members in a sort of apprenticeship for maras in Central America," said Vince Gawronski, co-director of Latin American studies at Birmingham-Southern College. Gawronski has an extensive background in Latin American affairs and has interacted with gang members many times.

"In jail, they can perfect their English, make better contacts," Gawronski said. "And when they are released, and then deported, they vow to come back."

Houston police arrested Jorge Louis Rodriguez for drug smuggling when he was still a teenage gang member. A native of Honduras, he was deported back to the country upon release.

He now said he, too, vows to return to the United States, though for different reasons.

"I want to leave here," he said. "Here, (it is) so poor, and there (in Houston) so much I could do."

When he first came back to La Ceiba, Rodriguez said he had no choice but to stay in MS-13.

"They are deported to a country where there are no jobs, the economy is stagnant and the policy is to lock (men) up simply because they have gang tattoos," Gawronski said.

"They continue (this life) out of poverty and desperation."

At Martinez's house, he waited out the day. Without work, most of his time was simply spent sitting.

Beside him was a man he called his friend and a fellow ex-gang member.

Nicknamed "El Potro," or "The Pony," Miquel Angel Rivas joined MS-13 when he was a 14-year-old living in the San Pedro Sula.

"It didn't matter that I was young," he said. "No hand is too small to hold a gun."

Rivas smuggled drugs and killed several people, including a member of another gang during his initiation.

Rivas' story is similar to many. Raised in a broken home, he sought friendship and companionship among older boys in his barrio, or neighborhood. He soon fell in with local MS-13 gang members, and, after a short while, joined the gang, leaving home for good.

After several years, however, he longed to leave the gang. He began to read the Bible secretly and no longer wanted to smuggle drugs. Someone told him about Martinez.

Within a few weeks and in a highly orchestrated plan, Martinez came for Rivas. Driving a borrowed Isuzu truck in the middle of the night, Martinez arrived near the house where Rivas lived with other gang members. He took him to La Ceiba. Rivas is now in a church-sponsored school and hopes to find work soon, he said.

"I want to live my life again," he said. "A normal life."

Sandy Palencia, a Honduras native who lives in La Ceiba, said she, like many Hondurans, is wary of reformed gang members.

"How can you trust a murderer?" Palencia said.