Salt Lake Tribune
SALT LAKE CITY — As a police sergeant in Salt Lake City in 1990, Ken Hansen watched as signs of gang activity filtered into the community from Los Angeles transplants.
Drive-by shootings started. Local gangs began forming in response to California gangs that migrated to the state. Hansen and others in law enforcement knew the problem would likely only escalate in coming years -- yet most police departments didn’t have designated gang units and schools were ill-equipped to handle tensions between rival groups.
“We knew, here is a problem that is going to rear its ugly head in Salt Lake City,” said Hansen, now a detective in Midvale and an intelligence supervisor for Salt Lake County’s Metro Gang Unit.
As far as community resources or education for responding to gangs, “There was nothing,” he said. “And we knew we couldn’t arrest ourselves out of the situation.”
Still, when Hansen introduced the idea of starting a gang conference in Utah 20 years ago -- a concept borrowed from Los Angeles where law enforcement and community groups came together to share problems and ideas -- he was met with blank stares.
What gang problem, some in the community asked?
But Hansen forged ahead and secured a grant to start the first Utah Gang Conference. Two decades later, the conference is going strong and has evolved with trends in gang activity across the state.
More than 700 people from law enforcement, schools, the court system and others who work with juveniles gathered in Sandy last week to hear from experts speaking about gang suppression, intervention and prevention. The conference’s objective is simple: to work toward solutions to the gang problem.
“We try to have honest conversations about gang activity,” said Lt. Steve Anjewierden, of the Metro Gang Unit, one of the conference’s current organizers. “Awareness is the first step to be able to take action.”
Statistics from the Metro Gang Unit prepared for this year’s gang conference show nongraffiti gang crime in 2009 was up 38 percent from a year before. That translates to 37 more aggravated assaults, 131 more simple assaults, 25 more drug cases and six more stolen vehicles than in 2008, Metro Gang Unit data shows.
The increase in gang crime is likely not as alarming as it may appear, however. Some police departments have began tracking gang crime differently, in a way that produces statistics showing a rise in gang activity, Anjewierden said.
Salt Lake City in May announced a switch in how it defines a gang crime -- basing the classification on whether either a perpetrator or victim is a gang member, rather than on a crime’s motive.
The Metro Gang Unit’s gang database includes about 2,500 gang members, Anjewierden said. The number doesn’t include gang members listed in other agencies’ databases nor people living in the state who may have gang affiliations but haven’t yet come into contact with police, so estimates of the number of gang members in Utah are fluid.
The Governor’s Gang Task Force is working on establishing a statewide gang database, where information can be shared among jurisdictions. The database could provide more accurate information about the state’s gang issues.
Hansen and others who were instrumental in shaping the first Utah Gang Conference, as well as establishing gang units on their respective police forces, reflected last week on how gang issues have progressed in 20 years.
Hansen said gang investigators have to work harder to identify gangsters. In the 1990s, they blatantly wore gang colors and telltale clothing. Today, some members are more careful about broadcasting their affiliations, he said.
He’s watched some of the original gangs grow bigger and stronger. And while gangs 20 years ago seemed to revolve around the need to “fit in,” gangsters today are more focused on selling drugs and making money than their predecessors.
The Los Angeles gangs that were only trickling into Utah now have a presence across the nation, leaving few places untouched, Hansen said.
He’s hopeful gangsters will begin to see Utah as a place to avoid, because of tough prosecution against gang crimes. He also hopes to see the community build on intervention and prevention efforts started long ago.
Copyright 2010 Salt Lake Tribune