Wilbert "Nica" Cuadra sat in his Chevy Caprice with four of his boys. It was a typical Friday night; Nica was drunk on Mad Dog 20/20 and infused with a familiar rage. Across University Drive he could see the enemy -- members of a West Broward gang called La Familia. Five months earlier a member of La Familia had run Nica down in a car, striking him in the back, knocking him to the ground, and cutting his head. Now Nica...
More >>>
A life in pictures (clockwise from top left): Wilbert as a boy in Nicaragua, before the war ripped through his town; as snapped by the gang task force not long before the hit-and-run (note the scar over right eye caused by a rival slamming him with a car); near death after the hit-and-run; Nica with his new face, and a new life