TPD: Gang activity up; added officers to help

Like many kids, 15-year-old Antonio Garcia was raised on the stories of his father.

The tales stirred with conflict, drama and intrigue; there were hints of fame and emphasis on camaraderie. They were made special by their infrequency, their mail delivery and their message: This could all be yours.

But the Sunnyside High School sophomore is not so sure he wants to accept the implicit offer: gang life. Tucson police hope they can keep it that way.

Antonio is one of about 30 youths as young as 8 referred to the Tucson Police Department's Gang Outreach Unit, a mentorship program intended to keep potential gang members from becoming the real thing.

Police worry that gang violence is increasing. That's the word in some neighborhoods, the perception among Tucson officers and the trend shown by department stats. The police response has been to direct more attention to those committing gang crimes and more attention to those who might.

Antonio's father, a longtime California gangbanger, is in prison. His letters offer an insider's perspective on gang life: details of feuds and crimes and what it's like to watch from afar as your children grow up.

"I can see there's no real benefit in it," Antonio said recently.

But he once did. "I'm attracted to having your name known," he said. "I like the attention."

The outreach unit, partly in response to a relatively high proportion of city homicides involving gang members since Jan. 1, has been given four more officers, adding to the existing staff of four officers and a sergeant.

The move is part of an overhaul of the department's Special Investigations Bureau after the city saw nine homicides, mostly drug- or gang-related, between Feb. 23 and March 5.

Eight of the 21 homicides in the city this year have involved one or more gang members, police spokesman Sgt. Fabian Pacheco said.

Assistant Chief Roberto Villaseñor said the number of officers dedicated to gang-related work nearly doubled March 30.

The department added a second gang tactical unit, increased the number of gang detectives to eight and added a second civilian worker, he said.

The vice unit, which enforced liquor and prostitution laws, was disbanded to provide the additional officers.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department reported no increase in gang activity since the beginning of the year. Homicide detective Sgt. Jesus Lopez said none of the three county homicides this year is gang-related. The increase deputies have seen is in border-related crime, he said.

However, the Department of Public Safety's Pima County gang squad just doubled from four to eight officers, Sgt. Marcy Cox said.

Villaseñor and TPD gang officers said the expanded gang focus is a reaction to what patrol officers see on the streets.

"There is definitely a perception among officers that gang activity is increasing," he said.

"We have national information on an increase in gang activity, and it seems to be increasing in cities we see as precursors to what we see here, such as cities in California."

Officer Mark Doe, who works for TPD's Gang Outreach Unit, said, "We're just starting to see them subdivide. Now they're claiming, for example, the Sonora (Street) block of Barrio Hollywood instead of Barrio Hollywood."

There are stirrings among kids in at least one neighborhood - Elvira, south of Valencia between Interstate 19 and Old Nogales Highway - that gangs are recruiting. Louis Galvan, the neighborhood's graffiti remover and local basketball coach, said gang activity is less obvious than it used to be, but high schoolers are talking about being bullied on the street and gang prevention activities that neighborhood kids once thrived on have been sapped of funding.

Other neighborhoods, such as "A" Mountain, report an uptick in violence, and residents of Barrio Centro, south of 22nd Street between Tucson Boulevard and Aviation-Barraza Parkway, said graffiti has increased, though they were unsure whether the trends could be attributed to gangs.

According to neighborhood newsletters, residents fear the crime associated with gangs: everything from loud music, drug dealing and graffiti to stray bullets, carjackings and home invasions.

And the activity doesn't seem to be concentrated in any one area. Interviews with residents and the Gang Outreach Unit's map of Tucson's active gangs show the groups are found across the city.

State gang investigators, as well as many neighborhoods, report a consistent amount of gang activity in Tucson and Arizona over the past few years but say gang members have become more violent.

Both local and state police agree that Tucson appeals to gangs because of the illegal money-making opportunities associated with the border, the transience of the population and the prisons south of town. Many gang members who have served time settle here with their families, they said.

Cox, a DPS gang investigator since 2000, said most gangs in Tucson are traditional street gangs, not the super-organized international type. Tucson police agree, listing Brown Pride/Sur 13, Barrio Libre, South Park Family Bloods, Barrio Chicano Southside and Barrio Hollywood as the five most active gangs in the city. Those gangs are found on the South Side, East Side, West Side and in midtown.

That they are street gangs doesn't mean the border isn't key to their business operations - trafficking in guns, people and drugs, Cox said.

"We're just beginning to scratch the surface,'' Cox said. "That's where the money is."

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 70 percent of the drugs that come into the country travel through Tucson.

The same DPS unit investigates both gangs and immigration. The name was changed from Gang Intelligence and Team Enforcement Mission to Gang & Immigration Intelligence and Team Enforcement Mission in 2003, according to its Web site.

The change gave the unit, whose funding dropped after Sept. 11, 2001, new operating money, Lt. Fred Zumbo of DPS said. "We're almost back to where we were in funding in 2001," he said.

DPS rounded up more than 20 Casa Grande gang members in October and about 500 in the Phoenix area in March, a spokesman said. It also organized two conferences on gangs in the past month.

Officers are worried that the flagging economy may exacerbate an already-blossoming problem.

Sixto Molina, an officer on Tucson's first gang squad in 1980 and former South Tucson police chief, said he anticipates a revisitation of some of the gangland activity of the 1980s because of the similar economic straits.

"As the economy gets bad, people still need to make money," he said. "Drugs is an industry here."

Molina said Tucson gangs have evolved from the neighborhood pride groups and violent car clubs of the 1980s to drug operations directed from within the prisons on South Wilmot Road, especially by the Mexican Mafia, and by drug cartels as far away as Central America.

"Gang members then were gang members for the pride and honor of the neighborhood," he said. "Now they establish turf for the exclusive right to deal drugs."

That means Crips and Bloods are no longer black gangs, he said.

"Now there's so much inbreeding," he said. "Now it's all about drugs. People are lined up all different ways."

Molina said gang members are known to steal firearms that eventually cross the border.

"The local-level drug dealer may not know where his drugs come from, but without the drug cartels, it wouldn't be here," he said. "There's also a lot of high-powered weaponry going south."

Officers now cite the prosecution of felons for having guns for keeping gang members in prison. According to state law, those convicted of felonies are prohibited from having a gun, unless they have their rights restored.

Using that provision, Ernesto Clemente Romero, 29, the reputed leader of the Barrio Hollywood street gang, was sentenced in October to four years in federal prison and three years of supervised release, according to Citizen archives. He was arrested with a 9 mm handgun in May after police responded to a loud-music call in the 900 block of North Grande Avenue.

But the strategy to combat gang crime isn't all arrests and prison sentences.

"We're making contact with kids who were raised to hate police," Doe said. Antonio was one of them.

Winning over prospective gang members - who are referred to TPD mostly by teachers - in Antonio's case, his wrestling coach - is a delicate process, Doe said.

"We don't want to replace their parents," he said. "It helps to have cooperation from uncles and fathers. We want the kids to know that it's a life of false promises that can only lead to misery. But it's tough. We don't have much to offer them."

Doe said young gang members are paid $500 for transporting $200,000 to $300,000 worth of drugs or other "merchandise." They get a surrogate family, a sense of belonging, local fame and more money than they've likely ever seen. In some cases, such as the Barrio Hollywood street gang, Doe said, kids are born into the gang: It's the only life they know. That makes gangs hard to eradicate.

Police can offer a support system, a positive influence and encouragement in athletics and academics, but the unit isn't rolling in dough. Some officers, after making kids give up their colors, use their own money to buy kids new clothes.

"Shoes from Twice as Nice are competing with Nike Air Jordans," Doe said. "For every two or three kids we make contact with, the gangs recruit a dozen."

Antonio is among those reaping the benefits of the program. He's enrolled in four honors classes, and Doe checks on his grades and attends his wrestling matches.

They've gone together to a play, a hockey game and the recreation center. Doe encouraged Antonio to write an essay that won him six weeks of sea kayaking in Alaska this summer.

"The best part is the trips," Antonio said.

Doe said the program also strikes at important misconceptions.

"Kids believe that their records will be wiped clean at 18, but a convicted felon is a convicted felon," he said. When sentenced, a convicted gang member will have three years in prison added to his sentence, according to Arizona law.