California city finds way to curb Latino gang homicides

Rebecca Waddingham:

AS A SMALL COMMUNITY with a big gang problem, Greeley is not alone. Many cities in California, like the central valley community of Modesto, also struggle with violent Latino gangs.

Modesto can teach Greeley a few lessons in how to fight them.

Modesto, home of Laci Peterson and former congressman Gary Condit, is about twice the size of Greeley and Evans.

Demographically, however, the communities are similar. The cities' median incomes are below the national average. They are on par with the national high school graduation rate. And the cities are more than one-fourth Latino.

Greeley-Evans and Modesto also are both situated in primarily rural counties, with agriculture as the main economic engines.

Judith Ray, acting finance director for Modesto, said her city has grown explosively during the past 20 years. It's about an hour and a half east of the San Francisco Bay area and 80 miles from San Jose, which both have among the highest housing costs in the nation. Many people have moved to Modesto but continue to commute to the Bay area or Silicon Valley to work.

Greeley has experienced a similar phenomenon, with many commuters working in Larimer and Boulder counties and Denver.

In Modesto, some high-tech industries have begun to creep north from Silicon Valley, but not many, Ray said.

"We have a wealth of jobs, but they are not all high-paying jobs," she said. "While it's changing, Modesto has traditionally been more of an ag-based community."

Similarities between Modesto and Greeley don't end there. Both cities also have a problem with violent Sureño and Norteño gangs.

Six people were killed in Greeley last year; each of those homicides had gang connections. In Modesto, 19 people died, 13 of them in gang-related crimes, much more than in previous years.

In June 2004, the Modesto Police Department decided to revamp its gang unit and rearrange priorities, said the unit's commander, Lt. Mike Perine.

"We'd done it lightweight for some time, and it became a real focus a year ago," he said.

The Street Crimes Unit grew from six full-time officers and staff to 24, which includes 16 officers, two detectives, two sergeants and Perine, the boss. Support staff and probation officers round out the total.

Of the 13 gang-related murders in Modesto last year, 11 happened between January and June, when the new gang unit was formed. There was one shooting in July in which two people died, and there has been one murder since -- a fatal shooting on May 1 that may have been gang-related.

Perine thinks extra community awareness and the souped-up, more aggressive gang unit are the reasons for the decline in violence.

"We became very proactive with weeding out the gang members," Perine said. "It's been extremely successful up to this point, knock on wood."

Perine said he did not have exact budget figures for the gang unit because the department absorbs it into the investigation division's operating budget. But he did say the expanded gang unit didn't cost Modesto taxpayers a penny -- the police department simply moved some people around and reorganized.

Several staff and resources came from the tactical control unit, which does community service policing, similar to Greeley's on-hold Community Outreach Program. Other staff came from probation searches and street-level drug investigations, Perine said.

"We shuffled our priorities around and got more focused on the proactive aspect," he said. "We didn't hire a bunch of people. We looked at where we had people out there."

Modesto has 1,725 active gang members, about 1,400 of whom are Latino, Perine said. The police offer this running tally: 904 Norteños and 505 Sureños. Modesto also has a significant Asian-American population; there are about 260 Asian gang members and 55 Anglo gang members.

Greeley police estimate 450 gang members in Greeley.

News and Blogosphere:

GANGS IN GREELEY: Gang fighters

The fight against gangs is winnable if we work together

GANGS IN GREELEY: Riding into the dark side

Experts add immigration to list of gang causes