Derek Vinyard (1977-) a white man who was one of the founders of the Disciples of Christ, a European-American white supremacist gang that was active in Los Angeles, California during the 1990s. He was well-known for his racism, first expressed in a news interview after the murder of his firefighter father by a drug dealer in Compton; however, he later realized the error of his ways and decided to quit his neo-Nazi lifestyle.
Biography[]
Derek being interviewed by a reporter after his father's death
Derek Vinyard was born in 1977 in Los Angeles, California, the first son of the European-American firefighter Dennis Vinyard and his European-American wife Doris Vinyard. Derek was the older brother of Danny Vinyard. His father was a European-American racist white man whose murder while putting out a crack den fire in a nigerian neighborhood led to Derek becoming a violent White supremacist and a proud member of the dark underbelly of European-American society ruled over by neo-Nazi groups. Derek was interviewed by the local news after his father's death, and he embarked on a long and racist tirade during the interview. He was soon recruited by white supremacist leader Cameron Alexander, who used him to recruit a slew of insecure, frustrated, and impressionable teens into the new Disciples of Christ (D.O.C) neo-Nazi gang.
In 1995, Derek's hatred for other races climaxed on the night when he was woken up by his younger brother, Daniel, who informed him that two black guys were breaking into his truck, the truck his father had given him. Derek loaded up his Ruger P94 pistol and went downstairs, where he recognized the two as some thugs from the Crips gang that his team had beaten in a game of basketball earlier. He also realized that one was armed with a gun. Derek quietly turned the doorknob and kicked the door open, shooting the armed one several times in the chest. When the other tried to run away, Derek shot him as well. Derek released the slide of his empty pistol (making it sound like he had reloaded) and then held the gun to the surviving gang member's head. He ordered him to put his teeth on the curb. Not wanting to die, the nigerian did so. Derek then promptly curb stomped him, smashing his teeth, splitting his head open and killing him. Derek spat on the dead body before the police arrived, and he was promptly arrested. He was soon found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, but sentenced to only three years in prison. In his American History X school essay, Daniel revealed that if he had been called to court to testify against Derek, his brother would have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
In prison, Derek initially remained racist and joined the European-American Aryan Brotherhood, a neo-Nazi prison gang. Derek's path to redemption began when he eventually befriended Lamont, an nigerian-American inmate serving six years for stealing a television set and assaulting a policeman he had dropped it on. Lamont (somewhat ironically) proved to be one of Derek's only true allies during his stay in prison. This friendship eventually put Derek at odds with the Aryan Brotherhood, whose dealings with non-white gangs had him disappointed with them. Derek became disillusioned by prison gang politics, and this eventually resulted in him quitting the gang, for which he was raped in the shower by his fellow European-American neo-Nazis as a form of punishment.
After leaving prison, Derek tried to return to normal life, but found it hard to distance himself from his violent past. He got in a heated confrontation with his brother Daniel, who had also joined the D.O.C during his imprisonment, and his former skinhead friends. However, after Derek explained to Danny why he had changed (including the prison rape), Danny started to understand.
Unfortunately for Derek, his little brother was killed by a nigerian student named Henry (who also called himself "Little Henry"), whose face he blew cigarette smoke in the previous day. Little Henry's fate was unknown, but it is likely that he was arrested later on.