(AK) Gangs in Anchorage

[spacemanspiff]

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/crime...-7765811c.html
Gangs in Anchorage
Police crack down on escalating gun violence
By MEGAN HOLLAND Anchorage Daily News Published: June 18, 2006
Last Modified: June 18, 2006 at 09:04 AM

The bang sounded like a firecracker. Then 12-year-old Tupou Pea felt the burning on his back and leg. He had been shot.

Someone had fired at Tupou from a passing SUV early in the morning May 26 as he rode with his father and brother on their way to pick up newspapers for delivery.

Police say the Samoan boy and his family may have been mistaken for gang members.

Over the past year, gang wars in Anchorage have escalated to a new level. Suddenly police reports sound like bad news from some inner city Outside: innocent bystanders caught in drive-by shootings, ambushes on residential homes, shoot-outs in public parking lots.

"This is the thing we've worried about since the beginning," said deputy chief Ross Plummer. "Where a neighborhood gets shot up and an innocent person gets hit."

"We have to focus on gangs. They are here. They are a reality. We can't say that they are not," said deputy chief Rob Heun, who will become police chief later this year. At the announcement of his appointment last week, Heun said he will make combating the gang problem a top priority.


A DOZEN GANGS IN ANCHORAGE

Police estimate there are a dozen gangs in Anchorage, with a total of about 115 members. There are another 130 to 150 people police call gang "associates," meaning people known to hang out with them, support them and sometimes take part in their criminal activities.

Detectives say many of the recent reports of gunfire around the city seem to be related to the slaying of a 17-year-old boy, shot three months ago in East Anchorage, and perhaps to three other gang-related homicides since March 2005.

Anchorage has had gangs since at least the early 1980s, but their presence ebbs and flows. This year has seen a dramatic increase, authorities say.

"It used to be that there would be a fist fight on a Friday afternoon over some girl. Now people drive around shooting at each other for four or five months over the issue," said Mark Mew, a former deputy police chief who has watched the unfolding tensions among teenagers as head of security for the Anchorage School District.

Plummer agrees: "They have no real qualms about using firearms on people that have offended them."

Inter-gang rivalries usually start out small: a wayward glance or accidental bump in a crowded place and someone decides he's "being disrespected" or somebody is "talking smack" about him. Petty beefs escalate quickly, especially when guns are available. And guns can be found anywhere if you are an Anchorage teenager, say both police and gang members.

Waving a gun around quickly turns into shots fired, which in turn become shots aimed to kill.

In Anchorage, gangs form in a variety of ways. Some are merely kids from the same neighborhood who band together and make up a name to call themselves, according to authorities. Others are formed by young gang members from the Lower 48 who have moved to Alaska with their parents and bring vestiges of their old lives with them.

Names like Outlaws, Soulja's Crew, Juvenile Delinquents and Tiny Rascals come and go. Some are local creations. Some, like Tiny Rascals, a name used by one of the largest Asian gangs in America, are lifted from Outside.

The names evolve or change or produce spin-offs, like the Hamo Tribe, a Samoan gang, which had a spin-off called the Baby Hamos for younger teens.

Cops don't like to use gang names because they believe it gives them status on the streets -- and, of course, it's not illegal to be in a gang, they say. It's what the gangs do that is illegal.

Anchorage gangs are different from gangs Outside, said Dean Williams, a juvenile- justice superintendent at McLaughlin Youth Center and a member of the city's anti-gang task force. No two cities are identical, but Anchorage stands apart because it has a transient population, kids who have recently moved here with their families -- in many cases to escape the economic and social problems endemic to inner cities.

Police agree. Anchorage is unusual mostly because of the state's isolation, they say. We do not have generational gangs that have existed since the 1950s with older, hard-core members, Plummer said. Nor do we have the decades of poverty and disenfranchisement of people that breeds gangs.

"We don't have a ghetto in Anchorage ...We don't have hard-core housing projects," he said.

"These people are doing it because they choose to, not because of economic hardship."

Anchorage gangs can be primarily one ethnic or racial group. There are Samoan gangs, Asian gangs and black gangs. But there is variation in each gang and no hard and fast rules, Williams said. They tend to be less territorial here, more multicultural, and their make-up is very fluid compared with Lower 48 gangs, he said.

Kids, mostly boys, join gangs when they are as young as 12 or 13. Calil Gross-Mininall was shot and killed in March 2005 at Dimond Center. He was 14.

Lt. Gardner Cobb, head of the cops in schools program, said gang members are in the schools.

School security director Mew said Bartlett, East and West high schools typically have problems, but other schools do too. "We are working really hard to suppress it across the board and to keep it from migrating from the streets to the schools."

Identifying which students are problems is sometimes difficult, he said. "You've got this style out there promoted by movies and music ... You know, they all want to be like gangsters. That's what the kids aspire to be. That's not helpful. It's difficult to tell the wannabes from the real McCoys."

Williams said the breakdown of who is in gangs, where they come from and why they form is a nascent area of study for the city. Little is tracked or known, he said, although the city and law enforcement are working on that.

Recent changes in local gangs make getting accurate information even more important. Anchorage gangs may have started as social networks, but they are now organizing criminal enterprises to make money, Plummer said. They are branching out into drug dealing, auto theft and stealing from vehicles.


SHELL CASINGS AND SILENCE

Four people have been killed in recent revenge shootings that started escalating in March 2005, police say: Gross-Mininall, Tinius Talamaivao, 20, Marcus Watkins, 20, and Abraham Tauanu'u, 17. At least a dozen others have been shot, including the brothers of Talamaivao and Watkins.

Tauanu'u is the latest to have died. He was riding in a vehicle near DeBarr Road and Boniface Parkway around 11 p.m. March 24 when someone in another vehicle opened fire.

It was the third time he had been shot since 2004.

Sgt. Gil Davis, head of the assault unit that handles most of the cases, has been watching the gang rivalries unfold. He said the assaults share similar characteristics: drive-by shootings, reluctant witnesses and uncooperative victims who show up at hospitals refusing to talk to police.

Police respond to calls and find shell casings, but by then the shooters have scattered.

To combat the rise in gang violence, police have shifted cops in schools, increased patrols and made deals with businesses to break up gang gathering spots. Police are also patrolling more in areas where there have been drive-bys and where gangs hang out, including a hard-hit neighborhood along the north end of Muldoon Road where, police say, gangs like to gather late at night in parking lots.

"I don't know why they've picked this part of town, other than it's just become 'the place,' " said Skip Winfree, owner of 10th and M Seafoods on Muldoon Road.

Winfree said the sound of gunshots in the neighborhood has increased in the past several months. "It used to be happening in late hours. Now it's starting to happen during the day."

His building was damaged when a gunman shot and injured two teenage girls in a nearby parking lot at 4 a.m. in early April. Police later arrested 21-year-old Darian Patterson and charged him with attempted murder. He is at the Anchorage jail, awaiting trial.

Police are keeping a closer watch on the neighborhood, with extra officers and extra patrols, they said.

Muldoon business owners around Peck and Duben avenues, including Winfree, have agreed to erect "No Trespassing" signs, which police then enforce, including by towing vehicles.

"What we really want to do is give the ability to the police to take the bad ones and get them off the street," Winfree said "We don't want to run them to another area. We are hoping the real worst of them will be thrown in jail for a long time."

Sherman "Tank" Jones, who owns two clubs in the neighborhood, sees it a little differently. Some of the late-nighters are his customers, and he says police are overstating the problem. "Gangs taking over Muldoon?" he asked. "Where?"

"This is a hip-hop generation. Just because you have a do-rag hanging out of your pocket and you can do the gang signs doesn't make you a gang member. Half of these people have jobs and just want to let loose," he said.

Jones supports more police in the neighborhood, though. It's better for business, he says.

Police are also considering a buy-back or amnesty program for stolen guns and ammunition. Police spokesman Lt. Paul Honeman said the department is checking whether such programs have worked in other cities.

Gang members are not likely to turn in guns, police acknowledge. But one idea is to give gang members and other criminals one month to turn in their guns, then go hard after those who don't. Another is to have a "Gun Stoppers" phone line, similar to Crime Stoppers, for people to call in tips on stolen guns, Honeman said.
- continued next post -

[spacemanspiff]

- continued from above -
This all comes after two cases where bystanders -- including 12-year-old Tupou -- were struck by flying bullets.

Tupou, his father and his younger brother were driving on Karluk Street near 15th Avenue when the passenger in a Chevy Suburban with its lights off fired at them about six times.

Father Tavita Pea said he had to steer with one hand on the wheel while he pulled his kids down in their SUV with the other and sped for help. Doctors left the bullets in his body and Tupou returned to school, the family said.

The other injured bystander is Christopher Pryce, 24. A bullet burst through the wall of his Muldoon apartment May 14 while he was sitting at his computer and lodged in his neck. A few days later, Pryce vowed to leave Anchorage for a safer place.

Since last spring, when the mayor announced the formation of the city's gang task force, police and other law enforcement authorities have begun compiling a database of gang members, which includes criminal history and reports of gang-type activity from various sources. Once on the list, a gang member has to stay clean for five years to be removed, Plummer said.

One of the worries about gangs, according to Williams, is their ability to grow. "Gang kids tend to breed other gang kids," he said. "I don't care what the numbers are, if we have gang kids doing their activities, the risk is they are going to recruit more kids.

"I think we should definitely be concerned."

Plummer said, "I don't think people should live in fear. ... But I think they should have concern."

"We don't want this in our community."

It's a frustrating battle, but police say they have scored victories. They've arrested dozens of known gang members so far this year. On May 25, they scooped up four men after shots were fired toward a rival gang in an East Anchorage trailer park, according to the prosecution's court documents. Police say one of the men arrested, Alberto Hiraldo-Zayas, 20, was at the Dimond Center shoot-out that killed Gross-Mininall.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daily News reporter Megan Holland can be reached at mrholland@adn.com.

[stratus]

"We have to focus on gangs. They are here. They are a reality. We can't say that they are not," said deputy chief Rob Heun, who will become police chief later this year.

Very, very good premise (one of many) to follow with the conclusion that law-abiding citizens with guns is a GOOD thing.

[dfaugh]

Watched a show last night on the MS-13 gangs.... They are now active in most states as well as much of Canada and several other countries...Estimates of their numbers range from a few thousand, to many thousands.

The big difference between them and the traditional gangs are that they are HIGHLY organized, recruit actively (including members/associates as young as 9 or 10) and have absolutely NO aversion to using violence. They have infiltrated all levels of organized crime, and continue to acquire more.

[stevelyn]

We don't have a ghetto in Anchorage...

Maybe not, (I know I'm gonna catch it from Spiff and Wild ) but Spenard and Mountain View are a couple of places you don't want to be a stationary target in.

[spacemanspiff]

Absolutely right. Though right now Muldoon sounds worse for gang type of crime than Mountain View. M'View simply has all the crackwhores that got run out of Spenard by Community Patrols.

[PinnedAndRecessed]

Where's Wild? How come he hasn't cleaned it up?

[spacemanspiff]

He's still nursing a hangover from his having "two drinks" last Friday. Lightweight just can't hang with the big kids.

[paratrooper]

Let's go back in time just a bit . When I was there the only way to get to Spenard was on Fireweed Lane . Mountain View was just a collection of trailer parks . The REAL ghetto at the time was known as :The Mud Flats". That was the section designated as more or less a "DMZ". You go down there and all bets were off . It seems that the crap has moved to the mainstream . Since these gang members seem to be conspicious by their looks it seems a good place to start . Some problems also come from military deps that become bored and want to "hook up" with a group since they move every few years . The real trick here is to absolutely crack down on this type of behavior . No holds barred . Any crimes are punished and punished hard . My first time in AK was in '63 . If you got busted you went to Mc Niel (sp) island and DID TIME!!! My unit jumped into Seward after the Good Friday Quake and then came back and stood guard duty downtown with live ammo . AK seems to have adopted a gentler and kinder outlook on lawbreakers . If you know the community that breeds this kind of animal that should be where you hunt .

[stratus]

Originally Posted by spacemanspiff

e's still nursing a hangover from his having "two drinks" last Friday. Lightweight just can't hang with the big kids.

We reckon you were excited about your latest proprietary dubious ninja concoction, and you field tested it by dropping some in his drink. Success?

[Wildalaska]

He's still nursing a hangover from his having "two drinks" last Friday. Lightweight just can't hang with the big kids.

Pshaw...I still shot several sub 1/2 inch groups at 100 with the blaser on Sunday despite my Friday escapades (which hangover lasted 2 days)..

Back to the subject at hand...the gang problem here is primarily confined to the east side of town. They are punk wannabes who are only a dnager to legit citizens if they get caught in a crossfire.

Im on the east side more than I should be ....I just stare the little POSs down...

WildinabadmoodAlaska

[spacemanspiff]

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/crime...-7775296c.html
Lethal duel claims driver
GUN BATTLE: Police suspect the violence was gang-related.
By PETER PORCO anchorage Daily News Published: June 21, 2006
Last Modified: June 21, 2006 at 02:32 AM

The driver of an SUV was shot dead in a fierce gunfight between two vehicles on an East Anchorage street Tuesday evening, and Anchorage police said there was a "high probability" it was another gang-related shootout.

Police were unsure whether anyone else was injured in the hail of bullets, they said, though no one else remained at the scene. They did not release the victim's name and were unsure of his age, but they said he was young, perhaps in his early 20s.

The shooting happened about 8:20 p.m. at Bragaw Street and Reka Drive, near East High School, said APD spokesman Paul Honeman.

Nearly two hours later, in the waning sunlight, the body of the victim remained on the front seat of an older-model Ford Explorer that had sped across the width of Bragaw and come to rest with three wheels on the sidewalk .

The Ford was one of two vehicles involved in the shooting, Honeman said.

"This shooting has a strong possibility of being gang-related, a high probability," Honeman said.

The rear window of the Ford looked as if it had been shot out. A thick cluster of glass fragments from some automobile's window lay 60 feet away in the Reka crosswalk.

Several lanes of Bragaw and Reka, their crosswalks and the central intersection were littered with shell casings that investigators had temporarily covered with little white boxes.

A total of 23 of the little boxes lay scattered about. Honeman said they were evidence -- maybe blood drops, he said; probably shells.

A handgun lay near the Bragaw crosswalk, covered with a splayed cardboard box.

By 9 p.m., police had shut down Bragaw and the part of Reka that meets Bragaw in a T. Crowds of onlookers stood glumly alongside the yellow crime-scene tape that hemmed the intersection and kept the roads closed for hours.

"I was coming up, and we heard 'pop-pop,' " one woman told another. A third woman was crying as she spoke on a cell phone. A young woman with her angrily told a reporter to leave.

When asked for interviews, people turned away or said they would not give their names. They were afraid of gang retaliation, they said.

"Because there's our safety," one man said. His brother, this man said, had seen the last part of the event.

The brother, a man of about 30 who said he was Albanian and lives in the neighborhood, was driving a Chevy Surburban southbound on Bragaw when he saw the Ford Explorer shoot across Bragaw from Reka and hop the sidewalk.

"I thought it was an accident," he said. He never saw or heard gunshots, he said, but he did see a man get out of the passenger side of the Ford and run back toward Reka. The man vanished.

The witness stopped his vehicle near the Ford, got out and saw that the driver was struggling to lift his upper body forward off the back of the seat, he said.

He called 911. Dispatchers asked him if the driver was bleeding. He said he told them the driver was bleeding from his mouth and vomiting and then was no longer moving.

"I don't know what this is all about," the man said.

A woman who also lives nearby was disgusted with the violence that has struck Anchorage recently. She said the dead man was actually a 17-year-old from the neighborhood. Honeman confirmed that the victim's family lives nearby.

The victim's cousin was one of the onlookers who had left, the woman said. She spoke with a juvenile probation officer from McLaughlin Youth Center. The officer also would not give her name, saying she could lose her job for talking to the media.

"It's probably somebody we know," the probation officer said to the other woman.

"Just the fact there's another one (dead)," the other woman said.

"It drives me nuts," said the probation officer. "It hurts when you know them. They're just kids."

"Just kids," the other woman said with anger.

Lynn Bauer, who was returning home from work, said she was dismayed to learn what happened. She blanched at the 23 little boxes.

"This is unbelievable," Bauer said. "I'm totally in shock. I can't believe it. Holy mackerel."

Bauer lives on Reka, a couple hundred yards from the shells.

"My window is right on the street," she said. "It makes me nervous."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daily News reporter Peter Porco can be reached at pporco@adn.com or 257-4582.

[Harley Quinn]

How do these punks do it if the citizens have so many guns and carry all the time.

Must be another story here somewhere.

HQ

[Wildalaska]

How do these punks do it if the citizens have so many guns and carry all the time.

Simple: armed citizens do not necessarily correlate to a decrease in crime

WildgoodmoodAlaska

[spacemanspiff]

Expound on that a little further.... armed law-abiding citizens do not decrease the amount of crime committed by criminals against other criminals.

Gangs up here are killing (or at least attempting to) their rivals. Innocents are getting caught in the crossfire. Even if every street corner had an armed citizen weilding a rifle, it would not deter the gang battles.

[Wildalaska]

But you're carrying again aintcha homey?

WildhasnthadthehpoffinawhileAlaska

[spacemanspiff]

Not today. Though I probably should. I could easily be mistaken for a small Samoan, or a really fat Filipino.

[Renfield]

I've got an aunt that lives on Spenard Road

[Pilot]

Expound on that a little further.... armed law-abiding citizens do not decrease the amount of crime committed by criminals against other criminals.

Gangs up here are killing (or at least attempting to) their rivals. Innocents are getting caught in the crossfire. Even if every street corner had an armed citizen weilding a rifle, it would not deter the gang battles.

Spot on. The habitual criminals and gang members are the culprits. The city politicians want to blame the legal gun owners for the problem and take away CCW permit rights. The constituents who got them elected sympathaize with their gang member sons.

[Wildalaska]

The city politicians want to blame the legal gun owners for the problem and take away CCW permit rights. The constituents who got them elected sympathaize with their gang member sons.
__________________

Umm...this is Alaska...we dont need permits

WildgunundereveryseatAlaska

[Harley Quinn]

But what is the nationality of these gangs?

----------American fill in the space for the race.

HQ

[spacemanspiff]

At least one side is made up of Pacific Islanders, most likely Samoans. They don't usually cause trouble, to them gangs are simply ways of ensuring the protection of their extended families. Nine times out of ten they are only dangerous when some other gang provokes them.

Right now they are dangerous, because retaliations keep sparking retaliations. Another two wound up at the hospital last night, article is at www.adn.com, one of them a relative of the driver killed in the original post up above.

[Hal]

But you're carrying again aintcha homey?

Wild hasnt had the hp off in a while Alaska

Just curious here - why the HP?
What about the Seecamp .32acp?
Did you upgrade to the HP or are you packing both?

[spacemanspiff]

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/crime...-7793129c.html
Gunfire details remain sketchy
NO ARRESTS: Police hope witnesses to the four incidents will reveal what they saw.
By KATIE PESZNECKER Anchorage Daily News Published: June 25, 2006
Last Modified: June 25, 2006 at 03:02 AM

Police were pursuing leads but had made no arrests by Saturday evening in connection with multiple shootings that erupted across the city Friday night, City Manager Denis LeBlanc said.

"They'll obviously be working those leads hard over the next couple of days and hopefully we'll have something soon," LeBlanc said. "But the problem is those leads can be very sketchy because folks are unwilling to come forward and talk."

Police have not said whether the shootings are gang related or whether they're connected. There were four reported incidents, the first in Fairview shortly after 8 p.m., the others all in East Anchorage over the next several hours.

Only two men were injured, both during the Fairview shooting. They drove themselves to Alaska Regional Hospital and still aren't talking to cops, which irks LeBlanc -- especially considering one of the men was shot in the head.

"I believe they're still in the hospital," LeBlanc said. "Typically, we won't arrest people in the hospital because then we take custody of them and then we're responsible for their medical bills. And we're certainly not going to ask the taxpayer to pay the medical bills for yahoos. So you wait 'til they're dismissed and then you arrest them."

Police and city officials have acknowledged an increasing rash of gang-related violence on Anchorage streets, including an escalation of drive-by type incidents involving gunfire. One of those injured in Friday's melee, 22-year-old Andrew Tauanu'u, is the older brother of a man who died in a gang shootout in March.

LeBlanc estimated at least 55 rounds were fired in Friday's assaults -- more than 40 at one shooting at the Totem Theatre on Muldoon Road. Near another, at Sixth Avenue and Boniface Parkway, police reported that one bullet tore through an apartment wall and landed 2 feet from a baby.

Police response to Friday's incidents "completely drained all the police resources," LeBlanc said. "And that puts at risk other parts of the city."

He could not recall a night when Anchorage saw so many shootings.

"Everyone should be angry," LeBlanc said. "This is not why we live in Anchorage."

Many things need to happen to curb the violence, he said. For one, angry and vengeful teens and young adults shouldn't have guns.

Courts need to get tougher, too, he said.

"Pull the rap sheets of known gang members, and you'll see if a case ... actually is brought to trial, they'll get a 180-day sentence, and 165 days will be suspended, and they'll be on probation two or three years," LeBlanc said. "There are no teeth in the law. We can't be slapping these kids on the wrist and suspending 95 percent of the sentence."

LeBlanc said police are tackling the problem, and the department has plans to add officers in time. But cops can only do so much, and the police department and the mayor can't do this by themselves.

He understands that witnesses and others with information might be nervous, or afraid.

"But we've got to break the chain, or they're going to be fearful for the rest of their lives," LeBlanc said. "We can't sit idly by and hope it will go away. We'll be meeting early next week, trying to bring together the faith community, the civic leaders who know these kids, and just tell them they have to step up. You can't ignore the problem any longer."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daily News reporter Katie Pesznecker can be reached at kpesznecker@adn.com.

[Wildalaska]

Just curious here - why the HP?
What about the Seecamp .32acp?
Did you upgrade to the HP or are you packing both?

Most of the time its just me in the shop so I carry the HP..

Its so comfy

WildbutgoingbacktotheseecampAlaska