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JPD addresses the danger of gangs

Daily News - 3/30/2017

March 30--After a presentation on gangs that lasted about an hour, a woman stood up with a message that had others in attendance applauding her.

"If you're not in your child's business, there's a problem," said Melanie Williams.

Williams is a woman of many hats, she said, including a data manager at Bell Fork Elementary and a mother of two teenage boys. She sees the issue of gangs in young adults from both sides.

The schools are not babysitters for their students, she told the room, but they do have a role to play in preventing gang activity around the campus. Parents also have a big role to play in knowing what their children are doing and who they're doing it with.

If there's even a question of an issue with her boys, she'll be at the school calling them out, whether it's embarrassing for the boys or not, to make sure they stay in line, she said.

Williams then asked her sons, whom she brought to the gang session presented by the Jacksonville Police Department, to stand. Among the laughter from other attendees, she said if anyone ever sees them step out of line to call her.

Williams was given high-fives all the way back to her seat.

Her words echoed those expressed by the police department. An officer, whose name is being withheld to protect his safety, opened up the presentation with a national statistic: As of 2015, he said there were more than 33,000 violent street gangs in the United States, and members are often 12-to-24-years-old.

People join for power, money, sex, drugs, and protection, he continued, before focusing on the signs to look out for and how to prevent teens from joining gangs.

Parents should keep an eye out for a change in appearance, he said. That includes if the child starts to look sloppy, gets a new special haircut, gets a tattoo, or starts using hand signs and begins buying clothing mostly in one color.

The changes aren't just physical, though. The officer said to watch out for bad attitudes and keep an eye on social media and other ways of connecting, including Xbox and PlayStation.

Gangs have been resorting to video game chatrooms to speak with each other privately through headsets and are using those rooms to recruit new members as well, the officer said.

The Bloods is the most common gang locally, the officer said. It is characterized by the color red, five-point stars, and the number five. The Bloods cover most of the east coast in general, he added.

The members who join gangs are often coming to the area on the tails of the military, the officer said. Families move here and kids feel overwhelmed, frustrated, depressed and alienated in a new environment.

To prevent children from being recruited, the officer suggested spending quality time together, being involved in their activities, knowing who their friends and their friends' families are, encouraging good study habits, teaching them how to cope with peer pressure, helping them build conflict resolution skills, and addressing the issues of gangs and why they shouldn't get involved with one.

Luckily, the officer said, Onslow County does not have a big problem with gangs. They popped up in some areas in earlier years, like Davis Street and the New River area, but the Jacksonville Police Department stepped up patrols in those areas, focusing on making them better, and the officer said they're no longer an issue.

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(c)2017 The Daily News (Jacksonville, N.C.)

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