SCOTT BRADFOR
With gang-related crimes on the rise, Happy Valley may not have a whole lot to smile about.
Over the past three years, gang membership and gang-related crimes in Utah County have risen dramatically and local law enforcement officials are worried that the gang situation will get much worse if more funding for gang prevention projects is not found.
In a speech to Utah County business leaders, Utah County Sheriff Dave Bateman said before 1993, gang problems in Utah were generally kept north of Utah County, but this year's reports show some alarming statistics.
Bateman said in 1994 there were 19 gang-related arrests in the county, in 1995 there were 72, and as of June of 1996, there were already 200 arrests. There have also been 12 drive-by shootings within the county limits this year.
Bateman said in 1993 the Federal Government gave the county a three-year grant to help implement a gang prevention program, which helped to curb gang activity that cropped up at that time. Bateman said before the gang project began, city law officials were left on their own to work out the problems. Today law enforcement officers from all over the county are working together to combat gang problems.
Patty Long, the community coordinator for the Sheriff's Office, works directly with the gang project and said this project has been and will continue to be crucial to gang crime prevention within the county.
Long said a problem the county faces is that the federal grant expires next summer, which means that unless more support from individual cities is given before the expiration date in July, no more federal funds will be allotted to the county for gang control.
Long said the system now in place has one or two police officers from each city in the valley assigned to the gang specialist team, but there is nothing in writing which commits these officers to the task force.
Long said for the county to keep federal funding, the task force must become a multi-agency force, which means at least two cities in the county would need to provide a written agreement stating their commitment of one or more officers to the task force.
Detective Harold Terry, a member of the task force from the Lehi Police Department, said the task force does make a difference in the county. Terry said last month he was present at the 'Rage' concert in Spanish Fork, and just the presence of the task force, along with the normal police force, kept things under control.
'We confiscated a lot of different gang-type paraphernalia at the gates, ... if the kids inside (the stadium) see gang stuff, they react to it,' he said.
Terry said the gang influence is not limited to social gatherings. In Lehi, burglaries are becoming more frequent. Recently eight homes were 'hit,' all within one square block of each other. Terry said the gangs will stake out an area, then go in one night and take whatever they can, from tools to stereo equipment to furniture.
Kids get involved with gangs to gain a sense of comradery and power as the older gang members accept and protect younger members, Terry said. In return, the younger members do the dirty work: tagging, burglary and armed robbery.
Terry said one of the biggest problems is that parents can't and won't believe that their kids are involved with gangs. Terry said some parents have been confronted many times by the police, warning the parents of the child's affiliation with gangs.
The police point out the gang-style clothes, the symbols and signs and the arrest records of friends of the child in question, but the parents often still don't believe that their child could be involved or will ignore the warnings.
Long said cities are also guilty of being oblivious to the potential gang problems they face, this may be one of the reasons none of the cities have given a solid commitment to the task force program. Long said many people figure if there is no graffiti, gangs must not be very prevalent, but in Utah County there are already 34 documented gangs taking in 362 known members.
'We're worried that many community leaders are just sticking their heads in the sand, actually believing the problem doesn't exist,' said Long, 'It's like alcoholism, nobody wants to admit there is a problem, but there is.'
Terry said citizens need to become more informed about the gang situation and then encourage city council members to officially adopt the gang task force into their city programs.
Bateman said if the federal grant is lost, the county will have to create a new gang prevention force without the federal financial support needed to maintain current prevention activities.
The gang problem isn't going to get better by itself and without the support of the communities in the county the door is being opened to invite gang activity in, he said.