KELSEYVILLE — About 100 parents, educators and community members attended the first Gang Awareness Town Hall Thursday at the Kelseyville Presbyterian Church. The event was co-sponsored by the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Commission and California Highway Patrol (CHP) and featured two experts in the field who discussed gang activity and culture in the county, and how to prevent gang recruitment of area youth.
An hour-and-a-half long power point presentation by Lakeport Police Department Detective Norm Taylor followed by a half-hour question and answer session led by CHP Officer Mike Humble resulted in a lively and interactive discourse between community members and presenters.
Taylor said about 100 documented gang members are known to be active in Lake County. Law enforcement officers document gang members when there are several instances that tie them to gang activity, such as known gang criminal activity or displays of culture, such as clothing or “throwing gang signs.”
Once a member is documented, law enforcement can use that documentation in the court system to get special “gang enhancements” added to crimes that often result in prison time.
The communities known to have ongoing gang problems are Lakeport, Kelseyville, Clearlake and Middletown, but all communities are known to have gang members, Taylor said.
In the past year, there have been 11 different gang prosecutions for prison in the county. “A year ago outside TNT”s (a restaurant in Lakeport) there was a stabbing. Because we had documented the gang membership of the people involved, the lightest sentence of a person involved was six years. The three others got seven years. That”s because we”re doing the documentation. Not only on our own but with the community”s involvement. We”re getting calls saying ?listen there”s kids hanging out that seem to look like gang members,”” Taylor said.
He said gang membership numbers appear in waves. “Is it a good thing they go to prison? Yes it is, it takes violent members off the streets, but let”s not forget that these gang members have returned and continue to return. In Lakeport we”ve seen huge upswings and then large falls?they go to prison for a long time, we see drops in activity and drops in involvement, then a few years later they get out and we get a swell?so it”s something we need to stay on top of all the way through.”
Taylor”s presentation is the same used to train law officers, but was modified to be family-friendly.
The lengthy presentation, which many viewers called “interesting” and “very good” as they left the forum, covered topics ranging from gang cultures that are emerging that are specific to Lake County, to reasons youth join gangs and the details of the initiation process into gangs.
Photographs were shown of graffiti, hand signs and even one 12-year-old girl throwing a gang sign and wearing all red. Taylor said she was asked by a gang member to attend school wearing red because he needed support. A video showed “jumping in” an initiation practice used nationwide and seen in Lake County.
During the question and answer session, Officer Humble advised parents to look for gang signs written on school notebooks and to notice not only whether children are wearing specific colors of clothing or sports teams, but whether they have modified the clothing, such as adding a moniker to the back of an LA Dodgers cap. Virtually all gang members have a moniker or nick name they are known by.
Gangs in Lake County are turf-driven, meaning they tend to try to take over specific areas and strike fear into the community through vandalism and graffiti. Humble said anyone who sees graffiti or gang-related activity should contact the Sheriff”s Department at (707) 262-4200.
At the end of the meeting, event organizer Catherine Rose of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Commission answered the request of one attendee that there be a Spanish version of the forum, saying it would be possible.
Humble agreed to participate in a Spanish forum and added that it is the goal to have many more meetings in each community around the lake.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com.
