Programs reach out to vulnerable teens
Graffiti can signal more than vandalism
Thursday, December 21, 2006
By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer
HICKORY – Authorities across the Catawba Valley say they are noticing more signs of gang activity in recent months.
Patrol officers say they see more graffiti scrawled across exposed walls of local businesses.
School resource officers notice more teenagers flashing hand signals in the hallways, decorating their notebooks with gang symbols and wearing the colorful clothing associated with sects of the Bloods, Crips and Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.
The signs are serious enough that the Hickory Police Department started an anti-gang unit in July, and community groups are holding gang-awareness classes in some schools.
But police are also careful to say that gangs in the region are nowhere near the size or level of violence seen in major cities.
"We don't want to scare anyone. We're not overrun by gangs at this point," said Sgt. Jeff Young of the Hickory Police Department. "But the lack of awareness is a problem and we want to be proactive about it. We don't want Hickory to start looking like Charlotte or Durham."
Young has led the department's street-crime interdiction division, or gang unit, since it began. He has documented 10 gangs in Catawba County and 27 gang members using criteria established by the N.C. Gang Investigators Association.
A gang, according to the association, is any group of three or more people sharing common colors, insignia or tattoos and engaging in criminal or delinquent behavior.
In neighboring Burke County, Detective David Curry of the Morganton Public Safety Department has identified about eight gang members. Lenoir police officers believe there could be between five and eight gangs in Caldwell County, said Capt. Scott Brown.
Meanwhile, officers in Mecklenburg County are focusing on controlling criminal activity by 1,821 documented gang members and 126 gangs in the state's most populated county.
Authorities across the state are taking action. Recently, with a $67,000 grant from the Governor's Crime Commission, the Hickory police formed the street-crime division and increased police presence in areas rumored to attract gang members and people affiliated with gangs, Young said.
In January, GangNet, a database used to track documented gang members statewide, will be available to law enforcement in North Carolina's 100 counties. Access, Young said, allows officers to easily identify gang members from other areas and will be helpful during his patrols.
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Patrolling the streets
Earlier this month, Young wove a sports utility vehicle through lines of cars parked behind a popular dance club in southwest Hickory.
The SUV lacked all of the distinguishing markings of a cop car - no painted Police Department logo or blue lights lining the roof - and the few groups of teenagers huddled in the parking lot didn't even glance at it as it passed.
Dozens of similar-looking vehicles with equally dark, tinted windows were scattered across the lot, allowing Young and his patrol partner, officer Ty Hunt, to blend in.
Most of the county's 27 documented gang members no longer come to the club, Young said, but others from as far as Charlotte and Gastonia will congregate there on the weekends.
On Oct. 4, a man told police that four men grabbed him out of a cab in front of the club and beat him with their fists, according to police reports. Eleven days later, two bouncers trying to break up a fight and were assaulted by three men, according to another incident report. One bouncer was left unconscious.
The club manager said the bouncer told authorities that he didn't the know the men who attacked him. And he said he hasn't noticed a gang presence inside the club.
Young wasn't sure if the attack was gang-related. He keeps files of information on the city's possible gangs, gang members and gang-related crime, but said actually confirming gang involvement in an event is a difficult task.
Showing that a crime is connected to a gang first requires that officers identify a gang or gang member, a process that requires authorities to meet criteria established by the N.C. Gang Investigators Association. Gathering that information, Young said, takes time.
So, he and Hunt will patrol the club, looking for any sign of gang involvement, such as the clothing and tattoos that the men - and sometimes women, in their late teens and early 20s - wear.
Shortly before 1 a.m. on a recent Saturday patrol of the club's parking lot, Young and Hunt noticed a group of six men loitering around a four-door sedan, their hands shoved into the pockets of oversized jeans and jackets.
Young asked one man if he could take a few photos of the "homie" tattoo on his right bicep and three dots tattooed on the small patch of skin between his thumb and index finger, a symbol often connected to a Hispanic gang with California roots, Surenos 13.
"It means `mi vida loca'," Young said. "My crazy life."
The man's belt buckle, emblazoned with a 13, was another common gang symbol, Young said.
The N.C. Gang Investigators Association says a gang member can be validated once authorities have confirmed criminal activity and identified at least two of 10 criteria, ranging from gang tattoos to affiliating with known gang members.
These photos, paired with the man's name and address, allow Young to start a file. With the tattoos and clothing, Young said, the man already meets half the requirements of a documented gang member.
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In the classroom
Young said the teenagers he sees wearing gang colors and flashing gang signs might not realize that police are keeping such detailed notes.
So, he started telling them. Recently, during one of his gang-awareness presentations, Young spotted a student doodling gang symbols on his notebook.
"When you draw stuff like this, like the six-pointed star, you're telling us you're a gang member," he told the group of about 30 freshmen at Hickory High School two weeks ago. It's one step toward "validating you as a gang member, and that will stick with you for life."
It's unlikely, Young said, that any of those teenagers is involved in a gang. But he said a teen who is just wearing clothing associated with a certain gang piques the authorities' interest.
"Telling them that," he said, "really makes a lot of them pay attention."
But Young isn't the only one teaching gang-awareness and prevention classes in the valley.
Burke County authorities have started coaching community leaders and educators to recognize graffiti and gang hand signs, and officers and community leaders in Lenoir are forming a committee targeting gang prevention in Caldwell County.
And, every Wednesday, Chris Johnson, founder of a local youth outreach group, stands before a dozen middle-school-age boys and teaches them about the realities of gang life.
Johnson talks about the violent initiations, the tough jail sentences and, just last month, brought in a former gang member and convict to talk about his experiences.
"I know I'm in a tug-of-war with the street," Johnson said, "and I need all the tools I can get."
Many of the boys in Johnson's Young Men of Integrity group come from single-parent and low-income homes, he said, and temptations to find a tight-knit group in the community are common.
He's been trying to sway youth from peer pressure since 1992, when his 14-year-old son died after an older classmate spun the chamber of a handgun in a game of Russian roulette.
"I couldn't see the signs at the time, and that was probably one of the things that really catapulted me into talking to teens," he said. "If we can teach our kids young, they'll be able to make the right decisions later."
Frank Moses, a 15-year-old Hickory High School freshman, sat through Young's class on gang awareness and attends Johnson's Young Men of Integrity every Wednesday. While Moses said he doesn't think gang presence in the Catawba Valley is a serious problem, he can see that changing.
"Gangs are coming up, and it's getting a lot more serious than it has been," he said. "It's like a family life when you're in a gang, but you sign your life over to the gang."
That kind of life, Moses said, isn't for him.
"I see all these people coming in and out of prison and gangs," he said. "I see how it affects them, and I want to live a better life."
The awareness classes, Moses said, are a good step toward preventing future gangs.
"We're the ones that are going to be doing it, so if you can get to us, then you'll be able to stop it."
Johnson's group is one of the pilot groups in the 25th district taking the Street Smart program facilitated by the local Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club.
In March, the Boys & Girls Club executive director, the Rev. John DeMauro, received a $100,000 grant from the N.C. Department of Juvenile Justice and local crime councils to bring a gang-awareness program to the Catawba Valley.
"We don't want to stick our heads in the sand, and when I have a guy sitting in front of me with an obvious gang tattoo, (it shows that) we need to take preventative measures," DeMauro said.
The 36-week program is designed to: teach middle-school-aged children in the Catawba Valley about gang violence, encourage accepting cultural differences, and help youth develop communications and conflict-resolution skills.
"It's all in one neat package," DeMauro said. "A child who goes through this program has all the skills (he) needs and is less likely to go through a gang."
While the Street Smart program is being taught to the Young Men of Integrity and at Centro Latino and at the Boys & Girls Club, DeMauro said educators and law enforcement across the valley plan to implement the program throughout the Catawba Valley in 2007.
Johnson and his group, meanwhile, have almost completed the first of the program's four modules.
In a recent week, they focused on lesson six, the consequences of gang membership.
Johnson and the boys talked about Stanley "Tookie" Williams, an original leader of the Crips, a violent gang that started in California in the early 1970s. Williams, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for his children's books suggesting gang alternatives, was executed in December 2005 for the 1979 murders of four people in Los Angeles.
"I tell the kids when they come in, `If I sugarcoat things for you, that doesn't help, because that's not how the street is,' " Johnson said.
Warning Signs of Gang Involvement
These are signs that a teenager may be involved in a gang:
Uses hand signals to communicate with friends.
Scribbles specific drawings or symbols on schoolbooks and clothing.
Comes home with unexplained physical injuries, including bruises.
Suddenly owns expensive clothing or jewelry or has a lot of extra cash.
Carries a weapon.
Is in trouble with police or at school.
Undergoes a severe and negative change in attitude, including withdrawing from family and grades dropping.
Speaks in gang-style slang.
Breaks late-night curfews.
Want to Learn More?
Law-enforcement officers in Catawba, Burke and Caldwell counties offer educational courses on gang awareness and prevention for youth, parents and other members of the community.
For more information contact the Hickory Police Department, (828) 324-2060; the Department of Public Safety in Morganton, (828) 438-5391; or the Lenoir Police Department, (828) 757-2121.
To learn about the Street Smart program facilitated by the Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club, contact the Rev. John DeMauro at (828) 322-3066.
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