Helping teens stay out of gangs

A year ago, prior to the start of the 18th annual Utah Gang Conference, growing gang violence was on the minds of law enforcers and community leaders.

The shooting death of a popular clerk at the Family Dollar Store in Salt Lake's Glendale neighborhood raised the attention level on gangs.

Now, as the 19th annual conference convenes today and Friday, the concern over gangs and violence has grown even more. Since the last gang conference a year ago:

A 7-year-old girl was shot and killed last July while playing outside her house near 800 W. 1100 South, the innocent victim of a gang-related drive-by shooting.

On Jan. 21 of this year, a fist fight between two gang members near Kearns High School turned deadly when one of the boys fired into a crowd of on-lookers, killing a 16-year-old bystander.

In February, a young man was lured by rival gang members to a West Valley City golf course where he was shot and killed, apparently because he showed up wearing the wrong colors.

Following the slaying on the golf course, gang violence dropped somewhat, said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Duane Jensen of the Metro Gang Unit. That was until last week when two drive-by shootings happened on the same street, Lake Crest Drive in West Valley City. No one was injured, but the shootings were believed to be result of a longtime battle between two rival gangs.

On a nearby cinder block wall behind the apartments where the shootings occurred, Jensen examined the mass of graffiti, all of it gang related. Much of the graffiti includes the name of one gang, crossed out in blue or red, depending on who wrote the original message. Jensen also takes note of a gang based out of Chicago flying its colors on the wall.

One of the big concerns of both police and community leaders is that gangs appear to be recruiting younger and younger members.

In some high schools and junior highs, kids are pressured into joining gangs for protection while others join because they want to feel a sense of belonging to a group. The gang, in essence, becomes their family.

Among the many workshops being offered at this year's gang conference, law enforcers will look at safe schools, Project 180 and other solutions being used to keep at-risk youth out of gangs, including faith-based solutions. There will also be workshops on bullying and one on detecting the signs of whether a school may be susceptible to violence.