WASHINGTON – Gang shootings in the Washington metropolitan area have been on the rise in the last few months but how the gangs operate differs significantly based on their location – and that has caught the attention of law enforcement officials.
“I know the [Metropolitan Police Department] is tracking the number of shootings aggressively,” said Gilberto Guerrero, Jr., chief of the Violent Crimes and Narcotics Trafficking Section for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington.
While the increase in shootings is occurring throughout the region, the district and surrounding suburbs have experienced differing types of gang activity during the same period.
While northern Virginia and Maryland are home to national gang chapters, the District of Columbia is divided among neighborhood-based gangs. The national gangs tend to fight each other, while local gangs often hurt bystanders or those perceived to have “dissed” them.
“Neighborhood-based street gangs or street crews in Washington, D.C., are involved in criminal activity ranging from narcotics trafficking to street robberies,” said Michael McGarrity, assistant special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office of the FBI. “They are known to use violence and intimidation to ensure respect, protect their crew and support illegal activity.”
The rivalries among neighborhood gangs are largely fueled by disputes over drug trading in the area.
“Local-based crews that are based in D.C. may start off as neighborhood crews that quickly spiral into violent, organized gangs, mainly rivaling local neighborhood crews and gangs over drug distribution and turf, and unfortunately those gang problems contain as serious crimes as the national gangs,” Guerrero said.
He added that with more neighborhood crews turning to violence, there has been an alarming uptick in armed robberies, among other crimes.
To the north of Washington, however, a different trend is emerging. McGarrity has seen a rise in criminals who live in Maryland but push drugs in D.C.
McGarrity has seen neighborhood-based gangs spread from D.C. into Maryland suburbs.
“Their criminal activity was not confied within one area and cut across multiple jurisdictions,” he said.
Among the national gangs operating in the area – especially Maryland and Virginia suburbs, Sureño gangs are widepsread. They are connected with the Mexican Mafia and are known for being exceedingly violent, though normally only with rivals. The most public rivalries are between Sureño gangs and MS-13 and the 18th Street Gang, both of which have a strong presence in Northern Virginia.
In the Virginia suburbs, “every town, every city, every county is at risk,” said Robert Vilchez, Arlington County Regional Gang Task Force coordinator. “Nobody is immune from this gang problem.”
Vilchez sees another trend emerging in Arlington County: human trafficking. The Northern Virginia Human Trafficking Task Force was created in October 2013 to combat the problem in the area’s gang activity.
“We had gangs [in high school], and I had friends that I lost to gangs,” he said. “Friends that lost their lives to gangs, friends that were deported and lost their life back in Central America to gangs.”
Gangs often target middle and high schoolers. “They’re looking for a sense of belonging,” said Ed Ryan, gang prevention coordinator for Fairfax County. “Many of these kids, maybe there’s trauma within the household, maybe there’s an unstable home environment, meaning no father figure or an abusive father figure.”
In order to prevent these gang trends from continuing, Vilchez and his task force are trying to diminish gangs’ lifeline – new members.
The task force has programs ranging from providing housing to tattoo removal to employment training. Vilchez also emphasized the need for productive recreational activities.
A soccer tournament hosted by the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force targets kids at risk of joining gangs or already in them. The force has seen its efforts pay off – participation and popularity have soared, taking youths off the streets.
“We’ve been successful both regionally and locally where we have seen a decline in gang activity because of our balanced approach, which is intervention, prevention and suppression,” Vilchez said.
By the numbers with gang activity
