Crime Watch News

Happy New Year! It is a new year; we have a new president, a new sheriff, a new district attorney and a whole bunch of new judges. Now let's see if anything changes.

Last month I went to two calls out of the subdivision involving gang members. The first was a burglary in progress in Sommerall. The call was placed by a neighbor across the street who looked out her window to see three males running in and out of her neighbor's house, wearing bandannas over their faces and carrying out her property. Thinking this was rather suspicious, she called 911. Upon our arrival, minutes later, the crooks were gone and we found the back door kicked in and the house ransacked. Fortunately our reportee got the license plate and vehicle description of the burglars. One of our intrepid deputies went hunting for the vehicle and found it with only two crooks in it. We were able to trap them in the subdivision before they could flee and recover not only the property in this burglary, but we were able to find their partners, one being a pregnant girl, and tie them in to other burglaries that had taken place recently. After I went through their personal stuff, I was able to determine that three of them were gang members, not of the same gang though, and this information was sent along with their charges to the district attorney's office where it will be used against them. Interestingly enough, of the three males involved in this, one was an adult and already out on bond for intoxication assault (he was driving drunk and ran into another vehicle causing serious bodily injury) and the other two were juveniles who should have been in school.

The other call occurred when I was going to take a report on West Road and noticed some activity on the Cy-Ridge campus. While assisting their campus security and administrators, I found three juveniles who were all gang members, but not the same one, cutting school, but not this one, along with two “blunts” (cigars that had been emptied of the tobacco and stuffed with marijuana). Another item I found was a picture of two sisters, one who was now in custody for the drugs in a drug free zone, dressed in gang colors, with their bandannas and “throwing” gang signs. This was attached to the arrest report and sent to the district attorney's office. Amazingly enough, mom showed up at the station while I was filing the charge and when I showed her the picture, she immediately exclaimed “My daughters are not a gang members, they're just playing dress up.” Whether she actually believes her daughters aren't gang members or if she mistakenly believed that was going to keep me from adding the gang information to the charge, I don't know. What I do know is that the daughter I did charge, had just gotten off probation for assault/bodily injury, when she and her gang buddies jumped another kid at school. I wanted to tell mom to get a clue, but some people just can't be shown the light.

This year has already started out with one of our school-aged members getting caught with a gun at Cy-Ridge. This managed a blurb in the news and letters were sent home with students, but essentially the kid, who's old enough to go to the big boy's jail, got out of school, went home and retrieved a gun, then went back to school (a weapons free zone) to get on a bus to take care of some problem with a rival gang member. Another student saw the gun and thinking there might be a shooting on the bus, told an administrator, who managed to notify campus security and get the problem settled in a timely manner. Now our resident has a gun charge, enhanced because it occurred on school property, and a gang member designation on the charge which will be used to hammer him. I managed to speak with him and his parents shortly after he got bonded out and amazingly enough, he's dressed in his gang colors when I show up at the house. I'm going to attempt to help get him on the right track, but it's going to be up to him. As I told the family, his friends beat the crap out of him so he could join, gave him a list of rules to live by and if he failed to abide by them, they beat the crap out of him and if he wanted out, they would beat the crap out of him. In addition, rival gang members want to beat the crap out of him or maybe even kill him and then the cops want to jack him up and throw him in jail whenever possible. Amazingly enough, his gang buddies didn't bond him out of jail nor are they paying for his lawyer, so when I posed the question of “What's the attraction of being a gang member?” there's nothing but silence.

By the way, none of the gang members mentioned belonged to the former gang that for so long populated Chimney Hill, however, it appears that we have other gang members, although less organized, that have moved in recently. It is my sworn duty to make gang members' lives as miserable as possible. If there is any problem with that, anyone who is a gang member may want to move. This also applies to other various forms of crooks, but especially gang members.

I know we are all facing a tough road ahead with the economy and all the other ills of the world, but as President Obama has stated, we all must sacrifice for the good of the country. The “me” mentality of decades past has brought us to this point and if there is no “us” mentality, things will get even worse. Many things we cannot control, however, we must not forget, “Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil.” Doug Patton, Magpul Industries

Until next month, let's watch out for each other.

-Officer Mook