FLASHBACK 1996: Former gang member James Moore Jr. thought he was invincible until a bullet put him in a wheelchair. 

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In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.

Title: Still Life
Author: Ben Fulton
Date: Apr. 25, 1996

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The kitchen of the Moore household in West Valley City is like countless thousands of others in the area. The floor is linoleum. The fridge is dotted with magnets. Boxes of cereal stand on the counter.

What sets it apart is its occupant. A light is on just above the sink, but where James "Jimmy" Moore, Jr., sits near a television set and computer the curtain is drawn so that he can view his programs and play his video games without the glare of light.

Sitting in his battery-powered wheelchair, the 18-year-old speaks in a slow, limbering rhythm with sleepy eyes. Robbed of the luxury to animate his conversation with the usual gestures of face and hands, his honesty is communicated through words alone.

Between the television and computer hangs a sign reading, "You Don't Have to Stand Up to Stand Out." Fred, his pet parakeet, bleats away in a cage at one side of the room. It's the fourth bird Moore has had since the age of 8.

"I like the fact that they [birds] fly. I like the freedom of flying," Moore says. "Flying is an art form. Most people don't know that. You're closer to heaven and closer to God. You're at ease and you're relaxed—just mellow. It lets you escape the madness of the world because you're flying away from it and above it."

Moore always wanted to fly for a living. That, or be an aeronautical engineer. As it turned out, the only time he ever had the opportunity to get anywhere above the ground was during a helicopter flight to LDS Hospital almost three years ago. "I don't remember it," he says. "That sucks."

The bleating of the parakeet gets louder as Moore speaks. He calms the bird down with a series of "shushes." After a while, it works. The room is quiet again.

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Before living in West Valley City, Moore and his mother and father lived in the Holladay area of Salt Lake City. At that time in his life Moore himself admits that he rarely went to school. Running around in the streets with his friends until 2 or 3 a.m. was much more his speed. He beat people badly enough to send them to the doctor. For that, a judge ordered him to perform community service.

He stole his father's debit card. Committed forgery. Stole a car. Once he ran away from home. "I wanted my own rules. I was a big party animal," he remembers.

One day at school a friend of his pinned him to the ground and pulled a knife on him in response to an argument. Moore was only 12-years-old. His friend was part of a larger group, a gang called "King Mafia Disciples." The police were called. Moore's parents were notified. His mother, Kathryn, remembers trying to persuade him to cut ties with the group.

"He said, 'They're my friends, they're not going to hurt me,'" she remembers.

Trying as best he can to find the source of his early, destructive behavior Moore thinks back to his childhood in Redmond, Ore., a small town he describes as "only twice as big as Lagoon." Growing up he had the attention of all his cousins. Moving to Utah, he had the attention of only his mother and father. As an only, adopted child, that wasn't enough. Not feeling adequate enough to befriend kids who did well in school, he fell into the wrong group. But he had friendship the group provided, and more important, their attention. "It was like a drug to me. I was instantly addicted," he says.

If Moore shoplifted a video, his friends were jubilant. If Moore got money from a forgery, that was even better. He got his tattoos. He wore his street name, "J-Time," on his ankles. His forearm was next, with "My Crazy Life."

"I was a follower ... at that point in my life it was just really crazy."

Watching their son's life spiral out of control, his parents sent him to the Utah Boys' Ranch in West Jordan, where he did well enough to be a youth leader. Once out though, they could only watch their son wander back to his friends in the gang. Ironically, all the while Moore was working toward his Eagle Scout badge.

"I had a good side and a bad side." No one has to ask which side got the better of him. If he can live with a wheelchair, though, he can live with the blame. Or at least a sizable portion of it.

"I hold myself responsible for two reasons," he says. "I trusted my friend, and I was carrying the gun I was shot with."

Name any major city where gangs are the norm and Moore's story is hardly an anomaly. Take gangs out of the equation, and you still have a nation of people more likely than others to settle arguments by the barrel of a gun.

What makes Moore's story different from most is the way in which his tragic maiming shut down his life completely, only to rework and rebuild it from scratch into something he never expected. Unable to walk or use his right arm or hand, Moore has only limited use of his left hand—enough to control the drive-stick on his wheelchair and fight video-game battles.

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Given that, he must rely on his mother or father for almost everything: a trip to the restroom, a bath, a roll through the shopping mall, a mouthful of French fries.

Where Moore was used to spending most all his time with those in his gang and a circle of friends, he's had no choice but to get to know his parents better. James Moore, Sr.—a robust man with the gravelly, no-nonsense voice of a former truck driver—is his son's chef, chauffeur, constant companion and the butt of constant jokes.

Talking to Jimmy and watching him (as minimal as his physical movements might be), you get a glimpse of a life stripped of all but its bare essence. When life becomes more difficult, it also becomes a test. It's as if an acid has been poured over his being, exposing the true mettle of his soul and will.

With effort, his grades have climbed to a 3.5 grade point average and he will graduate from high school this June. He's learned computer applications. He's grown closer to his parents. As part of an educational program sponsored by an Ogden hospital, he's able to warn others about avoiding the circumstances that brought on his condition.

For the first time in his 18 years, he's slowed down. Not that he had a direct choice in the matter, of course. But the abrupt detour his life has taken might never have happened if it weren't for a rainy June evening in 1993.

His mother, in fact, would rather have all this to contend with than see her son in prison. "Prison, death, any of those would be worse," she says. "Because now he can be productive. And he can influence what happens to other people maybe. Where in prison I think he would give up."

Almost three years after, he's still learning to navigate through the remains of what used to be. He's discovered that he has a lot left. He has an education to work toward, goals to attain (he's liked to become a designer of computer games) and he has the chance to set an example. As a participant in the McKay-Dee Hospital's "Fine Line" program, he speaks regularly to high school and intermediate school kids about the dangers of gangs, guns and choosing the wrong kind of friends.

As Moore tells it, the shooting was brought on by his parents' imminent move from Holladay to West Valley City. He was also, he says, getting ready to slowly disassociate himself from the gang. The move seemed like an opportune time to cut ties, after all. "I was trying to get away from them, but I still wanted to be friends with them," he remembers.

His best friend and prominent figure in the gang who had a known reputation with the police, and also the same person who pulled a knife on him, was having none of it. They quarreled one morning. His friend threatened to kill him if he left the gang for good, Moore says. Knowing that his friend spared him the blade in the past, he shrugged it off. The boy was, after all, his friend.

The night of June 10 Moore was preparing for a party at his friend's house. Kathryn doubted that her son had a gun, but knew that his friends probably did. "I knew that he wanted to [have a gun]," his mother says. "He wouldn't ever say that to me, but I just knew."

At least she knew he didn't have a gun as he left the house. He'd asked her to adjust his shirt just right. Lifting up his shirt and feeling around his waist she could feel nothing. Off into the night he went.

In the back seat of a car on the way to the party, Moore argued with a girl over seat space. It's after this point that Moore's account and police reports filed after the incident differ drastically.

According to police reports compiled from four witnesses, Moore took out a black .38 Smith & Wesson revolver once he'd arrived at the front lawn of the house where the party was in progress. He then emptied the cylinder of bullets, throwing them across the street into a flower bed. Moore then pointed the gun at the girl's head. She pushed it away, after which Moore walked toward the flower bed to retrieve the bullets.

According to one report, the girl told Moore to go ahead and shoot himself. All initial and follow-up police reports record that Moore put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger and fell to the ground. "It appeared from [one witness' statement] that Jim may have thought the gun was unloaded when he put it to his head and pulled the trigger," reads a line from an initial report of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office. The incident went on file, and remains on file today, as a suicide attempt.

Moore has his own memories of that night. But then, he was in no condition to tell the police who allegedly shot him. Lying sideways on the driveway, he was barely conscious enough to feel the rain falling on his face before he was transported to St. Mark's Hospital, then life-flighted by helicopter to LDS Hospital. After an x-ray scan locating the bullet in the back of the left side of his brain, doctors weren't sure he'd last another 15 minutes. It was considered an improvement, then, when he instead slipped into a coma.

According to Moore, he was merely talking with the boyfriend of the girl he was arguing with when his friend approached him with the .38 revolver. "I don't know what clicked inside his head, but he shot me all of a sudden," Moore remembers.

In any event, the reports note that someone had thrown the gun 50 feet north of Moore's body after the bullet was shot to his head. And Moore says the crime lab found no powder burns on his hands after the shooting. Apparently, though, that was all made somewhat irrelevant by the rain falling that evening, making everything too wet to test for powder. According to Moore, Sr., the sheriff's office did not perform any ballistics on the gun or fingerprint it. A deputy investigating the case at the time, Sgt. Jerry Townsend, cannot remember the specifics of tests surrounding the case, but says there was no evidence to support the fact that anyone other than Moore pulled the trigger. Furthermore, Townsend says that according to doctors police investigators spoke to, there was too much trauma to Moore's brain for him to remember exactly what happened that night.

"He [Moore] was trying to impress or scare his friends," says Townsend, who classifies the incident as an accidental shooting. "The trajectory of the bullet was consistent with someone putting a gun to his own head."

Both Moore and Moore, Sr. stand by their account. "In my opinion they didn't investigate properly," Moore, Sr., says. Moore's friend and fellow gang member was not charged and, for legal reasons, cannot be identified by name as the person Moore says shot him.

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When you need all the strength you can muster to pull your life together there's no time for grudges. At first, the bitterness he felt gave him intense headaches. "Now I've just forgotten about it and accepted it 'cause it's just a part of life," he says. "Life has a series of changes. Everyone changes and everything changes around you. It's another challenge for me to overcome and deal with."

Doctors removed as much of the bullet as they could without damaging his brain any further. Deep in a coma, he had dreams of people attending his funeral. At bedside, his mother talked to him and read him Hardy Boys' mysteries. While he could hear her words, he could not respond. It was the most frustrating feeling in the world.

No one thought he would make his way out of it, except for his mother, who watched him closely every day. His first response was on his 16th birthday when he tried to laugh. Later the same day, he cried. It was like coming out of a four-month long nightmare. And it was a gradual process. It didn't happen all at once. "They just don't do that like they do in the movies," his mother says.

During his first showers in a wheelchair, Moore's memory rushed back to the night he was shot. The water on his face and body came too close to reminding him of the rain he felt on his face after falling to the ground with a bullet in his head. Screaming and yelling, he tried to kick his way out of the chair.

At home his mind became more cogent, but the hard reality of his situation began to sink in. So much so that he contemplated suicide. Driving his battery-powered wheelchair through the neighborhood, he steered straight into the middle of a busy road in hopes that a car would hit him and end it all. As soon as he heard a car approach though, he pulled back.

His first three months back home weren't easy. Depression ate him up. Doubt covered his thoughts. The mere thought of trying to make something of his life had no obvious payoff to him. As time passed, though, trying was all he could do to escape his depression. He mastered a computer game. He wrote a small, four-page autobiography. "I really believed I was invincible. That I could take care of myself no matter what the situation," he wrote. "I was wrong. I can't imagine being more wrong. My life has been totally changed. That does not mean it is better or worse, just different."

Moore's attitude toward life has gradually progressed from a benign indifference to bold acceptance. Today, he's certain that if he could go back in time to June 1993 he wouldn't change a thing. "I'm comfortable with the life I have now and this is the way God had it planned out. ... It's just my natural course of events, my mission on Earth," he says. "If I would have never been involved with a gang and been shot I wouldn't have these experiences to talk about and warn people about. I'm just carrying out my part of the plan. I was given a second chance for a reason, so I'm going to use it to my advantage and make the most of it."

Early in the morning before a speaking engagement at Eisenhower Jr. High, Moore is flipping through television channels trying to find a program of interest. Trying to get his son ready for the trip to the school, Moore, Sr. turns the set off.

"Buddha. Pot-bellied pig," he says to his father. It's all part of a volley of playful insults the two routinely exchange. They kid each other almost like drinking buddies. "You're fat, ugly, your feet stink and you don't love Jesus."

"Do you want me to take you to the school?" Moore, Sr. asks sternly.

Out in the driveway Moore's father opens the van doors, brings out the mechanical chair lift and eases him into the back of the vehicle.

Once at Eisenhower Jr. High his father rolls him through hall after hall of boys in baggy pants and girls wearing thick mascara. After a long wait in the cafeteria, Moore is finally up on stage ready to talk to a small group of ninth-grade boys. First, though, is a short video chronicling the individual tragedies of people who became crippled after driving while drunk, forgetting to use a seatbelt or even skiing too fast. Moore's story is among them, and his face looks out from the movie screen.

"At first I thought being in a gang was cool. But since I was shot, I don't think they have any place in the world," his image says to the group.

That finished, he speaks into a microphone held to his mouth by a school chaperon. He talks about how he was a "big-time" follower, about his plans to leave the gang and how it cost him a normal functioning life.

The kids listen quietly, but not necessarily attentively. This isn't a music video or Nintendo game. "Some people might have learned something, but some of them slacked," said 15-year-old Justin Fazio after the presentation. "Most people slacked. I could tell."

After another presentation to a second group, Moore, Sr. takes his son back to the van and then drives to a restaurant for lunch. Although Moore feels good about his work, he concedes that both crowds were "dead." No matter. If his message reaches only a handful of people in a thousand it's worth the effort. With his life experiences he believes he's perfectly equipped to reach young people in the right way.

"I don't think saying 'Don't do it [join a gang]!' works very well," he says. "It doesn't convey the message. You don't have any point to solidify your argument. It doesn't make any sense to them because they don't care. I like to say, 'Think about your family and friends and everyone around you. What if something happened to you and you got hurt. Think about others besides yourself.'"

Three days later on a Monday morning Moore is wheeled out of an operating room at LDS Hospital. Stiffness in his body has been a problem since starting life in a wheelchair. Doctors implanted a device near his rib cage that will inject a fluid into his spine and make his limbs and back more flexible. Moore was so apprehensive about the procedure that he delayed it for four months.

Lying in his hospital room he's gradually coming out of a fog of anesthesia. Moore, Sr. and his mother Kathryn, sit in chairs at his side.

"In a lot of ways I still expect him to do the things he used to do, like getting up and running out on to the sidewalk," Kathryn said earlier in the hospital lobby. "With the way he is now, though, I know that whatever happens to him, he'll be OK. Even if he died he'd be OK, because he's gone through all this already. Does that sound strange?"

A nurse enters the room, asking Moore how far down his body can he feel sensations.

"I've got to warn you, my feet are ticklish," he says with a laugh.

A monitor to the side of his bed displays his heart rate in glaring red numerals. A sharp "beep" sound punctuates every beat. The rate oscillates between 65 and 81 beats per minute.

"I'm trying to control these beats," he says, trying to find a pace even enough to please him. After a while, his heart settles in at 71 beats per second. Few things are within his control, but life's essential rhythms are still within his grasp.