Top Stories Milwaukee

Gang members are increasingly leaving Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago to sell illegal drugs or commit other crimes in smaller cities and towns in Wisconsin, and even in rural areas, law enforcement officials say. The migration is bringing stabbings, shootings and other violent crime to areas once thought to be exempt from them and forcing police agencies to adapt.

“The police pressure is getting hot (in the big cities), and gang members are looking for new bases. They’re moving up north and into the Indian reservations in droves,” says Ed Wall, administrator of the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s criminal investigations division. In the past four years, the rate at which gangs are fanning out across the state has risen dramatically, he says.

“You’re seeing drive-by shootings in little towns that have never had them,” he adds, and an increase in gang-related drug violations. Graffiti (“tagging”) is also cropping up where it never has before, often marking the presence of a gang from Milwaukee or Chicago.

“They tend to come in quietly and start recruiting,” Wall says, and they typically have a connection in the community they move to, maybe a friend, relative or girlfriend. Acquaintances of the connection are often the first people approached by the incoming gang member seeking to establish a foothold in the local drug trade or commit other crimes, he says.

Gang members across the country are moving from the big metropolitan centers, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Gang Threat Assessment, released in 2009. According to the report, the number of law enforcement agencies in the country reporting gang problems rose from 45 percent in 2004 to 58 percent in 2008, largely due to the rise in rural and small city gangs.

The National Youth Gang Survey, last conducted by the department in 2008, found the number of gang members had risen about 8 percent in rural counties, 10 percent in suburban ones and almost 15 percent in small cities since 2002, as compared to just 2 percent in large cities.

Police in Wisconsin, particularly in relatively small cities like Green Bay, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Appleton and Oshkosh,  all reported significant problems with at least one type of gang, be it Asian, Hispanic or what the state justice department calls “street gangs” in the 2008 survey of gang activity in Northeast Wisconsin.

The Green Bay Police Department’s anti-gang efforts began in the 1980s and have since grown into the GBPD Gang Task Force. Late last week officers in the city were investigating a new group (“Crazy Boys”) that was tagging cars and buildings around town. They weren’t sure yet what other criminal activities, if any, the group was involved in, or whether they’re a homegrown gang or a branch of some larger organization.

“We’re seeing smaller cells, cliques or sets, branches of gangs,” says Lt. Gary Richgels, who oversees the task force. The branches may even mix signals in ways that would be unacceptable in larger cities – crossing red and blue colors, for example, in a way that might incite violence in a city such as Los Angeles.

Big-city transplants

Richgels says that in interviews, some gang members admit to moving to Green Bay from Milwaukee or Chicago. “They’re up here because it’s not as hardcore,” he says. They bring big-city reputations with them to use to their advantage. “When someone comes in from a New York, an L.A. or a Milwaukee, they automatically get street cred,” according to Richgels.

The big-city transplants are typically less concerned with controlling geographic turf in Green Bay, he says, and more interested in carving out a niche in the drug trade. The transplants may also organize burglaries in the city. Seasoned gang members, however, are unlikely to perform stick-ups or other high-risk, low pay crimes.

In late July, a judge evicted two alleged gang members from a duplex near the city’s downtown – Alexander Martinez, 21, a member of the Latin Kings gang, and his mother, who Richgels says identified herself as a “Latin Queen.” Martinez is accused of helping four other people beat and rob a woman and her young son during a home invasion robbery.

The two were kicked out of the house under a state law allowing a judge to declare a property a public nuisance because of gang activity. It’s a provision Brown County courts might use again. The state gang assessment says violent and property crime has risen in the city since 2004, partly due to gangs. “We’re on pace to have another record year,” Richgels says.

In Winnebago County, home to Oshkosh and Neenah, police say most gangs in the area have members from Milwaukee or Chicago. “In the bigger cities, these gang members are small players without much influence, but (they) move up north and start their own chapters, taking on more of a leadership role,” the report says.

Native American reservations such as the Menomonee Indian Tribe (in Menomonee County) and the Oneida Tribal Nation (in Brown and Outagamie counties) are also seeing a rise in gang activity, drug arrests and violence, police there say. Much of the activity is merely suspected, based on gang tags spotted on the reservations, gang-related threats and assaults that appear linked to gang disputes. According to the assessment, many small police agencies in the state, including the Oneida Police Department, don’t track criminal suspects based on gang affiliation.

Authorities in Sheboygan say they’re seeing an increase in “weekend drug dealers” traveling to the city from Milwaukee and Chicago in search of new markets. Police also report some gang members are using the city to stash guns – weapons that might be used in big city crimes.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.