Gang task force formed in Culpeper
Posted: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 4:10 pm
Culpeper Police Chief Scott Barlow believes the majority of Culpeper's gang problems are due to local young men who form loose affiliations with a particular neighborhood and then get into trouble.
While gang issues in Culpeper pale in comparison to those in metro areas or larger cities, Barlow said a newly formed gang task force wants to stop the potential for gang issues to worsen.
He held a press conference announcing the task force's goals Tuesday with Major Jim Branch of the Culpeper County Sheriff's Office, Lt. Rob Fridley of the Virginia State Police and Culpeper County Commonwealth's Attorney Gary Close. All four agencies are part of the task force that also expects to cooperate with the Blue Ridge Narcotics Task Force.
"What we are seeing across the country, is not as much MS13, Bloods and Crips," Barlow said, referring to a gang conference he recently attended in New Orleans. "But we are seeing local groups of young men who come up with their own name, whether it's HP, 26th Street or the Brook Avenue Boys - wherever they live, they then identify themselves.
"It's almost like years ago, when a group of kids would hang out because they live together in the same neighborhood and they'd hang out and play baseball," Barlow continued. "Some of these kids hang out and they do crimes associating themselves with that neighborhood they are in. … Those are the folks that we'd like to target very soon before they get to become hardcore."
State law classifies a gang as a group of individuals that identify with a specific name, color or sign who have also committed predicate offenses.
Close and Barlow said there are not any local gangs that meet this definition.
However, there has been documented presence of the national MS13 gang in Culpeper. All four agencies will work to develop a local database of suspected gang members (national or local) that they can then share with local law enforcement or surrounding jurisdictions.
"I do think that the message we are trying to get out is Culpeper is not a place for gangs to do business," Close said. "We're not a place where there is gang warfare going on, or anything to that extent. But there is some gang activity going on and we want to keep it at a minimum. And the way to do that is to be proactive and hit first and that's what we're doing."
The task force has four goals:
* Gather intelligence
* Provide proactive interdiction
* Enforce anti-gang laws and any other gang related crimes
* Educate law enforcement officers and the community in gang awareness
The first step in meeting these goals, Barlow said, is to gather intelligence by finding out who of Culpeper's youth is affiliated with neighborhoods that might be trying to gain recognition in a criminal way.
"To interdict that, the best thing to do is early education, early arrests," Barlow said, specifically referring to a group of juveniles recently arrested for a mob assault on Virginia Avenue July 4. The group was originally being investigated for potential gang affiliations but the lack of predicate offenses avoids the gang classification.
"I don't anticipate any of those kids going to jail for the rest of their lives, that's not the intention," Barlow said. "The intention is to get their attention and say, 'Hey when a group of you guys get together and go to someone's house and conduct an assault, that is serious stuff.' "
If any of them are convicted and are loosely associated with a group, HP or otherwise, it will become their first offense, Barlow said. Future offenses identified with a specific group would establish a record and become "much more serious."
Major Jim Branch of the CCSO said interdiction can begin much earlier than arrests with prevention programs such as DARE, which educates students about gangs and bullying. The Sheriff's Office also trains school staff yearly and established a Spanish tip line to report gang or drug activity in an effort to be proactive.
For the county, Branch said the Sheriff's Office doesn't see as much gang prevalence, through graffiti or otherwise, as the town.
"But we realize that as population grows, those problems will spread out into the county as well," he said. "If we combine our efforts we can be more effective and efficient."
Close said fixing Culpeper's gang problems is much like the "theory of the broken window."
"If a window breaks in a neighborhood and nobody fixes it then other things start to happen," he said. "Gang graffiti, for example, that may seem like a very minor thing because it's just paint on a wall. I mean, it's not like somebody is getting shot but I see that as the broken window. So in terms of interdiction, if we take care of the gang graffiti and we take care of the minor offenses early on, my theory is the larger offenses will not follow."
Lt. Rob Fridley of the VSP commended the local agencies for taking a proactive approach, especially a community of Culpeper's size.
The State Police will act more in an advisory capacity, as well as enhance the local gang database with its information.
Fridley said the governor's office approved a few gang-specific positions for the VSP 18 months ago, which started in the Shenandoah Valley and Fredericksburg areas.
In the next month, the VSP will help develop a local gang database and provide some training to officers and deputies, Fridley said.
Fridley said there is one shooting in the Shenandoah Valley currently being investigated that has been linked to an MS13 gang member. In Fredericksburg, he said, the officers are mostly seeing gang graffiti and had one drive-by shooting believed to be gang related.
"If we don't take care of it now it can become a serious problem," Fridley said. "By taking this approach with all these agencies involved, this is the first line of defense - it's law enforcement. It also requires effort from the community to report to us so we can look into it."
Liz Mitchell can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 110 or emitchell@starexponent.com
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