MOSES LAKE — Two members of the Grant County Sheriff’s Office gang unit spoke to citizens about Columbia Basin gangs this week.

About 50 people attended the meeting at Big Bend Community College.

Gangs in Grant County

“Grant County does have a gang problem,” said Sgt. Phil Coats.

He said there seems to be denial from some law enforcement agencies, while there are gangs in every city and the outlying areas of the county, he added.

Coats and fellow speaker Deputy Joe Harris are members of the Northwest Gang Investigators Association and the International Latino Gang Investigators Association.

They explained their membership with the two groups allows them to exchange gang intelligence with other law enforcement agencies to help each other.

Coats showed a map of Grant County indicating where gangs are located. Soap Lake had the fewest gangs with two documented and Moses Lake had the highest with nine gangs documented.

As of January 2009, law enforcement documented about 350 gang members in Grant County, Coats said. They estimate the population is closer to 600 known members.

Authorities are finding gang members are traveling from Tri-Cities, Yakima and Spokane to Grant County, he said. Tri-Cities, Yakima and Spokane all have strong gang task forces driving them out of their cities.

He said Grant County has a gang unit comprised of four officers. Gang members are traveling to Grant County because there are fewer resources to remove them, he added.

“Everybody just wants to say these guys are just wannabes,” Coats said about the initial response of several law enforcement agencies.

He said they are not “wannabes” and they are real gang members causing havoc on the community.

“These guys are gang members,” he said.

Coats explained there are law enforcement agencies continuing to call gangs “organized youth” in an effort to minimize the problem.

He said there are two sets of gangs in Grant County serving as umbrella groups for several gangs. Some rival gang members are neighbors and family members.

He showed the audience a video clip of a news report concerning how some gang members enter the military with the primary goal to learn military tactics. They take the skills they learn when they return to their neighborhoods and use them against police, he said. There is at least one documented case of a gang member entering the military to learn tactics. He then used them to kill a police officer.

How police identify gang members

Coats explained a gang member must meet at least three criteria before they can be considered a legitimate gang member. The criteria includes having a nickname associated with a gang they use for graffiti purposes, gang tattoos, manner of dress, wearing primarily red or blue, admission of membership to a gang and showing gang hand signals.

If they do not meet three requirements, they may be considered a gang associate or affiliate.

If someone is wearing baggy clothes, it does not imply they are a gang member, he added. Baggy clothes seem to be a popular style.

Gangs in schools

Problems in schools have changed dramatically, he said.

In the 1940s the Department of Education asked teachers to identify problems they handle with youth in the public school system. The list included talking, gum-chewing, making noise, running in the halls, getting out of turn in line, wearing inappropriate clothing and failing to place paper in waste baskets.

The same survey was given to teachers in the late 1990s with dramatically different results, Coats said.

The current list includes drug and alcohol abuse, gang violence, teen pregnancy, suicide, rape, sexually transmitted disease, arson, vandalism, absenteeism and extortion.

In a recent study, 43 percent of 15-year-old students reported having gangs in their school, Coats said.

There are several risk factors affecting student safety in schools where gangs are present, he said. The risk factors contribute to students being more susceptible to gangs. The junior highs and high school in Moses Lake are over-crowded which is a primary risk factor, he added.

Other factors include few activities for students to be involved with, rapid enrollment increases, high neighborhood crime rate, students with a history of violence in their family, low socioeconomic status and schools failing to communicate and enforce rules.

Another risk factor involves large groups being ignored by staff, Coats said. If a group is seen congregating often and always wearing red or blue, they need to be addressed. School staff need to be educated on how to deal with those groups and how to deal with aggression and violence, he said.

There are several indicators people and school staff must be aware of because they could lead to violent incidents.

The signs include “mad-dogging.” He said mad-dogging is when someone is staring at someone else in an effort to “square you up.” Gangs mad-dog to attempt to learn what gang someone is affiliated with because if they are with a rival gang, they will be assaulted.

Other indicators include gang hand signals, graffiti, groups consistently having problems with each other, groups wearing predominantly one color, such as red or blue, the presence of non-students on and around school grounds, cars slowly driving by the school as though they are looking for someone, increase of weapons on campus and reports of student concern.

Coats explained if a student comes to a staff member or a parent advising of feeling uncomfortable because of gangs, they should not be ignored. It takes courage for them to talk about it and it must be taken seriously, he said.

Behavioral signs of possible gang allegiance

There are several signs indicating someone could be involved with gangs, Coats said. Parents should be aware so they can intervene.

Youth may suddenly need privacy and have secrets, he said. They will begin lying about where they are and often break parental rules such as a curfew.

Their grades decline and they don’t go to school as often, he said. They become obsessed with gangster music or videos and begin associating with inappropriate people.

Youth might have physical injuries such as bumps, bruises, cuts and broken bones accompanied by unbelievable stories about how the injuries happened, he said. The injuries could be an indicator the youth was “jumped-in” to a gang. When someone is jumped-in to a gang, they are assaulted by several gang members to earn their right of passage into the gang.

Coats said parents must know who their kids are friends with.

They might have large amounts of cash, new clothing and jewelry that they can’t explain how they obtained it. They also may use drugs and alcohol, he said.

Coats explained Harris recently apprehended a 10-year-old boy who was wearing nice clothes, jewelry and had about $150 in his pocket. The mother was unable to explain how the kid had the possessions.

He said often times gang members, in the housing area formerly known as the Larson Airforce Base, hire kids ranging in age from 8 to 10 years old to watch for police. They give the kids cellphones or walkie-talkies to notify them of police in the area.

Gang culture

People join gangs to have a family structure, friends, protection, money, shelter and respect, Coats explained. It’s not just kids that join gangs, adults join them too.

He recalled how he regularly books a specific man into Grant County Jail.

Coats has to ask each person if they have gang affiliation to determine where to place them because rival gangs are kept separate from each other.

One day the 32-year-old man he often books, said he was affiliated with a gang. He explained he was jumped-in to the gang by about eight gang members. He told Coats he joined because he had no family or friends in the area, no shelter and his stomach hurt from not having anything to eat. The gang accepted him. He said he does not have to sleep outside anymore, has clothes to wear and a place to live.

People join gangs to have respect, but their respect is associated with fear, Coats said.

Gang members define respect by having people fear them. If someone is shopping and they see a gang member in an isle and avoid that isle, they believe that is respect, he explained.

They also earn more respect among their peers when they go to prison.

There are various ways someone can join a gang including being jumped-in or having family ties to the gang. People can also be “sexed-in,” he said. Girls are sexed-in to gangs by having sex with several members of the gang. Members can also be “crimed-in.” Crimed-in involves having someone commit a series of crimes to be accepted.

All gang members have tag names they use while leaving graffiti, he said. All gangs have a hierarchy and structure, are organized and have forms of discipline.

In Grant County Jail there is a gang that requires themselves to workout once a day, do a chant and allows themselves a one-hour nap, “suited and booted.” Coats explained suited and booted means they are wearing their jumpsuit and boots so they are prepared to fight at all times.

If a gang member is told to commit a crime and they fail to do so, they are assaulted under their code of discipline, he said.

If someone wants to leave a gang, they are assaulted in the same manner they were to join the gang. Coats recalled one incident when a gang member wanted to leave the gang. He was assaulted by the gang, stabbed three times and survived.

“They would rather kill someone than let them leave,” he said.

Graffiti

“It’s everywhere,” Coats said about graffiti.

He recalled an incident in Ephrata when police were serving a search warrant. Gang members learned they were involved with the search warrant and spray-painted graffiti all over the town because they knew the streets were not being patrolled.

“We don’t ignore the graffiti,” he said.

He explained graffiti is like a gang member newspaper. It notifies police of which gangs are at odds with each other and which ones have formed alliances.

If two gangs tag the same area without crossing out the other gang’s symbols, it indicates they are getting along, Coats said. Graffiti also marks gang territory.

“Graffiti can be found everywhere there’s a surface,” he said.

Tattoos

Gang members sport tattoos indicating the gang they claim to belong to, Coats said.

Gang members, who have a Pachuco Cross, indicate they are “Original Gangsters,” he said. They often use Aztec symbols to indicate a number like 13, 14 or 18. The tattoo known as “smile now, cry later,” featuring a smiling face and a crying face means smile and enjoy life while they are committing the crimes and cry when they are doing jail time for it.

Previously three dots representing mi vida loca, or my crazy life, was considered a gang tattoo but it became too mainstream, he explained. Now gang members have four dots tattooed on them meaning “mi vida mas loco,” or my crazier life.

Tattoos are earned through committing crimes and membership to the gang, he explained. If someone has a gang tattoo they did not earn, it could be physically removed by the gang.

Gang history

Deputy Joe Harris explained the history of how gangs were first formed.

Gangs began forming for protection, he said.

Hispanic street gangs began in southern California and eventually moved to other areas in the U.S.

There are two groups of gangs, the Nortenos and Surenos, indicating northerners and southerners, he said.

Gangs are documented as early as around 1900, Harris said. The government built several housing projects in the Los Angeles area for immigrants to live while they were working. The immigrants were from Latin America. He explained any ethnicity is involved with gangs but the gangs in Grant County are primarily comprised of Hispanics.

When the people moved into the housing projects, they chose where to live based on where they were originally from because people tend to gravitate toward what is familiar to them, Harris explained.

“When you move into a new area, you want to be around people like you,” he said. “You actively seek out people who have similar interests to you. That’s what people there did.”

He said it caused conflict with neighborhoods that were already established there. So those people who lived there prior to migration, began harassing, robbing, assaulting and taking advantage of the migrants.

The different neighborhoods began banding together to protect themselves.

“It started basically … for protection,” he said. “That’s what starts every gang. Protection.”

As they began taking steps to protect themselves, it often resulted in assaults leading them to become involved with the penal system.

Eventually violence spread between neighborhoods and police began arresting offenders, he said. When they went to jail and prison, the learned how they could commit crimes to get money and further advance the standing or their neighborhoods, or gangs.

The gangs developed within the neighborhood and they began involvement in drugs, firearms, prostitution and extortion, Harris said. Gangs also developed in prison.

Almost all Surenos gangs began under the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang, he explained. Hispanic criminal street gangs began as California prison gangs.

Hispanic prison gangs began to form protection against the Caucasian and African American gangs.

The Mexican Mafia is a small gang with few members.

“They don’t just take anybody,” he said. “They look around the prison system to see who’s really down or who they think is really down that’s going to really do justice for the Mexican Mafia.”

There is one documented Mexican Mafia member in Moses Lake.

“He is legit,” Harris said. “He is the real deal.”

Origin of bandanas

In the prison system, inmates divide themselves by race, Harris said. In the California prison system it appeared there were no problems with placing all the Caucasians with each other and all the African Americans with each other, he explained. It did not go the same with the Hispanics.

“There was this rift between the northern Mexicans and the southern Mexicans,” he explained.

The Surenos and Nortenos did not get along because they led different lifestyles.

The Hispanics were fighting among themselves so to prevent further fighting, the California prison system came up with what they thought was a solution, he said.

The southern Hispanics were given blue bandanas by the prison system and the northern Hispanics were given red bandanas.

“This really happened,” he said.

When the Hispanics went out on a work crew, prison guards had them wear their respective bandanas so they could differentiate between the two groups, Harris said. They were used to keep them separate from each other so they would not fight.

Columbia Basin gangs

Some gangs originated in Moses Lake and Quincy, Harris said.

Pocos Locos is original to Moses Lake, he said. Several of them, before they were gang members, were being harassed by another gang in school.

Their concerns were not addressed by school officials so they formed Pocos Locos to protect themselves from rival gangs, he explained. They are documented as far as Montana now.

Marijuanos 13 originated in Quincy, he said.

They now have cliques in Moses Lake, Burien and New Jersey. Their crimes included burglaries, malicious mischief and assault. They were previously committing burglaries to steal guns to make money, he said. The Quincy Police Department began making multiple arrests and put an end to the majority of their crimes. They now started a rap group called WA State Suspects.

Several gangs are committing more than property crimes. Some are deadly, he said.

In 2008 there were 32 gang-related shootings in Grant County, Harris said. So far there are 50 gang-related shootings in Grant County this year. At least 20 were in Mattawa. Several of the shootings ended in death and some shooting victims were people not associated with gangs.

Females in gangs

The number of females joining gangs in Grant County is on the rise, Harris said. They usually join gangs because their boyfriends are in a gang. She is usually sexed-in but sometimes they are jumped-in.

A female who gets jumped-in instead of sexed-in has more respect from her gang, he said.

They are often used to provide a safe house for male gang members who need to hide from police after committing crimes and are often the driver in drive-by shootings.

Solutions

Harris said the community needs to band together and stop gangs.

He said youth need love, nourishment, structure, routine and discipline from their family to prevent them from making the decision to join a gang. Parents need to give their children skills such as positive decision making skills, anger management skills, communication and listening skills and they need to have goals to work toward.

There must be intervention, prevention and suppression, he said.

Intervention involves the community uniting to reach out to youth who are gang members to show them what they can achieve if they are not a gang member, he said. Prevention is activities and places to go that do not involve gang activity such as the Boys and Girls Club.

Suppression involves police.

He said there is a lot at stake if at-risk youth are ignored.

About 95 percent of gang members will not graduate high school, he said. About 90 percent of gang members will have a criminal record or police contact by the time they are 16 years old.

A gang member’s chance of death is increased by 60 percent.

Three gang-related homicides have happened in Grant County this year, Harris said.

“I’m not chicken little and the sky’s not falling,” he said. “We’re not in a crisis stage here. We’re not to the point where we’re south central L.A. There’s places that are better off than us and there’s some places where we’re a little bit worse off than they are.”

The solution boils down to community and police presence, he said. He said the community must report any suspicious activity because it could prevent criminal activity. To report a crime, callers can remain anonymous, he added.

“We all need to come together. We all need to draw the line in the sand and say, ‘You know what? We’re not going to put up with this anymore.’”

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office provided the Columbia Basin Herald photographs of adults teaching toddlers how to show gang signs and several men with gang tattoos. We choose not to publish them. — Bill Stevenson, managing editor