Hispanic gangs in New Hampshire

Stephanie Hooper:

“Gang activity in New Hampshire appears to have picked up in the last couple of years,” said Wes Daily Jr., a retired Suffolk County, N.Y., police detective and president of the East Coast Gang Investigators Association.

Along with extensive work investigating gangs during his time as a Long Island police detective, Daily has studied gang activity in the Northeast for a number of years, authoring two assessments of gang activity in the region in the last five years.

In his most recent report, published this year for the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations, Daily states a majority of the national gangs in the Northeast appear to be “neighborhood-based” chapters without affiliations to national gang leaderships. He notes two national gangs, the Bloods and Latin Kings, appear to have a “strong presence” in the Northeast.

Northeast law-enforcement agencies reported nearly a 40 percent increase in gang activity in the last five years, according to Daily’s assessment. Several state agencies are among the 51 in the Northeast to contribute information for the assessment.

Both of Daily’s assessments reported gang members were moving to the region from other states.

In his first assessment, published in 2000 for the association, Daily listed a variety of Mexico-, Dominican Republic-, Chicago- and California-based gangs, among those that appeared to be relocating to the state from other parts of the country.

In his 2005 report, Daily credits the Northeastern states’ increasing population of undocumented immigrants with an increase in gangs from Mexico and Central America.

All of the New England states were experiencing an influx of Hispanic gang members from the New York City area, according to the 2000 report.

That assessment certainly appeared to be the case in Nashua in 2003 and 2004, when Hispanic gang members with roots in the Big Apple caused serious trouble. But not all of the state’s gang activity is imported or has traveled far to get here.

An examination of major gang investigations in northern Massachusetts during the last five years revealed a number of New Hampshire connections – Massachusetts residents conducting drug and weapons sales in New Hampshire, and New Hampshire residents engaging in criminal gang-related activity south of the border.

Massachusetts members from organized national gangs such as MS-13, Bloods, Crips and Asian gangs such as the Tiny Rascals and Sworn Brothers were also involved with a few publicized incidents in the state in the last two years.

Two of those incidents – one in Wilton and one in Nashua – were violent and involved numerous members from two sets of rival gangs, or four gangs in all. Someone was stabbed in each incident.

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