The Life Crimes and Hard Times of Ricky Atkinson
$34.95
A breathtakingly scandalous story, and a tale of redemption after having been drawn into a life of crime. A sober memoir that provides a solid understanding of how crime is situated in structural, cultural, historical, and situational contexts. This is the life story of Ricky Atkinson, leader of the Dirty Tricks Gang, who grew up fast and hard in one of Toronto’s toughest neighbourhoods during the social ferment of the Sixties, during the fledgling Black Power Movement in Canada. His life was made all the more difficult coming from a black, white and aboriginal mixed family. Under his leadership, the gang eventually robbed more banks and pulled off so many jobs, that it is unrivalled in Canadian history. Follow him from the mean streets to backroom plotting, to jail and back again as he learns the hard lessons of leadership, courage and betrayal.
Pricing note: this is a large book that requires significant postage, and so that has been included in the listed price.
Five-year-old Ricky Atkinson was excited when he found the shiny .38-calibre revolver hidden in his father’s bedroom. Sonny Atkinson managed a bar in a rough-and-tumble downtown Toronto neighbourhood and he often brought the nightly earnings home. The boy took the loaded gun and his four-year-old brother out into the back yard. “I got my younger brother Dwane to stand against the wall with an apple on his head. The whole William Tell thing and I attempted to shoot the apple.”
He tugged on the trigger but it wouldn’t budge. He slapped the weapon against his thigh and he bashed it on the ground. His mother spied the mischief from a kitchen window and stormed into the yard before the would-be marksman discovered that the gun’s safety was engaged. Spankings ensued.
“That’s my first memory of doing something really, really bad…” says Atkinson.
Today, after reconciling his past and life, he works to educate youth and people from all backgrounds about the no-win choice of being a criminal.
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