Thread: Gangs Growing In FLA Rural Areas

This is just so obvious. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that rural areas have farms that hire illegals.

http://www.miamiherald.com/569/story/67785.html

Youth gangs growing in Florida's rural areas
Youth gangs in Florida are spreading from urban areas into rural sections of the state, where the recruiting is good.
BY JOHN LANTIGUA
Palm Beach Post

MOUNT PLEASANT -- Drive down a country lane here, with horses grazing and tomato plants blossoming just off the blacktop, and a rural mailbox appears on the side of the road.

It is spray-painted in blue with the number ``13.''

A bit farther down that trail, under trees where birds sing and a tractor just passed, is another mailbox ''tagged'' in the same fashion. The number and color are insignia of a local youth gang here,

Southside 13 members either are affiliated with the violent national gang Sur 13 or at least want to be. ''Yeah, we're part of that,'' brags Carlos, 15, a student at West Gadsden High School in Greensboro, a town of about 600 people and many more pine trees.

Carlos -- not his real name -- holds out his fists. On his knuckles are tattooed the words ''THUG LIFE.'' A ''13'' is tattooed on one wrist and, near his thumb, a triangle of three dots. They stand for mi vida loca -- my crazy life -- the national motto of Latin gangs.

''People who think that gangs are just a city thing, they don't get it,'' says Gadsden County Sheriff's deputy Janice McPhaul, her department's gang expert. ``They are here and there are more of them all the time. There is increasing potential for violence.''

Rusty Keeble, of the Orange County Corrections Department and president of the Florida Gang Investigators Association, says rural areas are ripe for gang recruiters.

''They show up in Sleepy Hollow and start talking to kids about the kinds of gangs they see on TV or hear about in rap music,'' says Keeble. ``Those kids have little or nothing to do and they get interested real fast.''

47,000 IN COUNTY

No one living in this rural county of some 47,000 people claims that gang life here is anywhere as perilous as in urban South Florida.

Miami-Dade investigators have reported more national gangs like the Bloods recruiting teens in suburban parts of the county. A Bloods member was beaten up as part of an initiation inside the bathroom of a South Miami-Dade middle school, investigators said.

Last September, police broke up a house party in North Miami-Dade thrown by a man claiming to be part of West Coast-based gang, the Crips. Investigators say the party was the target of a drive-by shooting by rival gang members.

Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne last month emphasized the need to curb teen violence, which he said often starts with neighborhood gangs. Unlike big, national gangs like MS-13, local groups tend to be small and disorganized, with names like Lauderdale Manor Boys or Parkway Gangstas.

In Palm Beach County, young men sometimes empty automatic weapons at each other and gang members have shot to death at least 10 people in the past 15 months.

In late March, gunmen opened fire on a group of 10 Haitian men outside a Lake Worth home, killing three of them. Police said the victims were members of the Top 6 gang.

Some 75 miles west of Gadsden in the Panhandle, in more urban Panama City, a gang member visiting from Milwaukee during spring break in 2005 shot to death a city police officer during a routine traffic stop.

Meanwhile, Gadsden Sheriff Morris Young says he is investigating shootings, which were treated as isolated incidents, to make sure there was no gang involvement. So far not one killing has been definitely attributed to gangs.

''But given what we're seeing, it's just a matter of time,'' says McPhaul.

What McPhaul has seen in the past year is gang graffiti all over her territory, from the county seat Quincy -- population about 7,000 -- to the smaller towns of Chattahoochee, Havana and Greensboro.

GANG `TAGS'

The gang ''tags'' include those of large, violent, national gangs such as the Bloods, Crips, Insane Gangster Disciples, Sur 13 and Mara Salvatrucha -- or MS 13.

Gadsden has long had local street gangs -- the Chat Boys from Chattahoochee, 773 gang from Quincy, the Killer Hard Boys from the Hardaway neighborhood, who have little history of violence.

What worries Gadsden authorities is that these local ''wannabes'' have come in contact with larger, national gangs and that could quickly become much more serious and bloody.

''I know for a fact there are MS 13 here,'' says one veteran Quincy social worker who asks that her name not be used. ``Some real hoods have shown up here. They say it's because the police in El Salvador have just started shooting gang members down there, so they come here.''

MS 13 is the most violent Latin gang in the United States, responsible for murders across the country and the subject of congressional investigations.

Although all gang activity worries Florida gang investigators, it is the growing presence of the Latin gangs that may prove the greatest threat in rural areas.

''Gangs are able to move into Florida relatively easily because we have so many people moving here to begin with,'' says Keeble. ``In the rural areas, Latin gangs use the Latin migrant laborers for cover.''

Derek Friend, a Tallahassee Police Department investigator who focuses on gang activity, agrees. ''They work in farm labor, construction or whatever the other migrant workers end up doing,'' says Friend. ``But eventually, they will go into business for themselves.''

By ''business,'' Friend means mostly drug dealing. ''They will take over whatever operation was there before them,'' says Friend. ``In the case of the MS 13, those takeovers tend to be violent.''

Major drug smuggling routes in the United States run along interstate highways, and gangs benefit from having affiliates along those highways, says Friend.

''Those interstates cross a lot of rural territory, and it makes sense for them to have a presence there,'' he says.

And in rural areas, there are rarely Spanish-speaking investigators. ''That's a problem even in rural areas of Florida,'' says Keeble.

Gadsden County has some 4,000 Hispanic residents, mostly Mexican and Salvadoran, many of whom work in agriculture and nurseries.

Police emphasize that the overwhelming majority of them are hardworking and law abiding.

So far in Gadsden, gangs are thought to have at most a few dozen members each, not hundreds or thousands as in big cities.

BOY DELIVERS DRUGS

Carlos, the tattooed member of Southside 13, says older gang members, who belong to Sur 13, often use him to deliver drugs. This is common practice in urban gangs, because a juvenile faces much less severe penalties if arrested.

The high school student says he delivers a half-ounce of marijuana and collects $40 or $50, which he takes back to a gang leader. How many times has he done it? ''I lost count,'' he says.

Delivering drugs is not all young ''gangsters'' do. Police say ''jump outs,'' gang members leaping from vehicles, beating up victims and escaping, are on the increase. In two recent incidents, one gang member was seen taping the beating on a video camera.

Alberto, 15, was beaten up about two weeks ago after getting off a school bus in Quincy. His parents have since taken him and his 14-year-old brother out of school.

The incident is very ''small potatoes'' compared with urban South Florida gang violence. But gang investigators insist ''small potatoes'' can rapidly become big trouble in the world of gangs, teenage testosterone and easily available guns.

Some locals say the authorities are hyping the issue, trying to get grants from state and federal governments.

Says one doubter: ``Most of our kids can't afford a car. How big a drug dealer can you be riding a bicycle? How much violence are you going to do to another gang, if you have to ride your bike 10 miles or walk that far in order to beat them up?''

''There is denial about the gang issue at every level of government,'' says Keeble. 'I had an official in Orlando tell me once, `There will never be gangs in Orlando. This is the land of Mickey Mouse.' Well, at last count, there were about 2,500 gang members in Orange County.''

Keeble insists it doesn't matter whether gang kids live in Miami, Palm Beach County or under the pecan trees and Spanish moss of North Florida.

''Someday, someone is going to get shot,'' he says. ``You can't wait until the bullets are flying to admit you have a problem.''

Moving to the general news section.