An 8-year-old boy calmly told a Fresno County Superior Court jury Tuesday that he didn’t ask for a gang tattoo and didn’t want it, but his father forced him to get one during Easter break 2009.
“It was my dad’s idea,” the boy said of the quarter-sized tattoo of a dog paw on his right hip. A dog paw is the symbol of the Bulldogs street gang.
“I didn’t want it and I cried,” he said.
His testimony was a dramatic beginning in the criminal trial of two Fresno gang members who are accused of inking the gang tattoo on the boy when he was 7.
To cap his testimony, the boy pulled down his three-quarter-length pants just enough to show the jury the tattoo.
“It hurts,” he said, describing the experience. “It hurts a lot.”
Full story: Tattooed Fresno boy tells jury: ‘I didn’t want it’