Ogden gang member turned professor says police tactics flawed
The "O Crown" is a common tattoo for Ogden Trece gang members, and is typically "earned" after committing a gang crime, according to Weber County Attorney Chris Allred.
Gangs have long been linked to criminal activity, but some researchers say their purposes and memberships are more nuanced.
In 2010, the Ogden Police Department issued an injunction against the Ogden Trece gang to help cut down on crime in the city. The injunction prevented people identified as gang members from gathering in public, being out past an 11 p.m. curfew, drinking alcohol and possessing otherwise legal firearms.
Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union called the injunction overreaching and a violation of basic constitutional rights. They also said it misidentified and enjoined several people who weren’t members of Trece or any other gang. The rule went to the Utah Supreme Court, where it was overturned on a technicality.
There have been at least 9 Ogden-area shootings in 2015. Three of them were designated by law enforcement as gang-related.
The Ogden police and Weber County Attorney’s Office say they want to bring the injunction back, hopefully in 2016.
• RELATED: Another Ogden gang injunction? Law enforcers say city needs it
But concerns remain about the injunction’s basic premises: the assumption that gang members will inevitably commit crimes, so they should lose certain liberties as a prevention measure, and that the police have an effective system for identifying gang members.
More reporting related to the gang injunction (story continues below):
• RELATED: Ogden gang injunction supported by most other departments
• RELATED: Gang injunctions are not new, but best practices still debated
• RELATED: Why does Ogden have a gang problem?
WHAT IS A GANG?
Almost every gang definition, from the U.S. Department of Justice website to criminology textbooks, has three components. First, there’s a group of people who, second, use unique signs and symbols and, three, commit crimes.
“They don’t have a social function,” Ogden Police Deputy Chief Eric Young previously told the Standard-Examiner. “They don’t have a fundraising function, they’re not a 501(c)(3). They’re about selling drugs, assaulting people, being involved in crimes. That’s their only purpose.”
More specifically, Utah law defines a criminal street gang as an organization, or group of three or more people, who commits certain crimes — known as “predicate gang crimes” — as a primary activity. The members also engage in “a pattern of criminal activity,” and have identifying signs or symbols, like hand gestures and graffiti tags.
“Predicate gang crimes” run nearly the entire gamut of criminal offenses in Utah’s code — theft, assault, kidnapping, sexual offenses, identity and communications fraud, controlled substances violations, murder and bus hijackings are some of the offenses that can qualify as “predicate gang crimes.”
But according to Theresa Martinez, a sociologist at the University of Utah specializing in juvenile delinquency and deviant behavior, those definitions are vague.
“Let’s take stockbrokers for example … they also engage in quite a bit of illegal activity. But people don’t define stockbrokers that way. Fraternities also engage in a lot of illegal activity, but it’s considered ‘boys will be boys,'” she said. “It’s painful to hear peoples’ disregard for gang members.”
A LOOK FROM THE INSIDE
Robert Duràn takes issue with broadly assuming gangs exist to commit crimes. He’s an associate professor in sociology at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.
Duràn has a unique story. As a teenager, he joined one of Ogden’s gangs (although he won’t say which — it could interfere with his gang research), but went on to get a steady job and graduate from Weber State University. From there, he went to the University of Colorado for graduate school, where he studied gang life in Denver and Ogden. He spent considerable time with both the street gangs and law enforcement. He documented much of the research in his book, “Gang Life in Two Cities.”
“One of the biggest things with my work, that I was trying to do, was challenge that ‘crime’ notion associated with gangs,” he said.
His book argues that the association of crime with gangs only emerged in the 1970s, when gangs sprung up mostly comprised of black and Latino minorities.
“Crime does occur, but for the most part, people don’t get caught up in that serious level of violence,” he said. “Even the Ogden Police Department data confirms that it’s mainly graffiti and petty stuff, not serious crime.”
Story continues below photo.
Gangs often cause graffiti as a way to intimidate or claim territory, according to Weber County Attorney Chris Allred. Here, a snowman was tagged by Sureno gang member/s.
Instead of a criminal scheming, Duràn said, gangs mostly exist because there’s a perceived need for belonging and protection.
“You know, some of the most senior gang researchers talk about how they’re bored observing gangs,” Duràn said. “Most of the time, all they do is talk, brag about stuff, do day-to-day kinds of activities. Most of it isn’t very exciting.”
Duràn said he joined a gang as a youth because of friends and the peer pressure in high school. He also said he felt targeted by police because his skin color and culture didn’t match Ogden’s majority community.
“I think I felt cooler, more popular, like I was tougher and bigger than who I had been before,” he said. “The police didn’t like me before, and they didn’t like me later, so that stayed the same. I was the same person. You’re just considered part of a group.”
And many of Ogden’s poor, minority communities feel like they’re unfairly targeted by law enforcement, according to Duràn. Gangs crime, he said, is often retaliation. When individuals feel they’ve been wronged, or their family and friends, they don’t see much recourse through the mainstream legal system.
“If you don’t have good rapport with city leaders and police, you’ll create your own groups to solve problems,” he said. “It’s based on inequality and marginalization — responding back with enhanced inequality doesn’t fix it.”
IDENTIFYING ‘MEMBERS’
Ogden police maintain a database of gang members in the city. They use a list of eight identifiers. If a person admits to membership or meets at least two other criteria, they’re entered into the database as gang members. The Standard-Examiner asked in mid-October via GRAMA request basic information contained in the database, including the number of people in it, sex, age, and race/ethnicity. The department said earlier this week it working to fill that request.
“We’d know if they’re a gang member,” Police Deputy Chief Young said. “There are certain tattoos, certain hair cuts. They aren’t shy about the fact they’re a gang member. They’ve got tattoos up and down their bodies, their heads, their necks.”
| Criteria for Gang Membership |
|
Admits to criminal street gang membership Or two of the following: • Is identified as a gang member by a parent or guardian |
| Source: Weber County vs. Ogden Trece court transcripts |
People will often readily admit they’re gang members, too, Young said, as officers interview them in person and fill out paperwork.
“Then they’re going to try to photograph them, photograph their tattoos, and document who they are to learn intelligence about them,” he said. “Then they enter this information into (a) system.”
Police will remove a person from the database if they don’t come in negative contact with the police for at least five years or if they don’t meet two gang identifier criteria again, Young said.
But Young also said it’s often difficult for members to leave their gang. That’s why his department wants the injunction back.
“It’s an indoctrination to a culture,” he said. “That’s why we’re trying to get ahead of the curve. To find a way to steer these kids in another direction. It’s difficult. It’s a mindset.”
Duràn said law enforcement’s gang criteria is often flawed.
“You know, I’ve always looked at police and gangs on a continuum, and they’re at different ends of that continuum,” he said. “Police, for the most part, are very clueless about gangs.”
Even when Duràn was an Ogden gang member, he said he was rarely able to tell who belonged to a gang just by looking at them. He only knew if he was told or if he knew through his network of peers. People dress a certain way because it’s popular, he said. Identities often change.
“For the most part, you can’t tell depending on what point of your life you’re in,” he said. “Most people don’t join gangs. And most people who do join don’t stay in long — the research data shows it’s a year or less they stay involved in a gang.”
Testimony connected to the first gang injunction details a violent ritual of formally leaving a gang, referred to as getting “jumped out.” Among other things, the person is beat up and they have to cover tattoos, if they have any, related to the group.
Duràn himself was never formally “jumped out” of his gang, he said. Instead, he drifted away by becoming involved in other things, like family, work and school.
Looking at a person’s tattoos, style of dress or associations doesn’t reveal much about current gang involvement, he said.
Story continues below photo.
A Norteno’s gang member is identified in this photo by his tattoos. The “Huelga Bird,” “Northern Warrior,” and number 14 are common Nortenos signifiers.
The concern of many opposed to the Trece injunction is that it targets too many people who aren’t in gangs at all. They may have been at one time, but lost interest. Or some may get tagged as gang members when they’re associating with friends or family who are active members. According to Duràn, nearly everyone in Ogden’s poor, minority communities has relationships with gang members.
When well-meaning but suspicious officers frequently stop and question them, the community begins to feel targeted, according to Duràn’s research. An injunction, he said, will only further those feelings of inequality. Duràn said an injunction wouldn’t have prevented his decision to join a gang as an impulsive teen, either.
“It would’ve primarily made sure I had more charges for things other people aren’t arrested for,” he said. “No one else would get charged for curfew or their association.”
As a kid, Duràn said he never thought much about his future. But he figures a growing criminal record would’ve kept him from getting a good job, going to college and taking the sociology class that served as a catalyst for where he is now. Instead, it would’ve chained him to bad habits.
“It was good for me to move out of Ogden. It was good to get out of Utah, very good for my life. But it doesn’t mean everyone else gets that same opportunity,” he said. “I think prison makes it harder. It just reinforces that’s your identify — as a criminal, as a felon. Then your networks change.”