SULTAN — They came to find a way to never let it happen again in their town.
About 250 people gathered Tuesday night in Sultan to talk about the beating and stabbing death of a Marysville teenager and the arrest of five young people from Sultan in connection with the slaying.
Antonio Marks, 17, was fatally punched, kicked and stabbed last week feet from City Hall. A surveillance camera caught the attack on video. One adult and four juveniles have been charged with second-degree murder for the July 17 killing.
“It took something like this to wake us up,” said Aaron Day, pastor of Crosswater Church in Sultan. “Somebody gets killed, and now we recognize that maybe it is a big deal. We can’t let it get to that point unless we let it.”
People at the meeting also wanted to know how the city could prevent gangs from gaining any more ground.
City leaders are asking community members to take an interest in kids and to pay attention to what’s happening on city streets. The mayor also asked parents to keep young people home after 10 p.m. for the next few weeks — a suggestion that brought applause.
“If you are parents, keep the kids at home after dark,” Mayor Carolyn Eslick said. “No good comes from being out after dark on the streets of Sultan.”
Meanwhile, down the valley in Monroe, parents were learning more about gang activity in Snohomish County. Weeks before the killing in Sultan, Hispanic leaders in Monroe invited the county’s Gang Community Response Team to talk to parents about keeping their kids out of gangs.
The Sultan teens accused of murder, as well as the victim, had alleged ties to gangs. Investigators have not said if the attack was motivated by gang rivalry. Marks was dating the sister of two of the boys, according to court documents.
More than 60 people came to the Monroe meeting. They received a primer on the dozens of gangs found in Snohomish County. They were shown examples of the clothing, graffiti, tattoos and artwork often associated with gang members. The speakers also talked about some of the reasons kids join gangs.
“This information is not intended to scare or frighten you. It’s to educate you,” Everett police detective Kevin Fairchild said.
Investigators believe the accused were members of a Sultan-based gang known as Brown Pride Soldiers, or BPS. Last year police tracking gang activity in the county identified about 10 members of the gang in Sultan.
Charged in the Sultan killing are Marco Castillo, 19; his brother Adolfo Castillo, 16; Jaime Michel, 16; Ana Cary Ayala Bustos, 16; and Ivette Rico, 17.
In recent months some of the gang’s members had become increasingly involved in criminal activity, police said. A couple boys were caught stealing beer from a store and vandalizing a park. Another boy was thrown out of school for bringing a knife to school, court records show.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.
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