Ganging up: A police primer

Like all cities, Lynchburg resembles a large body of water — placid on the surface, lots of conflict just beneath.

We may not be Baltimore or Philadelphia, but we’re not Mayberry, either.

That’s how police officer Kevin Poindexter came to know gangs the way a field biologist knows flora and fauna. In fact, his presentation to a group of local neighborhood watch groups at the Lynchburg Public Library on Monday night was somehow reminiscent of a lecture I once heard on “Birds of Central Virginia.” As it turns out, you can differentiate between gangs based on their plumage, their markings and their territorial range.

Indeed, one could almost go gang-watching.

“Look, there’s a Park Avenue Blood! I don’t believe he’s on my list. And isn’t that a member of the White Rock Crew, Martha?”

On second thought, I wouldn’t advise it.

There is probably a lot in what Poindexter was describing that is just the sort of stuff kids have always done — the hand signs, the tattoos, the bandanas (OK, maybe not the tattoos). Yet neither are these the Little Rascals.

Among the slides Poindexter showed were local gang members brandishing guns — in some cases, rather large guns — on their MySpace pages. Another demonstrated how one person wearing baggy pants and a loose shirt could conceal five pistols and a shotgun.

Some of the rap videos in regular rotation make living in a slum and fearing for your life seem like great fun. Of course, most of those rappers no longer venture back in the ’hood, at least not without their hired bodyguards.

It’s not against the law to be in a gang. And it’s probably true that gang members choose that route for validation and to earn respect and because they’re in need of a surrogate family and all that warm and fuzzy stuff. Tell that to the Lynchburg cab driver who was unlucky enough to drive into a gang shootout last year and took a bullet in the head. Or tell it to the kids who may not want to be in a gang but find they have no choice.

When I was in high school in Syracuse, N.Y., we had groups of decidedly unfriendly young men like the Elmwood Animals and the Cue & Cushion Crushers who would confront you if you wandered into their turf. But they didn’t sell drugs, because nobody sold drugs on the street back then, and their weapons were much more likely to be fists than 9 millimeter pistols. These days, the ante has been upped considerably.

The point of Poindexter’s presentation was that citizens should be alert to gang activity in their neighborhoods and not be afraid to dial 9-1-1 and tell someone in authority.

During the question and answer session, one woman raised her hand and asked (and I’m paraphrasing): “Is it really a good idea to chase our drug dealers away? They grew up in this neighborhood, and they won’t hurt us, but then other drug dealers might come in who would.”

Officer Poindexter didn’t know quite how to respond to that.

At this point, “gang bangers” in Lynchburg have directed most of their violent impulses toward other gang bangers. Yet there are indications that local activity may be bleeding over (so to speak) into other pursuits such as armed robbery.

Moreover, as another person in the audience pointed out, these are not aliens from another planet. They are our children.

“Where are the parents?” someone wondered.

That would seem to be the first line of defense. But as anyone with teenagers realizes, maintaining control is often easier said than done. And not everyone in gangs is younger than 21.

W.E. Clark, who has remained active in community affairs into his 80s, stood up near the end of the meeting and said: “When I was young, I was in a gang. They called it the Boy Scouts.”

Alas, times have changed. A lot.