For Senoia Police it is a matter of citizens being aware of their surroundings and mindful that new forms of crime can enter a community as metro Atlanta continues its spread across the 28-county area of north Georgia. To that end, Investigator Alicia Batts on April 25 presented a gang awareness meeting for city residents designed to heighten that awareness.
Many in the metro Atlanta area are not aware that Atlanta, and especially Gwinnett County, in recent years has become the drug capital of the eastern United States. With that distinction has come the growing presence of organized gang activity. And though southwest metro Atlanta could be the last place for such activity to occur, Batts and Police Chief Jason Edens said they wanted to take a proactive approach in informing the community to the signs that accompany gang activity.
“We’ve detected no gang activity in Senoia to date but we’re seeing trends in the area,” Edens said. “Gangs exist whether we like it or not so it’s best to be proactive. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ doesn’t apply to gangs. The worst thing we can do is turn a blind eye.”
Batts in her extensive presentation was joined by federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Agent Johnson. The presentation to the two dozen in attendance was essentially a primer on gang awareness, tactics, criminal activity and the type of tagging (graffiti) used to denote their presence, or intended presence, in a community.
Many of the largest gangs operating in the U.S. also operate in metro Atlanta. And it was during the presentation that Batts and Johnson covered some of those, such as MS-13, Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, 18th Street, Bario Azteca, the Black Peace Stone Nation, Gangster Disciples and others.
Gangs use a variety of methods to fund their illegal operations and in their wake are innumerable crimes that take a toll on communities, Batts said. But as Batts and Johnson pointed out, the old idea of gangs and their methodologies is currently being transformed. While tattoos, for example, have been a mainstay for gangs to identify themselves, a new trend is to go tattoo-free in order to blend into a community without alerting authorities of their presence.
The same sometimes holds true with the trademark colors worn by gang members, such as the red attire worn by Bloods and the blue clothing worn by Crips, Batts said, or wearing hats to the left or right to indicate a particular affiliation.
Johnson and Batts also explained how gangs are sometimes being pushed out of cities by local and federal law enforcement agencies and are moving to the suburbs. And that is where the two officers continuously reinforced the idea that gangs today want to fly under the radar of community awareness. All the more reason for law enforcement to conduct gang awareness meetings in their local communities, Batts said.
One of the tactics used by gangs is in the commission of crimes. Many times gang members will commit crimes in one county and live in another. And in the community where they live they are essentially law-abiding citizens, Johnson said.
Batts during the presentation offered parents tips on the warning signs sometimes manifested by young people. Those included changes in behavior, constantly wearing the same colors, using hand signs, getting tattoos, using uncommon words or phrases or showing suspicious bruising.
Batts at the end of the presentation showed the audience a half-dozen photos of gang-type tagging she had taken in locations around the community. Several were taken in the past few weeks while two of them were quite old and faded. Her intent was not to alarm parents since the tags could just as easily have been drawn after the child or teenager saw them on a television show, in a movie or on the internet and decided to duplicate them on a wall or building.
And while Senoia officers take the tags seriously and are pursuing their origin, Batts said the idea is to be aware that, while a small city in an outlying county, Senoia is part of an extremely large metro area that has become a mecca for the drug activity that forms a basic method of income for organized gangs. Batts said continuing vigilance on the part of parents and law enforcement and maintaining a proactive stance on gang awareness are things that can make a difference in a community.
Batts said the gang awareness presentation is also available to homeowners associations and civic groups. Those interested can contact the Senoia Police Department at 770-599-3256.
