Pablo Ramirez heard the police sirens quickly approaching during his morning walk to school. Everything was slow motion after that, the handcuffs, the holding cell, the judge.
Ramirez, then a student at Desert Pines High School, spent the next two days at the juvenile detention center. Later, he received six years of probation, meaning a probation officer could show up to his house unannounced for a check-in.
“I was like, ‘That’s my freedom out the window,’” he said.
That day in 2018, Ramirez decided he would turn his life around. There would be no more missing class, smoking marijuana, getting into fights and hanging out with gang members. That lifestyle led to his arrest, although he won’t say specifically for what out of safety concerns.
Three years later, the 18-year-old Ramirez seems to be on the right track.
He’s studying welding at the College of Southern Nevada on a $10,000 scholarship from Juvenile Justice Impact, a nonprofit that brings awareness to the juvenile justice system in the community. Ramirez's probation officer applied for the scholarship, which is given to young people affected by incarceration.
Equally important, Ramirez said he was released from probation status early for good behavior.
He credits the Jobs for Nevada Graduates program at Desert Pines, a nonprofit supporting students at risk of dropping out, for giving him the support to make a change. Ramirez went from a 1.4 GPA at the time of his arrest to graduating last spring with a 2.7.
He also found a mentor in David Hill, one of the school’s football coaches who leads Jobs for Nevada Graduates.
“Most teachers have been like, ‘You’re not going to be nothing. You’re just a hoodlum,’” Ramirez said. “When I met Coach Hill, I was like, ‘This isn’t just a teacher. He’s like a parent figure.’”
Hill, also a Desert Pines product, sees a little of himself in each of the students he works with. He was born to a teenage mother and his father died when he was a child. He’s walked the same streets as Ramirez.
“I know what the kids are up against. Suburban schools don’t look nothing like Desert Pines,” Hill said. “I tell them, ‘Somebody has to work at the 99 cent store, but it doesn’t have to be you. It doesn’t have to be you that lives paycheck to paycheck,’” Hill said.
Before Ramirez met Hill, he said his biggest influence was Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord. His dad noticed a change in Ramirez’s behavior when he was in seventh grade. Ramirez started hanging out with gang members, some of whom were also family members, to fit in.
“He’s like, ‘Why are you dressing like that? Who are you hanging out with?’ He’s not dumb. He started seeing the peak of me turning into something he didn’t want me to be,” Ramirez said.
That included stealing from stores, where he said he would leave the dressing room with a new pair of jeans under his old ones, or he’d swap out his old shoes for a new pair. He also never walked away from a fight.
After he was arrested, Ramirez had to move on from some of his friends to succeed.
“I actually lost friends because they got mad like, ‘You’re really going to class?’ I’m like, ‘Yea, I need my diploma,’” he said.
He lost another friend who he said overdosed on drugs. The teen was two days away from turning 18, Ramirez said. The death was another reminder of how fortunate Ramirez is to have turned his life around.
He has a supportive girlfriend, Marina, and his family. He plans to get a higher paying job, a house and leave east Las Vegas.
“My goal is to live over there by Henderson or Blue Diamond. I’m trying to make it out,” he said.
And as a reminder, he’s got a tattoo on his arm that says “Stunnin’.”
“Stunnin’ to me means when you’re making moves, making money, building yourself up,” he said.