Willow Glen Resident

Cover Story

Community joins together to tackle gang issues

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

Names have been changed to protect the identity of individuals--Editor

At 15, Mary understands firsthand the consequences of being in a gang. Her parents, both members of the Norteños gang, don't talk about the gang at home, but that hasn't protected the San Jose teen from the violence. Mary has lost friends, family and classmates to gangs. A girl she knew was beaten with a baseball bat during a gang fight and later died. Mary's aunt--her closest confidant and also an active gang member--is in prison for violating her parole.

"I thought I saw Jose crossing the street and started to cry," she says to her Lincoln High School classmate Susan, referring to a mutual friend who had been killed.

Neither of the 15-year-olds is in a gang.

"Being part of a gang is an easy way to die," Susan says.

Just four months into the year, 13 homicides have been recorded in San Jose. According to police, 7 of them have gang connections.

The number seems high, but overall, gang-related incidents are down from the same time last year, says Lt. Rikki Goede, a member of the San Jose Police Department's Gang Investigations Unit.

It's the type of crimes that are happening--homicides, brutal assaults, shootings--rather than the numbers that are catching the public's attention.

"The spike is in intensity," she says. "It gives the impression that gang incidents are on the rise but in comparison to other cities, we are looking very good."

While crime statistics might look good on charts, the fact is that additional budget cuts are looming at a time when school officials and students point to ominous signs on school grounds.

Suspension and expulsion rates are on the rise, says Patricia Gonzales, the school district's manager of discipline.

"This is a reflection of the number of kids bringing knives to school because they feel unsafe," she says.

John, a student at Hoover Middle School, says "Kids are being disrespectful to each other," and gangs are everywhere.

His friend Adam from Lincoln High School says there are plenty of wannabe gang members trying to prove themselves at school.

"They're hoping they get noticed and that they'll make new homies to kick it with," he says.

These wannabes for the most part wear the colors and pick on freshman or those that are new and don't know anything, he says. "These kids want to be part of something."

Adam grew up in a neighborhood near the Sureños gang, and his sister was a member.

"She would tell me which [gang] I should be part of, which ones were cooler, but I had friends on both sides," he says. "I understand it and figured out they're both stupid."

The killing of the same "blood" was Adam's deciding factor.

"They join the gang for family but kill people that can be in their family," he says.

Schools can be a reliable indicator of the level of gang activity, according to Goede. There is an increase when school starts because young people are jockeying for position after school. The same thing happens when summer starts, she says.

Not all the signs at schools are negative. One real success story is Willow Glen High School.

Al Gallegos came to the high school as vice principal in 2003, when it had a reputation as a gang school.

"Five years ago, there were about 40 kids at the campus trying to represent a certain group," Gallegos says. "Out of those, about five kids would wear the same color while walking through the campus. That could be intimidating, and we put a stop to that."

The school introduced a new dress code, and enforcement was strict.

"It's not going to be tolerated," he says of wearing gang colors. "If you aren't gonna like it, you won't make it here."

Along with the new dress code, Gallegos began holding weekly meetings with parents.

"What works is communication," he says.

Many young people who start looking to the gang lifestyle spend lots of time alone because their parents come home late from work.

"Kids begin looking for acceptance in other places, and the bad influences begin," Gallegos says.

During these meetings, he asks parents four basic questions: How well do you know your kids? What are the names of your kid's five best friends? Where do those friends live? What are the names of their parents?

"It's their responsibility to get to know their kids," Gallegos says.

He says schools aren't exempt from this either. Communication is key to successfully curbing gang interest.

"Just talking to the kids, knowing where they hang out, who they hang out with," Gallegos says, "all of this shows someone notices them."

These efforts made by Gallegos and school staff have resulted in no gang activity for the last two years, and 94 percent of the school's seniors going on to college.

"Every school should work hard to do this," he says.

Covering ground

In spite of budget cuts and problems on many school grounds, the gang task force is still having a positive impact.

The one constant that has allowed the gang unit to be successful regardless of the financial situation is its relationships, Goede says.

"You can't have systems in place to combat gangs if you don't have relationships and partnerships," she says. "The more you partner with the people who have a stake--which with gangs is everybody--the more you get things done. Are you going to solve everything? No, but you'll have the partnerships in place to make it work."

One such partnership began late 2007.

Following a spur of homicides, District 5 Councilwoman Nora Campos and the gang task force collaborated to enact a number of alternative programs--after-school activities, camping trips and additional community center teen resources--throughout the city to intensify gang intervention. As a result, 103 youth have left the gang lifestyle.

"It was too close to home, and for most of these kid, not what they thought they were signing up for," says Angel Rios Jr., of the city's parks, recreation and neighborhood services.

Although most of the information about these alternative programs is still kept quiet for fear of gang retaliation against the youth no longer involved, Rios says the task force was able to tap into the mayor's emergency reserves to allow these extra programs to exist.

The extra effort allows staff to introduce concepts such as teamwork, self-respect and responsibility to these at-risk teens in a relaxed environment outside of school and home.

Many of the task force's workers out in the schools, communities and neighborhoods are giving their personal cell phone numbers out, says Esther Mota, the city's parks, recreation and neighborhood services community services supervisor. Many have received late-night phone calls from youth.

"They have tips, want out, or their friend just got in a fight and they need help," Mota says.

Building a relationship with these youth is important so that these outreach workers can discourage retaliation, an important factor in gang violence's cyclical nature.

"Very few kids are actually part of a gang," says Bernie Rosales, Western Division community coordinator. "Ninety percent of these kids are never part of anything; they just hang out with gang members and are considered 'wannabes,' 'associates,' or 'sympathizers.'"

These teens typically aren't initiated or validated by the actual gang, but are being killed or hurt because of their association, he says. "They are becoming the martyrs for the gangs."

Rosales and his colleagues Danny Perez and Alex Toscano, the three members left of the former team of 40 in the Western Division, work to keep kids out of the system.

Their area covers the infamous triangle--three neighborhoods that are home to some of the oldest gangs in San Jose: Gardner, Washington and Alma. These men go out into the communities and search for gang-related tagging every week to keep a pulse on the gang climate. They also work with schools by assessing school climates with principals, providing yard duty for campuses with tense climates, setting up gang-education meetings for parents, and setting up extracurricular activities for at-risk youth.

The three used to organize frequent barbecues, sports tournaments and an annual whitewater rafting trip that helped build and establish relationships and change some gang perceptions among youth, but all these have been cut because of budget constraints--except the annual whitewaterrafting trip, now funded by grants attained by staff. It's now in its second generation and is designed for middle and high school students who have worked hard throughout the year, both in school and out.

"Right now, their life, all they see are those few streets they are used to walking," says Toscano. "With the whitewaterrafting trip, they see the bigger picture, they see that there's another world out there. It encourages them. It opens their eyes."

Susan used to come to a local community center for its after-school activities but stopped when she became more involved with the gang lifestyle. Now she's back and enjoys the safety she feels there.

"It's fun, and I get to talk to people," she says. "We've gone to field trips like roller skating and ice skating and it's fun. You get to just hang out."

Susan comes from a home where everyone is in the Norteños gang, and although she herself isn't a gang member, she says she likes to "kick it with the people who are."

At school, she says there are a lot of wannabes.

"They think they're all hard. but someone puts a gun to their head and they don't want to be in it anymore," she says. "That happened recently to one of my friends."

Susan's classmate Mary also comes to the center to hang out with friends.

She's been coming for years, but her mother keeps her on a tight leash.

"My mom knows where I am at all times," she says. "My family wants me to get an education and have a better life than them. Gangs aren't worth it."

The 15-year-old has lost many friends to the lifestyle.

"I had a friend that got hit near Del Mar High School," she says. "They hit her with a baseball bat and dragged her out to the street and left her there to die."

Although police confirm the incident happened about two years ago during a gang fight, they say the girl's death was not classified as a homicide because she died when she fell out of a car, not from her beating.

These stories are becoming more common in these youth's lives, making an alternative difficult to fathom.

"Gangs aren't just at school," she says. " Gangs are every place you go."

Finding the resources

Campos has been working on the gang issue for the last 13 years and has concluded, "It's a citywide issue."

In the past, the task force has addressed the gang issue on a district-by-district basis, which Campos admits has been effective, but with a catch.

"All the resources are funneled into a single district," she says, "and you are just pushing the problem into another."

No longer on the task force herself, Campos says partnerships are still key.

"We know when we look at the gang issue, kids that are in gangs go to our public schools," she says. "We have great partnerships, but we need to do more."

Campos says the city should increase the amount of money invested in after-school programs.

The next step is increasing the amount invested in the individuals working with the youth.

"We need to make sure individuals that work with kids are given all the resources and people power to work with our young people," she says. "We can't have two people handling 150 kids."

Some of her suggestions include extending the current hours at community centers, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, as well as adding more homework centers.

Avan Duong, coordinator for the teen program at Gardner Community Center, says its necessary to have these services available to youth.

"Some of them don't have parental guidance," Duong says. "Sometimes schools don't have time for them with their budget issues. These kids are coming here not fed and to make it all work, we need resources available as well as more staff."

He says that these shortcomings at the centers become more apparent when youth are suspended or expelled from school.

"They get kicked out of school, but don't stay home," Duong says. "They come here."

He says that there still is lack of communication between the teen programs at the centers and the schools.

"We need to work together to know what the issues are so we can work on them," he says. "The kids need to know why they are being suspended. It needs to be explained."

Looming cuts to school funding promise to make matters worse, hampering the progress already made.

"All of us, from the city to individual classroom teachers, are doing all that we can to fight gang activity," says Don McCloskey, San Jose Unified School District director of student services.

Encouraging student involvement through after-school activities as well as suggesting local community centers is one way schools are approaching the problem.

The correlation between school involvement--or lack thereof --and interest in gangs is common sense, McCloskey says.

"Once youth are in the gang lifestyle, school isn't an option," he says.

The Mayor's Gang Prevention Task Force is conducting a series of community meetings to collect feedback on its new Strategic Work Plan for 2008-11.

The Central Division Focus Group community meeting will be held on May 19, 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose, from 6-8:30 p.m.

To anonymously report gang activity or a violent crime, call 408. 293.4264.

For more information on available resources for gang intervention services or to be part of a focus group, call 408.277.2741.