By KEVIN SHEA
Ten years ago this month, two Trenton street gangs clashed in a wild rumble in a West Ward park. Scores of young men battled each other with knives and chains before a 15-year-old fired 10 gunshots at his rivals, scattering the mob.
The reaction by the police chief was swift: The violence was denounced and the chief called a gang summit.
Fast-forward to September 2003:
A deli owner caught in the middle of a street feud is shot numerous times in his own store by a young man wearing a red bandanna. The man identifies himself as a member of the Bloods gang.
Months before, police had quietly investigated an alleged death threat in the same neighborhood by a Bloods street gang member against a police officer.
Though state authorities recently said they are in the capital city helping police investigate gangs, the response from Trenton officials has been muted - nearly silent.
Mayor Douglas H. Palmer last week declined to talk about gangs. “I don’t want to talk about gangs. You want to talk about gangs,” he said lightly to a reporter before walking away.
Police Director Joseph Santiago says he is reluctant to talk in detail about the existence of gangs in Trenton.
The department has only begun in the past few months to aggressively investigate whether the city has a strong gang presence, and until police do more probing, he said he does not want to speculate. A specialized unit is looking at possible gang activity.
Santiago did confirm that city police are working with state law enforcement officials in their investigations.
By contrast, state police and personnel in the state Attorney General’s Office have been open in talking about a growing gang problem throughout New Jersey.
Denial, say veteran gang investigators, is a big problem in investigating gangs and can come from police, politicians and parents.
Lt. Edwin Torres, a state juvenile corrections officer who lectures on gangs across New Jersey, has described it as the No. 1 problem.
And Lt. Tom Alexander of the State Police Street Gang Unit has told The Times in the past that he and members of his unit have gotten cold responses from politicians in towns where he’s spoken about gangs.
Alexander described one comment from an elected official that seemed to suggest the state police shouldn’t talk about the existence of gangs. Alexander said the official pulled him aside and said: “Hey, I’ve got a $700,000 building going up here.” -- -- -- In Trenton, the apparent presence of Bloods and Latin Kings, who street officers say they are now encountering, is a major departure from 1993 when the brawl featured the East Trentonites and the West Ward’s Link-o-Links.
In 1993, then-Police Chief Ernest Williams gave a detailed assessment of Trenton’s gangs: They were not hierarchical organizations like the Crips and Bloods, the two Los Angeles-born gangs that control swaths of that city, but loose affiliations of neighborhood youths who had grown up together.
These days, incidents suggesting a stronger gang presence are growing - just as the events show city officials’ reluctance to discuss them.
For example:
-- In January, a 17-year-old city teen was shot dead following a basketball game between Trenton Central and Granville Charter high schools. Police did not declare a gang link, but word on the street was that fighting between rival groups led to the shooting death of Dontae Fountain.
The same day, two young men wearing red bandannas tied around their ankles were wounded at Academy and North Stockton streets.
That weekend, the Rev. William Granville Jr. organized an anti-gang event at his school because he was concerned. (Granville often talks of running in a city gang in the 1950s.)
At the event, a number of authorities and gang experts spoke, including one state corrections officer who said: “Sovereign Bank Arena is a beautiful place, but I’m not sure people know South Broad Street is now South Blood Street.”
When Carol Russell, a city police officer and member of a black officers fraternal organization, spoke, she drew action from her superiors.
Russell alleged: “Trenton should admit the problem. I believe people in the city, maybe someone up top, is in, so to speak, denial.” Russell also labeled Academy Street as “Bloodland.”
At that time, Palmer, and Acting Police Director Abraham Hemsey repeatedly denied the city had a problem with major gangs like the Crips and Bloods. And they repeated what has become their mantra: “There is a presence, not a problem.”
Moreover, then-Mercer County Prosecutor Daniel Giaquinto contradicted police somewhat by saying major gangs were making inroads in Mercer County, but the problem was not epidemic. His office’s Mercer County Gang Task Force was on the case, he said.
Russell was later ordered by Hemsey to produce evidence that supported her statements of gang activity and she was investigated internally because she had failed to produce such evidence.-- -- -- In May, city police learned that a Bloods street gang in the Perry and Academy streets neighborhood had plotted to kill a city police officer and had even stalked one who was on bicycle patrol.
The threat was uncovered during an interview with a juvenile by another police department, but it was chilling: Bloods, on April 20, Easter Sunday, had allegedly watched an officer bike through the neighborhood and talked of tackling him, shutting off his radio and shooting him with his own gun.
Santiago and spokesman Lt. Joe Juniak declined then, and again recently, to comment on the threat.
In an August interview, Santiago, Juniak and Hemsey, now deputy director, reiterated their belief that news of the threat should not be reported, citing the safety of officers and the fact that it could glorify gangs.
In July, a Mercer County jury was read a letter allegedly written by a defendant threatening to kill a key witness in his trial that alluded to membership in the Bloods.
Anthony Kidd, 31, of Trenton was accused of shooting at police in 2001. Just before the trial started, a former Kidd girlfriend opened a letter that read: “If you come to court Monday to testify against me, it’s over for me as well as you and your son (straight like that). I am not afraid to die, what about you? . . . It’s not a threat, it’s a promise from my peoples.”
The letter ends with, “Blood Rule, if you don’t know.”
The prosecutor in the case said it was a reference to the notorious gang the Bloods. The letter was mailed from Northern State Prison, which houses documented Bloods gang members.-- -- -- On Sept. 8, when Jorge Nieves was wounded in his Perry Street deli, police reported to each other at the scene: “There’s Bloods all around here, and someone’s running around with a gun so make sure everyone watches out.”
Juniak, the spokesman, confirmed the next day that the shooting was possibly gang-related, but he did not mention the Bloods specifically.
Once identified as a suspect, Ronnie Glanton Jr., 19, was described as a Bloods member in broadcasts to other Mercer County police departments, but he was not initially described that way to the media.
When pressed, Juniak said Glanton identified himself as a Blood.
Santiago says that, although he is hesitant to talk publicly about gangs, his department is not ignoring the problem.
“The one thing I do know is that if you pretend you don’t have a problem, you’re going to automatically get one,” he said.
He said the department will not be naive, or “bury our heads in the sand,” but he will be cautious of what is said publicly until he gets better information.
Trenton’s reluctance to discuss gangs is not always the norm.
In Easton, Pa., and Newark, known Bloods gangs have local names and have been described in detail by authorities.
In Willingboro, Public Safety Director Benjamin Braxton told a local newspaper in March that a gang of Bloods had a foothold in the township and were trying to recruit 25 high school students.
Braxton said the people in the gang were “members in name only,” had committed no crimes and were being closely monitored and that other efforts were under way to combat them. Braxton is on extended leave and could not be reached for comment on this story.
In December 2001, in Princeton Borough, police talked openly of the graffiti they discovered in town and how they suspected - and later proved - it was connected to the 18th Street Gang, a murderous Hispanic gang based in Los Angeles.