What has happened to Appalachia?

[fre...@ix.netcom.com]

Shenandoah Valley officials readying for gangs as
signs appear

By the Associated Press

Published August 7, 2005

WEYERS CAVE, Va. -- Shenandoah Valley law enforcement
officials say they're seeing signs that gangs are on
their way to the area--and they are not going to be
caught off guard.

The law enforcement agencies have formed special
investigative units to confront the emerging problem
after signs of violent gang presence showed up in high
school students' clothes, in graffiti and in a recent
shooting death in Staunton.

Officials say where there are signs, the gangs either
already are there or are on their way.

"We don't use the word 'wannabe.' We use the word
'gonnabe"' said Randy Crank, president of the Virginia
Gang Investigators Association.

The association recently held a two-day gang education
seminar to teach about 70 law enforcement officers,
juvenile justice employees and others on the signs of
gang activity.

Keith Applewhite, the association's vice president,
said recognizing there could be a problem is the first
step to combatting gangs.

"The biggest issue we have with all of this is
denial," Applewhite said. "They don't accept it and
ignore the problem until it's too late."

The seminar began just days after a 22-year-old
Staunton man was killed at a gas station in a shooting
police claim was gang related.

Last year, four people from Staunton and Waynesboro
were convicted of the stabbing death of a man who was
trying to leave a local set of the Crips, a Los
Angeles-based street gang.

Anti-gang task forces have been established in
northern Virginia and the northern valley, and
Harrisonburg and Rockingham County formed a regional
task force in June to prevent and reduce gang
activity.

Some high school students in Winchester began wearing
the colors, bandannas, rosaries and hand signs of Mara
Salvatrucha, a violent gang from El Salvador also
known as MS-13, said Robert Eckman, a member of the
Northwest Virginia Regional Gang Task Force. He said
all the students were local, and the gang activity has
been confined to spray-painting and running drugs.

"We've been fortunate that it's not infiltrated to the
point where it's caused any major problems yet," said
Eckman, a major in the Frederick County Sheriff's
Office.

Most of the activity has come in the form of graffiti.

Officials said few of those involved in the recent
activities have direct ties to the street gangs of
Chicago, Los Angeles or El Salvador. And many don't
fit the profile of suspected gang members.

The Gang Investigators Association, which holds about
10 rural seminars each year, has focused on MS-13 and
the Bloods, who have been actively recruiting across
the state, Crank said.

At the recent seminar, officials listened to rap music
in the morning session and learned about Satanism that
afternoon.

"What (we are) doing is making sure (local police) are
prepared when they show up," Crank said.

[Phred]

Two pronged benefit:

Recruit the kids outta the hollers who need to be in skool everyday and
let them whup the gansta kid's asses.

[brig...@gmail.com]

We're not exactly Applachia here, Chucky. Interstate 81 isn't called
"college row" for nothing and we've got the fastest-growing population
in Virginia.