Gangs: Requiring Answers Beyond Law Enforcement

As an addition and conclusion to the News-Press' series on demographic shifts in Northern Virginia and their impact on public policy published the last six weeks, this final report focuses on the unemployment and underemployment of young people in the City, especially in regards to the swelling ranks of New Americans, which has made area and City youth more prone to recruitment into gangs.

The gang phenomenon in Northern Virginia is a by-product, at least in part, of the failure to adequately respond to this issue to date. Instead of more playgrounds and recreational opportunities, for example, expensive upgrading of athletic fields has often deterred long-established informal Sunday afternoon soccer matches among Hispanic men, for example, such as has happened at George Mason High School and the Larry Graves Fields in Falls Church and at the site of a new Eckerd Drug store in Bailey's Crossroads, to make way for organized sports leagues.

Still, gangs are not new. Gangs have long been a part of American society. They have been traced back at least as far as the late 19th century, usually in large cities and urban areas. But a recent trend in gang expansion into suburban areas means new problems for Northern Virginia jurisdictions.

In Fairfax County recent gang violence has pushed the discussion of gangs into the forefront of local policy discussion. Two recent acts of gang violence in Fairfax County, a machete attack and a fatal shooting, by members of the gang MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha, have increased the concern over growing gang issues.

For all of the discussion about gangs that has been happening right across its borders, the City of Falls Church has seemed to remain unaffected, at least according to a report by the Falls Church Police to the City Council earlier this summer. It was announced then that after a study of the area, there is no evidence that any areas of the City are a part of any gang’s turf. However, gang graffiti has appeared on two buildings in the 900 block of W. Broad in the last two years and, in addition, Asian gang activity has long been a problem at the City's predominantly Vietnamese and Chinese-American Eden Center, where shootings and stabbings have occurred in the past and the Falls Church police have their only sub-station.

Falls Church Police Chief Robert T. Murray, in an email to the News-Press, confirmed that, “We have individuals that live or visit in the City that we suspect have some gang affiliation.”

Fairfax County officials started looking at the growing gang problem in the area in 1997. After studies showed an increase in gang activity, the police force established the Gang Unit which consists of ten full-time officers focused on investigating gang activity.

Captain Deborah Burnett, commander of the Fairfax County Youth Services Division, which oversees the Gang Unit, said that the gang activity has been increasing and there are now 82 identified gangs in the area, and around 1,500 suspected gang members.

Burnett said that the county has taken steps to confront gang activity before it becomes overwhelming.

Captain Arthur Hurlock of the West Springfield station said while most of the media and public focus has been on the growing Latino gang presence, gangs draw from all ethnicities. “Initially our focus was on Asian gangs in the area,” said Hurlock. “You don’t have to be of any one ethnicity to become organized as a gang.”

Still, the report released by the office of the Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore says, “The greatest growth in gang activity is among Hispanic gangs, especially MS-13 - a notoriously violent gang - in Northern Virginia.”

Hurlock told the News-Press that for Latino youth new to the country gangs can become a surrogate family.

He said that for Latino families, often a single parent will come to the U.S. to work until he or she can afford to bring their children into the country. This can often take several years.

When the youths finally arrive they find themselves living with parents they hardly know, in a culture they aren’t familiar with, faced with a language they don’t understand, recreational options they don't have and jobs they can't get. Hurlock said that for many of these kids a gang can represent a life they are more familiar with.

Burnett said that reasons for joining gangs include peer pressure, lack of money and a sense of hopelessness.

Police forces are hesitant about singling out specific ethnic groups for targeting because it could lead to unfair racial profiling. Chief Murray said, “We are not going to concentrate on one community or single out one ethnic group over another because this is a problem that involves all races.”

Rather than a racial connection, in many studies area poverty is shown as having the closest correlation to gang activity.

As a wealthy community, the City of Falls Church has evidenced some potentially troubling trends with regards to future, if not present, gang problems.

According to the 2000 census, the City has the second lowest poverty rate in Northern Virginia, behind Loudoun County, at 4.2%. But in its Hispanic population, which has grown almost 200% over the past 20 years, the poverty rate is three times higher at 13.5%, greater than both Arlington and Fairfax County. Also, the largest poverty age group is young people, 16 to 24 years old, at 18.8%.

Ken Billingsly, from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission pointed out that the poverty level is not scaled for cost of living so in high cost areas like Falls Church, poverty is even more debilitating. “That number is so low,” he said. “You’re more poor when you’re in poverty here than in less expensive areas of the country.”

From the minutes of a community meeting on gang activity in the Heritage/Annandale area held on February 11, Sgt. Greg Smith of the Fairfax County Gang Unit warned that “gangs are migrating from cities to suburban areas, so that no community is immune to gang activity.”

In an effort to increase public awareness, Fairfax County and the year-old Northern Virginia task force, has released information that identifies possible indicators of gang activity. These include gang oriented clothing (a focus on specific colors, the wearing of bandanas, or other modified headwear, and shirts with nicknames on the back), gang graffiti, and special haircuts, eyebrow markings, or tattoos. County residents who witness possible gang activity are encouraged to call local law enforcement at the gang tip line (1-866-NO-GANGS).

The tip line is part of a new initiative entitled “Gangs—You Lose” by the Northern Virginia Task Force to provide youth and parents with information about the consequences of gangs. The initiative will include the distribution of pamphlets to parents through schools, posters placed in the communities, and media advertisements.

Despite the increased focus, though, the tip line has not been widely publicized and many law enforcement public information officials did not know the number when questioned by the News-Press.

Some are working on preemptive solutions to gang activity. On a sunny Friday in August a large group of teenagers gathered at the West Springfield Police Station. Throughout the week they had been taking part in the “Road Dawgs” summer camp that works with youth to prevent gang activity.

Originally planned as a program to work with high school honors students, the camp’s program was modified to work with at-risk middle school students from Poe and Holmes Middle Schools.

Hurlock, captain of the station, said that with the help of recreation and parks they developed a curriculum to work on gang prevention.

Throughout the week, campers met with officers, toured police facilities, listened to presentations by community groups, and even went swimming.

Finally, on Friday, campers took part in a series of role play situations where they simulated a scene about gang activity, taking on the roles of police officers, to learn how to resolve the situation.

The scenes included a traffic stop, a mother concerned about whether her son has joined a gang, a person concerned about graffiti, and a noise disturbance.

In twos, the campers worked through each scene, and an officer was on hand to help them out with information about gangs and proper responses to the situation.

In one scene Edwin and Mayra confronted a woman concerned about a bandana and a shirt with gang symbols she found in her son’s room.

With an ease born of familiarity, Edwin asked her if her son showed gang characteristics. “Is he throwing up signs?,” he said at one point. “Did you find any weapons?”

After the two left the room, the officer and the counselors looked at each other. “He taught me stuff,” laughed one counselor.

For some students at this camp, the discussion of gangs wasn’t something they were learning about, it’s something they’re all too familiar with.

“People come up to me and ask what I’m claiming but I just say I’m not into that,” said Edwin.

Normally Edwin would be going into ninth grade at Annandale High School but when he arrived in the U.S. from El Salvador he didn’t know enough English and was held back.

While he is familiar with gangs, and even has friends who are in gangs, he has decided not to participate. Instead, as he and Mayra talked, the conversation leaned more to discussions about upcoming high school life, and even college.

In fact, throughout the camp, as the kids faced the gang geared situations, the conversation revolved around normal kid things; the school year starting in a few weeks, boy friends, girl friends and video games.

To an outside observer it seemed like too much fun to be a concerted effort against gang activity. The cops joked and laughed with the kids as they munched on hot dogs, and the idea that they could someday belong to gangs seemed ridiculous.

That’s the point.

Officer Cory Haggatt, a school resource officer, talked about the goals of the camp. “We want to give them information to make good decisions later,” he said. “Unlike other areas that have been over run, gangs still exist at a low level in this area.”

Haggatt said that it is a lot easier to stop people from joining gangs than it is to stop them after they form. “It’s working. I can name specific kids whom I’ve steered away from gangs.”

He said that in Fairfax County they have more resources to confront problems before they get too big.

While “Road Dawgs” is a localized camp at the West Springfield station, county and statewide measures are also being taken to prevent the growth of gangs.

GREAT (Gang Resistance Education And Training), modeled on the DARE anti-drug program has been active in several middle schools in the county, is being expanded for the coming school year. The program focuses on helping students make educated choices about gang involvement.

The county also has created mentoring programs and graffiti removal and community clean-up groups.

In May 2003, Attorney General Kilgore created the Virginia Anti-Gang Task Force, which has helped produce stronger legislation against gang activity. The legislation includes laws against recruiting people into a gang, laws that subject gangs to the asset forfeiture and seizure laws, and the creation of a rebuttable presumption against bail for persons accused of gang activity.

In Falls Church, Chief Murray said that the department has an officer assigned to the Northern Virginia Task Force as well as a part-time member of the Asian Organized Crime Task Force.

They are also establishing, with the Northern Virginia Gang Task Force, a “Gang Tip Line” where residents can report suspected gang activity.

Additionally, the department has assigned two officers to the schools to assist in education and to identify gang activity, and two Problem Oriented Police Officers patrols to work in areas that have been or may be prone to gang activity.

Still, the official insistence that there aren’t gangs in Falls Church, while activity continues to grow in areas immediately neighboring the City, is one of Attorney General Kilgore’s concerns.

“There has been evidence in the media and in communication with law enforcement officials that some localities refuse to acknowledge their gang problem,” Kilgore said in the report. “This may be caused by a lack of knowledge, a shortage of manpower or an unwillingness to frighten residents.”

It also may be due to a more pervasive and stubborn problem which this now-completed six-part series has sought to address. That is, a resistance to face the emerging new face of Northern Virginia. Communities like the City of Falls Church tend to focus on the day-to-day problems that impact the lives of their relatively well-off populations – like traffic, schools, parks and taxes – while paying less attention to how the overall make-up of the public has shifted and will continue to shift in the future.