Cops: Parents first defense against gangs

“I’ve had kids tell me this person is recruiting me for this group,” Hazleton Detective Chris Orozco said. “This is what they’re offering. This is what they’re saying.

“There is nothing I can do for that,” he said.

Nothing in the law penalizes gang members for recruiting, Orozco added.

And children as young as 8 have been recruited into gangs, said Patrolman Brian Schoonmaker, who presents the Gang Resistance Education and Training program to city middle schoolers. Locally, recruits have been older, but not by much, he said.

“We’ve had 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds involved in drugs, gangs, everything,” he added.

The gangs operating in the Hazleton area include the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, MS-13, Neta and Trinitarios, Orozco said, and kids looking for money, power, notoriety or a sense of belonging are targets.

Gang leaders capitalize on that need to belong, providing youths a place to hang out and a circle of friends. In return, they ask that their young members do certain things, like a parent would with a child, Orozco said.

“These kids want to belong to something,” he said. “If they can’t belong to their own family, they’ll find a family to belong to. They’re looking for that leader, or that parent.”

That’s why active, interested parents are the first line of defense in the war against these often-violent gangs, Orozco said.

“If you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that you don’t have time for this kid, or you’re not able to watch him all the time, understand that you’re creating a likelihood for that kid to take part in gang activities,” he said.

Parents need to know what their children are doing, who their friends are, and what sites they’re visiting and who they may be communicating with on the Internet, said Jared Lewis, founder and director of Know Gangs, a Wisconsin-based organization that provides training to law enforcement and others on gangs.

Often, parents remain comfortable in their denial, dismissing a questionable group of friends or insisting that their child isn’t going along with what others in that group are doing, he said.

City police have seen parents totally unaware that their child had been recruited into a gang, although the handwriting was on the wall — literally, police Chief Robert Ferdinand said.

“We’ve been in houses where the gang members are writing graffiti in their homes,” he said. “The parents are completely unaware of it. This I do not understand.”

Officers have also gone into homes where everything in a child’s room has been painted a certain color because that’s the gang’s color, Orozco said.

“You’ll go into a home and see the walls, the base trim, the door, everything in that room a particular color,” he said. “When you start seeing stuff like that, that should be a red flag.”

Or, if a child is wearing only one color, it might be the color of one of these gangs, Orozco said.

“Parents have to look at it in the bigger picture, and not just, he likes that color or she likes that color, because that’s not the world we live in today,” he said. “You may like a particular color, but typically there are other colors mixed in the group there.”

Another sign of gang affiliation is unexplained property, or items such as cell phones, clothing, shoes or money that a child might bring home and that the parent didn’t provide, Orozco said.

“You have to look at stuff like that,” he said. “It’s not illegal for a parent to go into a child’s room and look through the room. You can go and search your kid’s room.

“Sometimes, you have to be a parent, not a friend,” Orozco said. “You have to go and do certain things; that’s part of raising a kid. Certain things should not be off limits to a parent.”

If parents do find something suspicious, they should confront their children and ask what’s going on, or in some cases, seek out counseling, he said.

And parents have got to take charge before the gang takes hold, Orozco said, because once a child is entrenched or indoctrinated, not much can be done.

“Parents have to try to stop it before it happens,” he said. “You’ve got to talk to them.”

Ferdinand also suggested developing a child’s self-esteem.

“Give them a sense of worth and that they’re actually loved by the parents,” he said. “If a kid has that sense, he’s far less likely to seek that kind of thing from an outside source, namely gangs.”

Keeping children busy with sports, clubs, organizations or even chores around the house also goes a long way toward keeping them away from the temptation of gangs, Orozco said.

“If you don’t keep them busy, they’re going to find something to get themselves busy with,” he said. “As a kid, I know that. You’re not going to give me something to do; I’m going to find something to do.

“Expect some things from your kids, other than come home and sit around the house, bring your friends and let everyone watch television,” Orozco said. “Expect things of your kid.”

Ferdinand and Orozco admit that a child could end up in a gang, even with the most attentive parents. Sometimes, the lure of a gang still pulls a child away for no other reason than it’s cool, the chief said.

At that point, a parent must seek professional help.

“Counseling goes to the root of the problem and that’s self-esteem issues and self-worth, which is most important,” Ferdinand said.