St. Paul police refocusing on gangs

 

 

St. Paul police officials have organized a specialized unit to tackle growing concerns over increasing gang activity in the city.

"If we don't do something to reverse that trend, it will get to crisis proportions in the next few years," Police Chief John Harrington said Wednesday.

It isn't known exactly how many of the city's crimes are gang-related, but there are foreboding signs, the police chief said. St. Paul's officers are seeing an influx of new gangs, an increase in graffiti and an increase in gang efforts to recruit young people.

Add to that a rise in the number of aggravated assaults, which Harrington said are primarily due to domestic and gang violence, and the chief said the responsible thing to do was to take a pro-active approach.

The unit, now in its infancy, has three sergeants and four officers, but will grow to four sergeants and eight officers by September. All those experts will collaborate with the six officers already dedicated to working with the Minnesota Gang Strike Force.

While Strike Force investigators are more aware of what's going on in the metro area as a whole, Harrington expects that the gang unit will be more intimately involved with St. Paul neighborhoods.

Besides enforcement, he said, the unit will be responsible for working with established community organizations to give children alternatives before gangs get to them. It also will work to help current members find ways to leave the lifestyle.

Those elements are key to quashing gang activity in the long term, said Harrington, who has researched gangs for more than two decades.

"You can always take the head of the snake off, but it is backfilled by some up-and-comer hoping to make a name for himself," he said. "You don't get much success that way."

Police have already heard that Asian gangs are looking to the influx of Hmong immigrants as fertile ground for fresh recruits. The gang unit will do what is needed to help those youth find the security they need elsewhere, Harrington said.

He also cited the recent success of the Minneapolis Police Department's STOP unit in curbing gang-related violence in that city's North Side as a reason for establishing his department's gang unit now.

"If they suppress it in the north and they suppress it in the south, where are those gangs going to go?" he asked. "I don't want it to be in St. Paul."

Logistics such as getting necessary equipment and financial resources are still being worked out, but Harrington said, "I don't think you need to have big dollars for there to be success."

Instead, the unit will use existing programs. As an example, Harrington pointed to the Boys and Girls Club of America, which has existing anti-gang programs.

"They've already got the program," he said. "I don't need to invent it. What I need to do is get the kids that are in the gangs there and support the program directors to keep them there."

While building the St. Paul team's foundation, officials looked to investigators with experience in gang activity. And it sought ideas from across the country and in neighboring communities, said Senior Cmdr. Dick Gardell, who will head the unit.

Among the agencies was the Minneapolis Police Department, which in November reorganized gang investigations into its Organized Crime Unit.

Minneapolis Capt. Rich Stanek said he emphasized to St. Paul officials that long-term solutions include digging deeper to find the gang relations behind crimes.

Stanek said he has invited St. Paul officers to his unit's regular intelligence briefings and looks forward to collaborating with them further.

"The bad guys should be scared," he said. "We know more now than we ever did before."