Removing The Signs Dermatologist Donates Time, Equipment To Lift Gang-Related Tattoos From Teenagers

The five girls and two boys didn’t look much like budding gangbangers. After a visit Saturday morning to a Spokane doctor’s office, maybe they never will.

Dermatologist Philip Werschler donated his time and the Inland Northwest’s only tattoo-removing laser to rid the youngsters of a universal gang symbol.

They weren’t gang members yet, but most were teetering that way.

“Call it a Christmas gift to the community,” said Werschler, whose gregarious bedside manner is matched only by his skill at firing a laser beam through skin.

“If we can divert even one of these kids from gangs, then the whole day’s worth it,” he said.

About six months ago, Spokane County authorities turned to Werschler and nurse practitioner Ardeth Dunne for help in the war against gangs. The Spokane Dermatology Clinic began removing at no charge the tattoos of juvenile delinquents regarded as good prospects for rehabilitation.

Then last month, registered nurse Brad Hankins of Chelan County wrote Werschler.

It seems Central Washington’s isolation amid apple orchards and bends in the Columbia River has become the perfect breeding ground for gangs, Hankins wrote.

Seven students - 12 to 17 years old, including a couple of volleyball players and a cheerleader - decided to get tattooed before school started this fall.

The children had one thing in common: three tiny dots shaped in a triangle on or near one of their hands. The dots stand for mi vida loca (“my crazy life”) - a gang slogan and the title of a movie about Hispanic gangs.

The tattoos were not works of art. Most were done by friends who spread ink over the skin and then punched in three holes with a pin.

“Some didn’t even know it was a sign of gang affiliation,” Hankins said. “They thought it would be a cool thing to do.”

The triangulated dots often are a forerunner to full-fledged gang markings and criminal activity, Hankins said, so persuading the children to have them removed could change the course of their lives.

Some of the youngsters were tougher sells than others. They already had fallen in with the wrong crowd. Several were so nervous around the adult strangers in Werschler’s office that they were shaking.

When nurse Karen Grorud photographed their tattoos with a Polaroid, they wanted reassurance on one point: “You’re not going to photograph my face are you?”

“No,” Grorud soothed them.

George (not his real name), a tall, lanky high school senior, said the novelty of his tattoo faded within a week.

“I really didn’t know what it meant,” he said. “I just wanted it off as quick as possible.”

George worried about turning off potential employers, but mostly about being identified as a real gang member and getting shot.

The procedure lasted only a few seconds and felt about the same as when he got his tattoo, George said.

“It feels like someone is taking a rubber band and snapping me on the wrist,” said George, who with the others might require one more visit beneath the laser.

The $80,000 device acts like a machine gun and can fire 10 bursts per second with a floor-pedal trigger. Gravel-like pigmentation under the skin is blasted into sand. Within a few weeks, the tattoo fades away, its last remnants carried out of the body by white blood cells.

“Pretty neat, huh?” the doctor asks George. He nods.

Tattoos have documented man’s evolution for more than 5,000 years - slightly longer than the desire to have them removed.

Centuries ago, removal required grinding rock salt into the tattoo and waiting for the body to eject the salt and, thus, the pigmentation.

“Lasers are fun and exciting,” Werschler said. They hurt a lot less, too.

Tattoo removal is big business and will remain so, as long as humans have the capacity for stupidity and remorse.

One drunken soldier Werschler treated was tattooed with an obscene command on the outside of his right hand. When he saluted, his hand urged his superior officer to perform an anatomically impossible act.

The soldier opted for tattoo removal over a court martial.

A Spokane psychiatric patient who recently visited Werschler had eyeglasses tattooed onto his face.

Some of his other patients had their genital areas decorated in needle and ink.

“You really see some interesting things,” the dermatologist said.

He seems to derive the most satisfaction out of leaving his mark on troubled youths, though.

Before leaving Saturday, the seven Chelan County youngsters received prescriptions for free ice cream.

They also learned about responsibility. Although Werschler did the procedure at no charge, Hankins required the children to come up with a little cash to defer the doctor’s costs. They collected $175.

Werschler promptly donated it to The Spokesman-Review Christmas Fund.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos