Deconcentrating poverty from inner City's and it's effects on small communities.
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posted by Bob at Monday, June 18, 2007
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Monday, June 18, 2007
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28 Comments:
Gangs are increasingly attracted to small towns
A Faribault case highlights concerns about a rise in activity in rural Minnesota, where there is far less police and competition.
By Chao Xiong, Star Tribune
Last update: June 17, 2007 – 9:10 PM
Gangs are increasingly attracted to small towns
St. Paul shooting victim identified
FARIBAULT, MINN. - Jim Lassek knew something wasn't right. But he didn't want to think the worst -- that the young men dawdling day and night in a yard near his neatly trimmed house were members of a gang.
"It's tough to see a group of people standing in the front yard and think, 'Is that a gang?' and call police because you think it's a gang," Lassek said recently. "Everybody has the right to congregate in their front yard."
Turned out, the men not only were gangsters, but they had ties to the Tre Tre Crips, a violent Minneapolis street gang implicated in the recent shooting death of a 14-year-old Minneapolis girl.
Faribault police said the gang members -- busted in early June over drug trafficking and firearms violations -- were the most violent to hit this quiet river town of 21,000 residents about an hour south of the Twin Cities. They say they fear it may be a signal of things to come as urban gangs look more and more to small towns as fertile spots to set up shop and peddle drugs.
"All cities east, west, north, south of the Twin Cities ... are going to be susceptible to it," said Faribault detective Brandon Gliem, one of the department's two gang specialists. "It's going to grow year after year."
Small towns are vulnerable, some authorities say, because the police presence is lighter and competition for drug dealing is almost nonexistent.
The Metro Gang Strike Force (there are regional counterparts as well) has information on about 14,000 gang members or people with gang affiliations across the state, said Ron Ryan, commander of the force. About one-third live or operate outstate, he said. That's about double what it was five years ago, Ryan said.
Much of the reason for the increase, authorities say, is that gang activity is moving in from the Twin Cities and regional hubs such as Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee.
"Years ago gangs stayed on a block or neighborhood," said Jim Heimerl, assistant commander of the Metro Gang Strike Force. "That's long gone."
Gangs began surfacing outstate more than a decade ago as big-city police departments turned up the heat on drug dealing and other gang activity in the metro area. Many gang members, in particular Hispanics and Asians, also followed family members who moved outstate for work, largely in meatpacking plants and other factories.
Faribault police deal mostly with juvenile Latino street gangs who commit petty robberies and fight among themselves. So it was a shock this spring when members of the Tre Tre Crips were involved in a nonfatal shooting and a subsequent fracas at the Rice County Courthouse in town.
Fourteen people, some of whom associated with others at the house near Lassek's home, were indicted on drug and weapons charges in federal court earlier this month.
"I don't think the residents [of Faribault] would've dreamt of this," said Faribault police detective Rod Lehmann, another gang specialist.
Filter out elsewhere
The gang presence is more prominent in St. Cloud, a city of 60,000 residents about an hour north of the Twin Cities, where authorities began confronting the problem more than a decade ago, said Police Chief Dennis Ballantine.
As of 2006, there were about 270 confirmed gang members in St. Cloud and 425 potential members, according to the department's annual report. Much of the gang activity has involved drug dealing or violence, Ballantine said. And much of it trickles in from bigger cities.
"It's kind of a sick joke up here that whenever the Twin Cities puts a squeeze on gangs, they tend to filter out somewhere else," he said.
Ballantine and other authorities across the state said most gang-related violence is between feuding gangs, although residual crimes such as robberies also increase with a gang presence.
In Rochester, a man with gang ties was stabbed 19 times last year by members of a rival gang and survived, said Steve Thompson, the Rochester Police Department's gang investigator. Two months later another man was stabbed at a bowling alley in retaliation. In 2005, a gang member was axed in the head. He survived.
The motives in many cases are vague, Thompson said.
"They generally don't need a reason," he said. "They've hated each other for years. They shoot each other. They stab each other. They just continue the violence."
Gang-related crime -- drive-by shootings, assaults with deadly weapons and drug trafficking -- has been occurring for more than a decade, Thompson said, but it's happening more frequently.
Increasingly homegrown
And in recent years, gang members have become increasingly homegrown. Previously, most were transplants from larger cities, he said.
Duluth police Lt. Dan Chicos, commander of the Northeast Regional Gang Strike Force, said that gang members from bigger cities often move into smaller cities to distribute drugs to their dealers, who are "associates" and not gang members. After distributing, they skip town.
In Duluth, as in many outstate communities where there is less competition, gang members can make more money off drug sales. Chicos said a rock of crack cocaine that would cost about $15 in the Twin Cities could run about $50 in the Duluth area.
Authorities said they've tackled the growing issue in many ways: by teaching community groups and high school students about gangs, training officers to recognize gang members and using state grant money to attend national conferences.
"Some of these regions, you have thousands of miles [of land] and a couple of officers," Heimerl said. "It's a daunting task to say the least."
Staff writer Richard Meryhew contributed to this report. Chao Xiong • 612-673-4391 • cxiong@startribune.com
Ya know folks I am amazed at how ignorant (stupid)our local media is. First of all these young men (gang bangers) follow their family or a girlfriends to these small towns and rural areas. SUBSIDISED HOUSING IS WHAT ATTRACTS THEM TO THESE AREAS.
heaven forbid the public knew the truth. it would be the end of deconcentrating poverty with in the inner city.
I think the media is dealing with violent issues the same as the police, they don't want people to know or they don't give a shit.
My daughter was jumped by 10-12 Asians at Club Escape Thursday night, of course the club didn't want to involve the police so after spending hours at the hospitals I took my daughter to the police. Basically being that she is still alive they don't give a shit it was like a big job to get them to write the report. As for my daughters condition they thought her eye socket was broke but xrays of her head revealed her nose to be broke in which we have to see a specialist and an inner concussion, both eyes are very blackened and swollen and she has multiple bumps all over her head.
If the Club management and police aren't going to address issues such as this I can see why violence is rising, these punks aren't facing consequences so basically they are in control.
Nancy
NOT IN MY BACK YARD
WHO CARES IF THEY MOVE TO FARIBAULT?
Sorry to hear about your daughter Nancy.
The problem you came up against with the police being reluctant to file a report is common through out the metro.
As long as the crime statistics's appear to be low, elected officials have less public pressure to do something about it.
We all know crime is escalating and the policy is to spread it around instead of dealing with the problems.
Maybe Faribault, Zumbrota, Red Wing and other small towns will know what to do with criminals once they get them from us.
According to "Myron Orfield the GOD FATHER of Deconcentrating Poverty" this is a predictable outcome.
He claims these suburbs and small towns have better resources to deal with crime & poverty issues.
The poor people in Saint Paul are being replaced with middle class citizens due to the strangle hold on affordable housing, and the surrounding areas get our less fortunate.
Myron Orfields report-
http://www.brookings.edu/press/review/winter97/morfield.htm
Bob also has this linked under "Guilty or Not Guilty" to the right of the screen on the front page.
Bob, after reading this Trib article it looks like the Faribault police don't have a clue either.
This cop in the story made all kinds of ignorant assumptions about the reasons for the surge in crime in Faribault. He actually thought the police in the Twin Cities were getting tougher on crime, ya sure pal. Call the cops for a burglary or anything and you practically have to beg them to file a report.
My kid was assaulted with a bat we knew who the people were who assaulted him. Nothing came of it!
Small towns are vulnerable, some authorities say, because the police presence is lighter and competition for drug dealing is almost nonexistent.
The police presence maybe lighter but small communities are suspicious of new comers and they are often watched by neighbors.
Bob, consider passing out your News Letter in Faribault!
I agree with Bob.. our social ills are spread around with these subsidised housing programs.
Poverty got concentrated with the flight to the suburbs in the 50's. You may recall that this is when the Civil Rights Movement took off. Many of the suburbs used exclusivity to keep poverty out, so they would have fewer burdens in their pursuit of the American Dream.
Things are changing with more people getting poor. Everybody has to do their part, cities, suburbs, small towns, and rural.
Hi All,
I had forgot to mention.
I Informed the Mayor of Faribault and several of the City Council members of our discussion here at A Democracy Town Hall Meeting.
I also left a message with John the editor of the Faribault Daily News.
12:13, so everybody has to do their part huh? I moved to a suburb to have a better quality of life. SO, my government feels I should be burdened with a lesser quality of life. GO FIGURE!
How bout addressing the problems of crime with real solutions. Parenting is the root of all our social ills. This would be a good place to start.
The drug war is a failure and so is our correctional system!
Gangs were in small towns before Mighty Myron wrote his deconcentration manifesto. They go to the small towns for a lot of reasons, and yes, they do follow their baby's mamas when they move (sometimes). But they also go to make money, or when the local police make life too difficult for them.
12:48 -
I agree, but I bet if someone were to put a law on the books that required you to be an effective parent, there would be a lot of people screaming foul - and it wouldn't be the poor and downtrodden, it would be the affluent and complacent in the third ring cities of Eden Prairie and Lakeville.
12:50, I respectfully disagree. I am a rental property owner in a rural area. WE DID NOT SEE GANGS UNTIL THERE WAS A LACK OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN THE TWIN CITIES. I only rent to someone with a job.
Almost every instant of gang related activity we have had in our town is directly related to affordable housing.
My closes friend is the largest rental property owner in our community. He has on 2 different occasions rented to people from the Twin Cities who were looking for affordable housing. Both renters where young white women with kids.
These girls moved in, and one day I go over there with him to help him with a furnace and sitting there was all these black young men with black hanker chiefs on their head. The house smelled like horse shit. I was later told this was marijuana. Now I am an old farm boy and I don't understand how anyone can smoke something that smells like horse shit!
A couple of weeks went by, my friend ask the tenant who are these people their not on the lease are they staying here. She claims their family and just visiting.
We drive by the house often they just come and go and never actually leave.
The neighbors suspected drugs and so did my friend and I. Well so did our Sheriff and they busted them selling dope to one of our local kids.
My friend doesn't rent to outsiders anymore. I suggest others do the same.
Thank you Bobby Johnson for sending us your invite. Since your first correspondence with us our community is doing well now.
You people in the Cities need to work out your own problems instead of shoving them off on rural communities.
City leaders want to address crime issues by tearing down houses and blaming landlords. City leaders remedy to everything is screen your tenants better." Wouldn't it be nice if life was really that simple in reality? Maybe we should screen our city leaders a little better.
Stop sending us your crap St Paul. Deal with your own problems ir live with them.
3:02 -
Do you kiss you mother with that mouth? I don't kiss your mom, it costs extra
A-D Crew -
I live in the first ring suburbs, work in the inner-city, and have a farm in rural Minnesota. I can say from my own experiences that crime has happened in all three communities that I spend time in.
As a sociologist by training (which means I am qualified to flip burgers too) I see that all communities have issues, regardless of population. Yes gangs are prevalent in the city, but there is documentation to show that gangs have been in rural MN for years. The reservations across the state are a perfect example of this. Crime and poverty are often traveling companions, think back to the 1940's through the 1970's when the urban poor became urbanized (industrialization and the consolidation of agricutlure). When the poor were rural, the crime rode with them into the city - and the city dwellers voiced their opinions readily. Reporting is also a factor, rural and poor crime is severly under-reported, and until the last few years, many local communities, townships, etc didn't even have the capability to submit UCR Reports to the feds. Good discussion on the issue though.
oopes, I mean the rural poor became urbanized.
Next time me use "preview" function
Our country's handling of poverty is a disgrace to the United States.
In much the same way, the St Paul inspectors and their supporters have been a disgrace to the Public Service.
I am new here and only been reading this for a few days. Could someone tell me what WWB means. Please be nice to me, I'm not trying to start any arguments, I just don't know what that means.
Remember when the State of Wisconsin sued the State of Minnesota for polluting the Mississippi (mostly because St Paul wouldn't separate its combined sewers). It worked.
Maybe the suburbs, rural areas, small towns, State of Minnesota, and the federal government can sue the City of St Paul (including Thune and Lantry) for the heavy handed and illiegal way they are forcing out poverty through code compliance inspections.
3:33, "crime under reported in the rural areas". I don't know where you are from but I am from a rural area and a stolen bicycle hits the news.
Crack sold on main street would be BIG news! Before it even hit the papers!
I'm sorry I only believe a small proportion of what you stated.
Might as well sue them, everyone else is!
So by reading the responses here, I can conclude that A Democracy participants beleive:
1. Poverty equals crime.
2. The burbs don't want the poor.
3. Subsidized housing attracts criminals.
4. Poor equal minorities (since no whites in the burbs are poor or were poor before minorities)
5. There is thinly veiled racism masked by false anger and concern over deconcentration. Bob Johnson excluded.
Does anyone know how much money in taxes are taken from Ramsey and Hennepin County residents, and how much is returned in service compared to the rest of the state? Negative. These two counties are still the economic engine for the other 85 in this state. Fact is, we've been carrying these broke cities for decades.
6:02, WWB is "Walking While Black"
Bob the host here attached the label to a "fictitious" City ordinance that allowed the police to stop minorities and check them out.
It was sarcasm describing institutional racism.
3;33, these people aren't going to the rural areas for jobs like the poor rural people migrated to the city for work in the 40's.
There isn't many jobs in our small communities. Most these people come for housing and live off welfare and they are a tax burden on us in rural areas.
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