By GINNY LAROE
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
Copyright 2006 Chattanooga Publishing Company
Chattanooga police say gang violence here is not out of control or close to reaching the proportions it has in larger cities.
“We don’t have epidemic gang-related murders in this city,” said Lt. Mike Mathis, head of the department’s major crimes division. “What we’re doing is investigating and arresting people who are responsible.”
But Lt. Mathis and other officers said the city would benefit from having a full-time gang unit, and not just on an “as needed,” basis.
The last gang unit in the department, with four members, was disbanded in 2000 as part of a restructuring under the administration of former Chief Jimmie Dotson. The department no longer keeps statistics on gangs, according to a police spokesman.
Chief Steve Parks has said he has no plans to create a new gang unit or task force. He said all officers work to develop information on gang issues.
“While one officer is tasked with coordinating the flow of information, all officers should be involved in the process,” Chief Parks said in a prepared statement.
He said his department’s philosophy is to be “decentralized, flexible and not compartmentalized.”
“We have been successful in reducing crime with this operational approach and see no reason to revert back to methods that were used in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he wrote in a statement.
Days after two fatal gang-related shootings in June, Lt. Mathis flipped through a binder of the city’s hundreds of homicides in the last 16 years, and could only think of a handful that police determined to be gang related.
He said police don’t track crimes by the category of “gang related,” partly because often the only way police know if it is a gang crime is because suspects will tell investigators.
“How can you quantify that number?” the lieutenant said. “If two people in a gang argue and one shoots the other, it may or may not be gang related.”
Sgt. Tim Carroll, head of the department’s homicide unit, said even if local gang members are not officially tied to Bloods, Crips or other street gangs based in cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, they are still wreaking havoc on Chattanooga neighborhoods and public housing developments.
“They’re hard core, extremely violent people,” he said about suspects police arrest for gang-related violence.
Sgt. Alan Franks, who now coordinates gang intelligence for the police department, said he blames the recent flare-up in gang crimes on the release of a gang member from prison.
He said Michael “Mike-Mike” Daniels, a ranking member of the Skyline Bloods gang, was released from state prison in the last year. Mr. Daniels is now charged with ordering a fellow gang member to kill 26-year-old Adrian Patton earlier this month, according court testimony.
Fugitive Detective Robin Davenport grew up in local housing developments. He said the families there are often poor, with little education and resources.
He said the teens join gangs for “protection, recognition and money.”
But he said he tells young gang members, “You can’t get an insurance plan, can’t take care of your family” if you are making money illegally.
Police say many young criminals they see have parents who are convicted criminals.
The father of a 16-year-old suspect in a recent gang-related drive-by shooting in Eastdale is serving time in prison for rape.
“We didn’t start this, and we’re not going to stop this,” said Capt. Jeff Francis, former Chattanooga police gang unit coordinator. “If you’re a 5-year-old and your mom is smoking crack, what’s going to happen?”