Thread: Gang activity on rise in county

Gang activity on rise in county

Law enforcement officials are seeing an increase in gang-related activity, a trend across the nation in rural and suburban areas.

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/10/ ... ang001.cfm

By Diana Hefley
Herald Writer
October 8, 2006

Snohomish County sheriff's detective Steve Haley spotted them right away.

They all were dressed in white, bandanas pulled low on their foreheads. The teenage boys swaggered into the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe.

They were looking for attention.

Sheriff's deputies warned the teens they could attract the wrong kind of attention.

Someone - a real gang member - might take them seriously. Their idea of fun could get them hurt.

"It's not a fashion statement anymore," Snohomish County deputy prosecutor John Adcock said. "We've got a growing problem. I'm concerned about it."

Police and prosecutors say they are seeing an increase in gang activity in Snohomish County. They've now identified hundreds of people who claim membership in, or are affiliated with, criminal gangs.

In recent months, there has been a spike in robberies, assaults and homicides involving people connected to gangs, Adcock said.

It's a trend being seen across the state and the nation. Gangs are taking root in the suburbs and rural areas. They bring with them drugs and violent crime.

"Some of these gangs got smart. They figured if they go out to places like Gold Bar, no one will bother them," Haley said. "They have no fear of us here. They're used to places like Los Angeles where, when they are contacted by the cops, they're thrown to ground and patted down. They feel like we treat them with kid gloves here."

Haley has been tracking gangs since early this year. He has found members living in every city and town in the county, except for Index.

He has identified members of at least 28 known criminal street gangs. The groups they claim allegiance to include the Crips, Bloods, Mara Salvatrucha and Oriental Loco Boys. Members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, including the Bandidos, also live here.

The gangs don't seem to be divided by ethnicity but rather by neighborhoods, Haley said.

Federal agents also are digging deeper into gang activity.

State Attorney General Rob McKenna recently surveyed police around the state, trying to gauge gang activity and resources devoted to the problem.

Last year, the Seattle office of the Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives started the Violent Gang Task Force. It includes members from the Seattle Police Department and the King County Sheriff's Office. The task force is creating a database to better track gangs in the Seattle region. That effort could expand to include Snohomish County, said Doug Dawson, assistant special agent in charge.

The sheriff's office has identified more than 100 known gang members and an additional 300 people affiliated with gangs living in the county. Another 200 are people who have been known to associate with gang members.

Some are transplants from the big cities.

Police also are seeing an increase in homegrown gangs, Haley said.

One of the most active gangs in the county was started about a year ago by former Mariner High School students, Haley said.

Sheriff's detectives are investigating that gang's potential ties to the homicide of Dennis Riojas. Riojas, 19, was gunned down Aug. 5 near the 700 block of 124th Street SW.

A quick search on the popular social networking Web site MySpace.com shows more than a dozen young men who claim to be members of the gang as well as Mariner students.

Some of the gang members have ties to south King County, and most appear to be living near the school, Adcock said.

"We're concerned it will grow. We're seeing a lot of recruiting going on around Mariner High School," Adcock said.

Inside the school, there isn't a problem with gangs, said Andy Muntz, a spokesman for the Mukilteo School District.

Nevertheless, school officials angered some students earlier this year when they banned the wearing of hats, a move staff explained was needed to avoid possible gang symbols and discipline problems.

"It's a high school like any other high school," Muntz said. "The impression that the school is riddled with gang problems is not accurate."

The school is located in a section of the county the sheriff's office has deemed a high-crime area. It runs from 112th Street SE to 128th Street SE between Highway 99 and I-5. The small area counts for about 5 percent of all the calls to the sheriff's office.

Fighting gangs isn't just up to police, Haley said.

Officers need help from the community. They need people to report suspicious activity and to keep providing positive places such as YMCAs and Boys & Girls Clubs.

"I don't think we have criminal gangs who are freely and frequently using murder to forward their criminal activity," Lynnwood Police Chief Steve Jensen said.

However, the mob mentality that helps define gang violence has erupted here.

Jay Clements, 21, was gunned down Sept. 3 after he tried to break up a fistfight in Brier. The alleged gunman was part of a group of eight young men who traveled to a party, planning to use violence to settle a score, according to court papers.

"I don't know if they've identified (the shooter) with gangs but it's that mentality of proving how tough you are that is concerning," Jensen said.

In Lynnwood, the most active gang is made up of mainly young immigrants from Mexico, Lynnwood police officer TJ Brooks said. An agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement works with police to weed out gang members.

Gangs aren't new to the county. In the 1990s, local police fought an influx in gang activity.

More than 700 young people were identified as being involved in gangs. A girl was killed in a drive-by shooting on I-5, and more than 300 people wound up dodging bullets in the food court at Alderwood in another gang-related incident.

Police, social workers and others formed a task force to combat the problem. They trained police, teachers, parents and others in the community on how to spot gang activity.

The task force started the Neutral Zone in Mountlake Terrace, a program, still in operation, that provides teens a safe place to go on Friday nights.

Task force members tried to address what they saw as the underlying issue - young people were attracted to gangs because their social needs weren't being met elsewhere, said Dan Bond, a former member of the task force.

"It seemed like the gang behavior crested. If it's flaring up, it doesn't surprise me. We didn't solve the underlying issues, just the symptom," said Bond, now a substance abuse prevention specialist for Island County.

The sheriff's office is paying attention.

On Sept. 28, a large group of young people watched as other teens pulled a woman from her car and beat her after she honked her car horn at them. The case landed on Haley's desk. He's taking a harder look at other assaults, robberies and drug deals to see if there are connections to local gangs.

It is often difficult to make any arrests in gang-related cases, Mountlake Terrace Police Chief Scott Smith said.

Earlier this year a man was shot in the leg in Mountlake Terrace and detectives believe the shooting was gang-related. The victim has refused to cooperate with police.

Another man was shot in the hand Tuesday in Mountlake Terrace. It's unlikely that he will help police identify the shooter, who detectives believe has gang ties, Smith said.

"They take care of their own," Smith said. "There's no question that there is an increase in gang activity in Snohomish County. Not to the degree we saw in the (1990s), but they're here. They're living here and they're doing business here."

Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.

Is there a link to this article?
I wondered what the area was of this article so I used a 'place finder' program which says Snohomish Co. is in Washington. Correct?
This gang problem is very serious, needless to say. Use to be only a problem in big cities but then so was illegal immigration.

Sorry Jean, I added the link. This paper is out of Everett, WA.

There were two murders in the same block in South Everett...one Mexican National(unknown at the time whether or not he is illegal)has been arrested for the second shooting. Denis Riojas' killer is still out there. Both these killings happened a couple of blocks from where I live and on my way to work.

I live across the street from above mentioned Mariner High School.

The 5'2" woman who was dragged from her car because she honked at some kids standing in the driveway, was trying to turn in to visit her mom, who lives in my complex. Later the same day, when the young woman picked up her 3 year old from daycare, she was beaten again by some of the same girls.

There is one square mile here that is a hotbed of crime and the police are trying to clean it up. I went to a meeting and was sent a letter asking me to start a neighborhood watch. I do report all suspicious activity but should change my name from Home of the Brave to ScaredOutta'MyMind.

After reading this posting I took out the information on gangs that I had from the police department gang training. One article I had was about MS 13 or Mara Salvatrucha. It said that the gang had popped up sporadically in the past in South Miami-Dade, home to many agricultural workers from Central America. One unnamed detective claimed MS 13 has increaased in South Florida due to the rise in amount of illegal aliens from Central America.
What really frightened me was reading an article by Robert Walker who does gang identification training and is an expert witness. His article talks about the gangs and is from 2004-2005. Here is part of what his article had to say:

Illegal immigrants in the United States are responsible for most of the violent crime in large cities like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Houston and Austin. However, immigration advocacy groups have barred police departments and other government agencies from reporting violations of immigration law to federal authorities in those areas, according to Manhattan Institute scholar Heather McDonald in her article, "The Illegal Alien Crime Wave," published in the winter 2004 City Journal.
Police report that they routinely see previously deported illegals from gangs such as MS 13 back on the streets in the United States. however, unless officers witness such individuals-felons by their very presence in the United States-committing another illegal act in plain view, they are not allowed to make an arrest.
In New York, a gang of five Latinos-four of them illegal-abducted and raped a 42-year-old mother of two in Queens. Three of the illegals had been arrested on previous occasions for assault, armed robbery and drug offenses. However, the New York Police Department did not notify the Immigration and Naturalization Service because of sanctuary policies instituted by Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.