Gang Violence Declines -- A Number Of Factors Have Led To The Drop, But There Are Worries About An Upswing

Gang activity in Seattle has dropped dramatically in recent years, although gang officers are concerned that may be changing because of some recent incidents.

The Seattle Police Department reports that gang violence dropped by nearly half from 1993 to 1997. The category of shots fired plunged 90 percent, from 382 to 40, and drive-by shootings dropped 84 percent, from 195 to 32.

Seattle's suburbs have seen a similar decline, with a 36 percent drop last year, according to the King County Sheriff's Office.

And violent-crime arrests involving juveniles across the state dropped 41 percent from 1993 to 1996, although there were signs last year that it was creeping back up.

The reasons for the Seattle drop include an aggressive crackdown by police; efforts by such former gang members as Tim McGee and Paul Patu, who have turned their lives around; teen centers, and the fact that some active gang members are shying away from violence to concentrate more on making money.

Because of the drop, the Seattle Police Department cut its gang unit in April from 32 officers to 26.

Despite a 23 percent drop in gang violence for the first six months of this year compared to the same time last year, police say more than a dozen gang shootings since May have them worried that things might be reverting to Seattle's gang heyday in the early 1990s.

"I don't think it's possible to say right now that it (the shootings) is an aberration or that the trend is going up on a permanent basis," said Assistant Police Chief John Pirak, who oversees the gang unit.

On the street, where gang officers say they hope not to lose the progress they've made, gang members - both current and former - say things are not what they used to be.

If there is one place where the decline in gang life is most evident, it's the corner at 23rd Avenue and East Union Street in the Central Area, where a few years ago, according to former gang members and police, shootings and robberies were not uncommon.

Standing there on a mild Friday night are several teenagers who proudly affiliate themselves with a gang but admit they have no leadership and are not really organized - or as organized as they once were.

They also say they are not interested in getting involved in any violence.

"It's something to belong to," says one of the youths. "My partners fill me more than my parents do."

Within a few minutes, a Seattle police cruiser pulls into the parking lot of the corner convenience store near where the youths are standing. The officer behind the wheel sternly announces over his megaphone:

"If you don't purchase something, you are gone. If you purchase something, you're gone. Either way, you are gone!"

Police presence `unapologetic'

Police Chief Norm Stamper, who came to the department in 1994 with the specific priority of quelling gang violence, says it's that kind of police presence - sometimes conciliatory, sometimes aggressive - that has helped cut gang violence.

"Enforcement by gang detectives and patrol officers has been aggressive and unapologetic," Stamper said.

Stamper, like gang officers, says that constant interaction with known gang members has been the key to keeping violence down.

"In many ways, it's just a matter of having a social contact," said Detective Ed Harris of the police gang unit. "You go to the schools or the community center, and you make your presence known."

Since gang officers know gang shootings are almost always followed by a retaliatory shooting, they know to move quickly to contact the victims of the first shooting in order to prevent the second.

"We have conveyed a very clear position, inside the department and in the community, that we will not accept a retaliatory gang shooting," Stamper said.

"If Gang A shoots at Gang B, we're not going to let Gang B shoot back. We'll tell them, `We know what you're thinking, and it's not going to happen.' "

By police estimates, there are as many as 1,500 small-time gang members like this in the city. About 1,500 others, usually a bit older, are considered hard-core members, said Harris.

`Spiritual awakening'

About 100 yards down the street from 23rd Avenue and East Union Street is the Joshua Generation teen center, where Tim McGee is playing basketball.

The youths on the street corner, the hard-core gang members lurking in the shadows, the police riding around, all know McGee, a 26-year-old who, in the early 1990s, was arguably the most feared gang member in the city.

He claims he was in about 80 gunfights around the city. Over the years, nine of the bullets he fired found their mark, including a police officer in 1991, who was wounded in the leg, and a sailor the following year, who was killed.

"Everybody knew I was crazy back then," said McGee. "I loved my gang, and I made sure they were organized."

For shooting the officer, McGee pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and was sentenced to nine months. For killing 20-year-old Lafayttress Johnson in what was described as a shooting sparked by an altercation that Johnson and his friends reportedly started, McGee was sentenced to 26 months. He served 18 months before being allowed out for good behavior.

But all of those things weren't enough to persuade McGee to leave the gang he loved so much.

It was a "spiritual awakening," McGee says, that helped turn his life around when, in 1994, a church choir came to the King County Jail, where McGee had ended up for an assortment of charges.

"I was sitting there, and this woman started talking to me even though she didn't know anything about me. I felt in my spirit that I was about to die," McGee said. "Then this woman said I had one last chance. I knew that God was speaking through her."

Someone else spoke to McGee that year - the Rev. Reggie Witherspoon, a man who McGee said probably saved his life the way he saved the lives of dozens of other young men headed for trouble.

Witherspoon, of the Mount Calvary Christian Center across the street from the teen center, remembers the time three years ago when as many as 450 young men attended the funeral of a gang member.

"I just got fed up with all the gang funerals," Witherspoon said. "I just knew if I could say the right thing to these men, it might subdue some of them - and it worked."

Three years ago, Witherspoon said he was worried that Seattle was on the brink of "turning into South Central L.A." These days, he says, the problem with gangs in his community has vastly changed. "It's not an issue any more."

Witherspoon says it's people like McGee, and about 20 other former gang members who spread the word about the perils of gang life, who have really made a difference.

When McGee speaks these days, there is a certain sagacious tone in his voice - the voice of a man who sounds as if he has lived in a war zone most of his young life. He says he has been to 63 funerals - gang members who were killed, who killed themselves or who died from drugs.

There is regret, and there is remorse, but there is also a revitalized sense of purpose.

McGee, who now works in downtown Seattle as a maintenance worker, hopes his experience and inspirational way of speaking will move young men in gangs to turn their lives around before it's too late.

Another ex-gang member, Paul Patu, 26, volunteers his time from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday nights at the teen center and says it's an experience he cherishes.

Kids there spend time playing video games or board games. Outside, many play basketball or just hang out and talk.

If Patu notices someone needs a haircut, he takes him to a corner and gives it to him himself. If someone needs clothes, he gives him some of his. If someone needs a soda, he digs into his pocket for some change.

"God is allowing me to live the childhood I never had through these young people here, and at the same time I can be a father figure to them. I look at them as my extended family," he said.

The teen center is not the only one of its kind in Seattle.

In November 1995, Seattle was awarded a $7 million grant from the federal government to focus on youth-delinquency prevention.

One of the banner programs of the SafeFutures project was the creation in June 1997 of the SafeFutures Youth Center in West Seattle, which caters primarily to Cambodian and Vietnamese gang members in Southeast and Southwest Seattle, said Steve Hamai, center coordinator.

There, up to 70 youths ages 13 to 19 spend time at a more structured environment than at the Central Area teen center, some working off their community-service hours. About 40 of those youths are former or active gang members, Hamai said.

Hamai also is involved in organizing a gang tattoo-removal program, trying to match tattooed gang members with doctors willing to remove the tattoos for free.

"Removing a tattoo really means erasing a negative part of the gang member's past," Hamai said.

"Seeing that tattoo on their hand or chest is a daily reminder of their past, and by removing it, they are starting life anew."

Gang leaders removed

But removing tattoos and reaching out to active gang members can go only so far.

Explaining the long-term drop in gang violence, Seattle gang officers point to the crackdown earlier in the decade, dubbed "Hardfall," which sent many gang leaders to prison.

Under the operation in 1991 and 1992, police and federal officers focused an investigation on gang leaders involved in guns and narcotics. When it was over, 94 people had been indicted. Eighty of them had confirmed gang affiliations, including five who were prosecuted federally, said Capt. Dan Oliver.

"That had an effect, because it took the leadership away," Oliver said.

The crackdown had its limits. Most of those indicted served no less than three years in prison but are starting to come out now.

But the lesson learned then carries over today.

In March last year, a small group of one of Los Angeles' most violent gangs had settled in North Seattle and was starting to make its presence felt by committing petty crimes and recruiting new members. Police arrested one of the leaders and deported him to Mexico, Harris said; since then, the gang's activity has quieted.

And on June 11, Seattle gang officers, with the help of federal authorities, seized more than 1,100 grams of crack cocaine, about $40,000 in cash and 11 guns from a gang considered one of the most active in the city.

Successful as those operations were, they remain reminders that Seattle is still vulnerable to gang problems.

For example, two youths, including a football player at Rainier Beach High School, were shot in the 4200 block of South Raymond Street in the early-morning hours Sept. 3 by two others, one using an assault rifle, in what police described as a gang dispute. Both victims survived.

The next day, officers were called to the 8700 block of Aurora Avenue North to where a crowd of about 20 gang members, many from California, had fired up to 30 shots at each other, police said.

Though blood was found at the scene, no one came forward with bullet wounds. After questioning some of the suspects, police learned the shooting had been sparked by drug-turf claims, said Sgt. Steve Martin of the gang unit.

The incidents are indicative of how gang violence appears to be climbing the past few months, Martin said.

The fact that almost a quarter of all homicides so far this year have been gang-related - seven of 30 - attests to that. Also, for the first time in five years, drive-by shootings are on the upswing.

Police say one reason is that many gang members who were sent to prison then are returning to the streets now, while others are migrating north from California.

Although Seattle Mayor Paul Schell proposed a budget last week that would add 16 more officers to the force in the next two years, gang officers are also troubled by the cutback in their squad size.

That is coupled with the influx of outside gangs, mostly from California, and especially from the Oakland and Compton, Calif., areas. "They are fully aware of our shortage of gang detectives," Martin said. "They know the hours we work and how many of us are out there."

That knowledge can translate into a more brazen attitude among gang members, he said. "Overall, gang violence is down, but it's spiking now, and we hope it's a temporary thing," Martin said.

Other gang officers agree.

"Right now, we're sitting on the fence. We're at the midyear point, and it can go one way or another," Harris said.

"We cannot sit back and deny that gangs exist and operate here," he added. "Denial here will allow gangs to thrive and grow."

Arthur Santana's phone message number is 206-515-5684. His e-mail address is: asan-new@seatimes.com