Gang signs: a growing battle for the soul of Snohomish County’s streets

Published 11:21 pm Wednesday, March 31, 2010

EVERETT — Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Bud McCurry was on gang patrol in Everett last summer when he stopped to talk with a boy known as Speedy.

Speedy, 17, was polite and friendly to the cops. They knew what he was. They recognized the uniform: a sports jersey and long braided belt. The officers had seen the tattoo on his knuckles, claiming his allegiance to the Southland Villains.

The next day the boy was dead.

Antonio “Speedy” Marks was a gang member.

Adolescent bravado ignited into violence. Five young people jumped Marks in downtown Sultan on June 17. He was knocked to the ground, kicked and stabbed. The attackers were members of the Brown Pride Soldiers, small-town gangsters with big egos.

A mother lost her son. Five young people are locked behind bars. A community faced more evidence that gangs operate in Snohomish County.

“The kids talk to us. They’re not committing crimes but they’re hanging out with gangs,” McCurry said. “Then out of nowhere a kid gets killed. How do we ever prevent anything like that from happening again?”

Police, advocates for children and families, and other community leaders are working together to find the answer. Snohomish County was awarded more than half a million dollars to combat gangs and youth violence.

The sheriff’s office last fall received a $375,000 grant to fund a gang suppression unit. The Snohomish County Community Gang Response Team recently was awarded an additional $200,000 grant from the state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration. The money is earmarked for an extensive street outreach program for at-risk kids and their families.

“We can’t arrest our way out of this,” said Ann Gifford, the sheriff’s director of community partnerships. “We can’t do it alone.”

The sheriff’s office didn’t wait for a grant to go after street gangs, sheriff’s Lt. Rick Hawkins said. They’d been seeing the signs for years: more graffiti, violent robberies, drive-by shootings and gang-related murders, including the 2006 fatal shooting of a south Everett teenager.

School resource officers patrolled the streets during the summer to identify gang members and their associates.

Since their first assessment in 2007, police have identified 60 active gangs in Snohomish County and 850 gang members and people affiliated with gangs. In a 2008 survey, more than 1,000 eighth-graders and high school sophomores and seniors reported being in a gang. Police found gangs in every city in the county.

The gang population is transient here, and not often organized around criminal activity, McCurry said.

They don’t fight over territory, he said. They often fight over insults.

Respect is one of the most important parts of being associated with a gang, said Beau Beckner, a Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy and the school resource officer at Mariner High School.

If gang members perceive they are being insulted, they feel compelled to retaliate, he said.

“Instead of standing on a street corner defending their turf, they’re on the Internet,” McCurry said.

Some of the gangs, often the younger members, are engaged in something McCurry calls “e-thugging.” They trade insults and challenge rival gangs over the Internet through social network sites including MySpace and Facebook, he said.

Full-time gang duty

Three full-time deputies and one sergeant make up the gang unit. The team used to be the county’s directed patrol unit, who focused on arresting the most harmful criminals in the county, including car thieves, drug dealers and burglars. The aggressive, boots-on-the-ground approach netted hundreds of arrests. The team has had to change tactics to effectively deal with gang members.

Much of the officers’ time now is spent talking with gang members or potential gangsters who aren’t breaking any laws. The team wants to learn who they are and what gang they belong to. They try to find out what gangs are warring and if there are rumors of any fights or retaliation. They photograph graffiti to keep track of who is in the neighborhood.

McCurry passes his business card out to everyone he meets on the streets. He encourages them to call him day or night if they hear about any problems or crimes being committed.

“We used to measure our success by how many arrests we made,” McCurry said. “Now if we don’t have a gang fight, and we reach some kids, we think we’ve had a successful night.”

With the kids, the officers often step into the role of mentor, encouraging the young people to stay out of gangs and change their lives before they end up behind bars or dead.

“Once we put the handcuffs on them, it’s kind of like their badge of honor,” McCurry said. “Prevention has to be in place for these kids.”

That’s where the county’s gang-response team comes in. The team formed just over a year ago to focus on keeping kids out of gangs. The team is made up of police officers, social service providers, educators, juvenile court staff and other concerned people from the community.

The group created a parents handbook on gangs and held training sessions. It also helped establish the sheriff’s office gang hotline and a Web site to provide resources to parents and community members.

Help for at-risk kids

The team recently won a grant to help fund a street outreach program for high-risk kids and connect families with existing resources to help their children.

Cocoon House, which assists homeless youth, is taking the lead. The agency has been doing street outreach for more than a decade, said Marty Arellano, director of youth operations for Cocoon House. The agency is subcontracting with Familias Unidas to provide outreach to the county’s Hispanic youth and their families.

“We’re out there in the streets, neighborhoods and schools, reaching out the most disconnected youth to make sure they know they aren’t alone,” Arellano said.

The agency surveyed the young people who were already being seen by advocates. Sixty percent said they were already affiliated with a gang or knew someone who was. They also surveyed the kids who use U-Turn, a drop-in center. About 70 percent of those kids are affiliated with a gang, Arellano said.

Cocoon House staffers are educating themselves about gangs and youth violence.

Kids are seeking a sense of belonging. All kids face this in adolescence, Arellano said.

The plan is to serve 75 of the highest at-risk young people involved in gangs. They will help them get connected to resources such as educational and job training opportunities through the Center for Career Alternatives or mentors through Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

“We are not experts at getting kids out of gangs. We will provide support for youth and their families as they face the challenges of youth violence and gangs,” Arellano said. “We want to make them as safe as possible.”

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.

Help available

If you need help getting out of a gang or keeping your child out of gangs, call 425-388-6666 or visit www.wevaluekids.org.