West Jordan working to fight gang crime

WEST JORDAN — Dedicated police officers are working in West Jordan middle schools, high schools and neighborhoods to prevent and punish gang-related crime.

The majority of gangs in Utah are transplants from southern California that have divided into Utah sects, said West Jordan detective Joe Monson, who is assigned to a multi-jurisdictional gang task force.

"But Utah gangs don't follow the same rules," Monson told the City Council during a presentation Tuesday. "They don't own the neighborhoods."

That amounts to more gang-member-on-gang-member criminal activity and means there is no "home base" where police can go to track gang members down, he said.

The gang task force is focusing on uncooperative victims, racketeering charges and new ways to establish probable cause in its ongoing work against Utah's organized crime, Monson said.

In the schools, West Jordan officers are working to halt minor offenses such as graffiti tagging in order to prevent bigger problems, said resource officer and detective Mike Fullwood. They pass on intelligence gathered in schools to the metro task force and, in return, get information about city-specific issues such as the emergence of an "Insane Clown Posse" gang group.

Administrators and teachers in the schools are being trained on everything from investigation and interrogation to gang-sign identification and dress-code enforcement, Fullwood said.

Following Tuesday's presentation, the West Jordan City Council voted unanimously to renew funding for the task force on which Monson serves.

"Thank you so much for all that you do," said West Jordan Mayor David B. Newton.

e-mail: rpalmer@desnews.com