Utah gang-related homicides and violent crimes increased in 2017 — and gang members are getting younger

While more deaths in Utah in 2017 are attributable to gang violence than last year, the director of the Salt Lake Area Gang Project said that’s not his biggest end-of-the-year takeaway.

Instead, Lt. Mike Shoenfeld said he’s more worried because recently it seems gang members are younger than they used to be and are notably more violent — even if the violence isn’t always fatal.

“We’ve had some pretty horrific and heinous, egregious crimes committed by gang members over the last year that I think have really shaken our conscience a little bit as a society, because we just weren’t seeing that much violence in the past few years,” Shoenfeld said.

In 2016, only three homicides in Utah were attributed to gang violence. This year, at least eight deaths were gang-related, according to a database compiled by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Shoenfeld said law enforcement has also been dealing with more with violent assaults, in addition to more graffiti and more theft by gang members.

Like with the deaths of 55-year-old Lloyd Everett Pace and 50-year-old Tami Lynn Woodard in Kearns, many gang-related violent episodes have resulted in the deaths of uninvolved people.

Pace and Woodard were in a car in a Kearns neighborhood when a truck rammed into them. Those in the truck — Rosalio Andres Alvarez, 19, Argenis Daniel Ramierz-Saedt, 19, Jose Luis Cirilo Munoz-Lugo, 24, and Jose Humberto Mancia, 17 — had allegedly been shooting at a home associated with a rival gang when they sped away, striking Pace and Woodard’s car.

The increase in homicides coincides with a growth in gang activity over the past two years, Shoenfeld said.

During that time, Shoenfeld and other law enforcement officers have reported an increase in gangs recruiting younger children.

The youngest recruits are around 10 years old, Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said at a November news conference on gang violence and violent crimes.

“We’re seeing kids — 10, 11, 12, 13 — carrying guns and committing crimes,” he said.

Some gangs are using younger children to commit violent crimes because juveniles, if caught and convicted, can receive a less severe sentence than adults, according to multiple local law enforcement officials, who spoke at a November news conference on the uptick in gang crime in Utah.

U.S. Attorney John Huber, Chief Deputy to the Salt Lake County District Attorney Blake Nakamura, FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Barnhart and Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera also spoke at the conference.

Since March, when the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah joined federal prosecutors across the country in an initiative to curb gang violence, federal prosecutors have issued indictments in 54 gang-related cases.

While they say part of the solution to Utah’s gang problem is more aggressive policing, preventative efforts, such as anti-gang after-school programs and community outreach, are needed.

“We can’t do it alone,” Brown said. “It takes a community. We need the community support. We need the community solidarity.”



from The Salt Lake Tribune http://ift.tt/2CvbJQ4

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

U.S. nuns demand action to end ‘culture of silence’ on abuse

Vatican City • The largest U.S. association of Roman Catholic nuns urged its members Monday to report any sexual abuse of religious sisters by clergy and demanded that church authorities “take action to end a culture of silence, hold abusers accountable and provide support to those abused.” The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of Catholic sisters in the U.S., issued a statement Monday in response to an Associated Press report about several sisters coming forward recently to denounce assaults by priests and bishops. The LCWR said it didn’t have data on incidents in the U.S. but thanked the sisters for speaking out. “We understand that reporting abuse requires courage and fortitude. However, bringing this horrific practice to light may be the only way that sexual abuse by those in positions of trust in the church community will be put to an end,” the association’s statement said. The conference has about 1,300 members in 300 orders. LCWR s
Read more

Latter-day Saint women can ‘remove prejudice’ and improve the world, Eubank says

Image
Highlights from Saturday evening’s women’s session of the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 6:30 p.m.: Jesus heals our brokenness, says Primary leader (Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Cristina B. Franco, second counselor in the general presidency of the children’s Primary, speaks during the women's meeting Oct. 3, 2020. Cristina B. Franco, second counselor in the general presidency of the children’s Primary, discussed the healing power of Jesus Christ. She told about getting a new piano that fell off a hand truck during delivery and was damaged. The manager offered to give Franco and her husband, Rudy, a new piano, but Rudy would not hear of it. He wanted the broken one back. “Sisters and brothers, aren’t we all like this piano, a little broken, cracked and damaged, feeling like we will never be the same again?” Franco asked. But Jesus Christ can “heal brokenness,” when people have faith, repent and seek
Read more