Pubdate: Mon, 24 Oct 2005
Source: Daily Times, The (MD)
Copyright: 2005 The Daily Times
Contact: http://www.delmarvanow.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.thedailytimesonline.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/116
Author: Deborah Gates, Staff Writer

OFFICIALS AWARE OF GANG PRESENCE

Work To Quell Local Crews Intensifies Before National Groups Gain Foothold

SALISBURY -- At the northern end of the Salisbury Plaza Shopping 
Center, past a grocery store and a busy exercise club, Willie Carter 
stands in front of a state Labor Department office that doles out day jobs.

There is writing spray-painted on the wall beside him, but Carter 
reads little into what is displayed.

The massive, exterior wall is a banner of graffiti touting "ABM" and 
"Groove $ City" and at least a dozen other signers who "wuz here."

Carter said he dismisses the spray-painted scrolls as clever mischief 
of idle youth that saw a movie.

"I don't know ABM is All 'Bout Money. This is where you find work, so 
it could mean that, or anything," Carter said. "It could be the 
initials of somebody's name."

Graffiti that may appear to some residents as simple street art is 
setting off police intelligence alarms that gangs, or organized 
street-level criminals, may be forming in the rural Lower Shore's 
urban center. ABM, the acronym for All 'Bout Money and the name of a 
gang in the hip-hop motion picture "State Property" is turning up 
more and more on sides of buildings, underpasses and abandoned 
tractor-trailers.

Taking no chances, Wicomico County law enforcement agencies are 
mobilizing -- involving schools, community groups and churches -- to 
block real-life, national gangs such as the MS 13, the Crypts or the 
Bloods from planting cells here.

Crews or gangs?

"What we're seeing here are fledgling groups, but not in the same 
category as the Crypts," said Fruitland Police Department Cpl. Matt 
Brown. "We're starting to see more graffiti turn up in the past year. 
We don't have a gang problem in the county now, but we will in the 
next few years if we don't get a handle on it."

Taking a lead is the Wicomico County office of the State's Attorney, 
which is taking anti-gang and anti-gun messages to schools and 
communities through a county program called Exile.

"Most (gang members) are involved in the sale of narcotics and they 
end up shooting each other over territory," said Assistant State's 
Attorney Dan Dougherty. "Groups are called crews, and they are on 
Church and Booth streets.

"My concern is that they are ripe for the picking (for organized 
gangs) to take over," he said, "to enlist teens for gangs."

Some national gangs are forming chapters nationwide and young teens 
are attractive candidates for membership because of a misconception 
that juvenile penalties for possession of drugs or a weapon are less 
severe, Dougherty said.

"They take the fall, go to jail, and the average age is between 17 
and 24 years old," he said. "Below age 16, with a weapon, you can go 
to adult court, too. If you're 15 with a weapon, you can get 
detention until you're 21, generally."

Last week, Wicomico educators were warned to look out for uniforms or 
graffiti, tattoos or other scribbling that could be clues to gang 
activity, and a Wicomico Board of Education workshop Tuesday on 
discipline has been amended to include a discussion on the issue, 
Superintendent Charlene Cooper Boston said Friday.

"(The state's attorney) talked with us about being on the lookout for 
signs of potential gang activity and alerting authorities to anything 
suspicious," Boston said. "There is a partnership between law 
enforcement, schools and the community."

Excessive force

The 8 a.m. workshop at Salisbury Middle School is a forum Boston 
hopes familiarizes health and conflict resolution teachers or others 
in attendance with gang signs and symbols.

"There will be an update on gangs, drugs and violence in our 
community," she said. "(Officials) are asking us and the business 
community to photograph graffiti, to watch for symbolism, such as the 
colors people wear -- proactive measures."

Students in secondary schools and dropouts are often gang targets, 
Boston said studies show, and added that aggressive steps by 
education officials will focus on those groups. "We haven't seen it 
yet, but it doesn't take much (for a gang) to get a foothold, 
particularly in secondary schools," she said. "Dropouts are good 
candidates; that's why I'm against dropouts."

Attention could create a problem, and law enforcement officials 
concerned about gangster copycats are cautious to discuss the issue, 
especially for media reports.

"We have graffiti in the city as any other and we are working with 
agencies on intelligence ... but we have no information to say there 
are (gang) chapters in the city," said Salisbury Police Chief Allan Webster.

"Personally, I don't like to talk about it. I've seen local things or 
heard about them, but I've been here six years and seen kids dress 
alike, but just because you see that or graffiti doesn't mean it's a 
gang," Webster said.

Mary Ashanti, a West Side community leader and president of the 
Wicomico County branch of the National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People, agrees that publicity on the issue 
could do more harm than good.

"I have not seen evidence of gangs," Ashanti said. "No one has 
contacted me with a report about it, and I would rather see folks not 
spend time dealing with that, but rather there should be a focus on 
what young people are doing positive. We must be careful how we label 
things, the way we put things out there. We don't want to give 
credence to something that's not there."

Hood Passion

The topic is not a major concern among NAACP delegates, many of whom 
were in attendance at a state civil rights convention last weekend in 
Princess Anne. Racial profiling by police is, said Kenneth Ballard, 
who leads the NAACP's Somerset County branch.

"There is a disproportionate number of arrests among minorities and 
that is more of a concern," Ballard said, adding that youth, 
especially, react negatively to racial profiling, and most complaints 
of alleged police abuse are from African-Americans. "We advocate 
sensitivity training for police officers."

He cites last month's fatal shooting of a West Side Salisbury man 
during a narcotics task force raid as an episode that has stirred 
emotions throughout the African-American communities, where some are 
questioning whether police used excessive force in shooting the 
suspect 20 or more times.

"The complaints we get are not from people afraid of gangs but from 
people afraid of the (police) task force that comes busting through 
the doors," Ballard said. "We need to monitor the cops as much as the 
citizens."

A middle school student wearing an oversized white T-shirt and jeans 
- -- and a tattoo, "Hood Passion" -- drew attention at the West 
Salisbury Youth Club off Jersey Road, where Executive Director Mark 
Thompson runs an after-school program for students suspended from school.

"Youth are coming to the club with tattoos. They are not in gangs, 
but the kids think it's a cool thing to do to wear rags on their 
heads, all black and all white and tattoos on their arm," Thompson 
said. "A kid last week with 'Hood Passion' on his arm said he was not 
part of a gang, so I asked him why he was wearing it."

Community outreach

Thompson invited Assistant State's Attorney Andrew McDonald to 
address the group on the Exile program he heads.

"(Kids) know the penalties for gun crimes," Thompson said after 
observing comments by youth in McDonald's audience. "You get five 
years in jail for this, or 10 years for that. They know the law. The 
Eastern Shore is impressionable and people don't know the signs of 
gangs and they need to be made aware."

Signs of "FTL," "Fruitland Posse" and "ABM" are turning up around 
Fruitland, and police there are conducting community policing 
training for officers and forming watch groups with landlords and 
church and community leaders, Brown said.

"It is not a new concept, but we are beefing up community policing. 
We encouraged landlords to get on board, and they are evicting more 
tenants based on a disorderly house (regulation)," Brown said. "The 
church is very involved in the community and there is increased 
interest by community members."

Fruitland's Mount Olive Church pastor, the Rev. Maurice Brown, is 
mentoring children who are in and out of school at a community 
elementary school.

"The seller (of drugs) wants help as much as the buyer. If I can get 
one off the street, one will stay off," the pastor said.
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