OFFICIALS AWARE OF GANG PRESENCE

Work To Quell Local Crews Intensifies Before National Groups Gain Foothold

SALISBURY -- At the northern end of the Salisbury Plaza Shopping
Center, past a grocery store and a busy exercise club, Willie Carter
stands in front of a state Labor Department office that doles out day jobs.

There is writing spray-painted on the wall beside him, but Carter
reads little into what is displayed.

The massive, exterior wall is a banner of graffiti touting "ABM" and
"Groove $ City" and at least a dozen other signers who "wuz here."

Carter said he dismisses the spray-painted scrolls as clever mischief
of idle youth that saw a movie.

"I don't know ABM is All 'Bout Money. This is where you find work, so
it could mean that, or anything," Carter said. "It could be the
initials of somebody's name."

Graffiti that may appear to some residents as simple street art is
setting off police intelligence alarms that gangs, or organized
street-level criminals, may be forming in the rural Lower Shore's
urban center. ABM, the acronym for All 'Bout Money and the name of a
gang in the hip-hop motion picture "State Property" is turning up
more and more on sides of buildings, underpasses and abandoned
tractor-trailers.

Taking no chances, Wicomico County law enforcement agencies are
mobilizing -- involving schools, community groups and churches -- to
block real-life, national gangs such as the MS 13, the Crypts or the
Bloods from planting cells here.

Crews or gangs?

"What we're seeing here are fledgling groups, but not in the same
category as the Crypts," said Fruitland Police Department Cpl. Matt
Brown. "We're starting to see more graffiti turn up in the past year.
We don't have a gang problem in the county now, but we will in the
next few years if we don't get a handle on it."

Taking a lead is the Wicomico County office of the State's Attorney,
which is taking anti-gang and anti-gun messages to schools and
communities through a county program called Exile.

"Most (gang members) are involved in the sale of narcotics and they
end up shooting each other over territory," said Assistant State's
Attorney Dan Dougherty. "Groups are called crews, and they are on
Church and Booth streets.

"My concern is that they are ripe for the picking (for organized
gangs) to take over," he said, "to enlist teens for gangs."

Some national gangs are forming chapters nationwide and young teens
are attractive candidates for membership because of a misconception
that juvenile penalties for possession of drugs or a weapon are less
severe, Dougherty said.

"They take the fall, go to jail, and the average age is between 17
and 24 years old," he said. "Below age 16, with a weapon, you can go
to adult court, too. If you're 15 with a weapon, you can get
detention until you're 21, generally."

Last week, Wicomico educators were warned to look out for uniforms or
graffiti, tattoos or other scribbling that could be clues to gang
activity, and a Wicomico Board of Education workshop Tuesday on
discipline has been amended to include a discussion on the issue,
Superintendent Charlene Cooper Boston said Friday.

"(The state's attorney) talked with us about being on the lookout for
signs of potential gang activity and alerting authorities to anything
suspicious," Boston said. "There is a partnership between law
enforcement, schools and the community."

Excessive force

The 8 a.m. workshop at Salisbury Middle School is a forum Boston
hopes familiarizes health and conflict resolution teachers or others
in attendance with gang signs and symbols.

"There will be an update on gangs, drugs and violence in our
community," she said. "(Officials) are asking us and the business
community to photograph graffiti, to watch for symbolism, such as the
colors people wear -- proactive measures."

Students in secondary schools and dropouts are often gang targets,
Boston said studies show, and added that aggressive steps by
education officials will focus on those groups. "We haven't seen it
yet, but it doesn't take much (for a gang) to get a foothold,
particularly in secondary schools," she said. "Dropouts are good
candidates; that's why I'm against dropouts."

Attention could create a problem, and law enforcement officials
concerned about gangster copycats are cautious to discuss the issue,
especially for media reports.

"We have graffiti in the city as any other and we are working with
agencies on intelligence ... but we have no information to say there
are (gang) chapters in the city," said Salisbury Police Chief Allan Webster.

"Personally, I don't like to talk about it. I've seen local things or
heard about them, but I've been here six years and seen kids dress
alike, but just because you see that or graffiti doesn't mean it's a
gang," Webster said.

Mary Ashanti, a West Side community leader and president of the
Wicomico County branch of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, agrees that publicity on the issue
could do more harm than good.

"I have not seen evidence of gangs," Ashanti said. "No one has
contacted me with a report about it, and I would rather see folks not
spend time dealing with that, but rather there should be a focus on
what young people are doing positive. We must be careful how we label
things, the way we put things out there. We don't want to give
credence to something that's not there."

Hood Passion

The topic is not a major concern among NAACP delegates, many of whom
were in attendance at a state civil rights convention last weekend in
Princess Anne. Racial profiling by police is, said Kenneth Ballard,
who leads the NAACP's Somerset County branch.

"There is a disproportionate number of arrests among minorities and
that is more of a concern," Ballard said, adding that youth,
especially, react negatively to racial profiling, and most complaints
of alleged police abuse are from African-Americans. "We advocate
sensitivity training for police officers."

He cites last month's fatal shooting of a West Side Salisbury man
during a narcotics task force raid as an episode that has stirred
emotions throughout the African-American communities, where some are
questioning whether police used excessive force in shooting the
suspect 20 or more times.

"The complaints we get are not from people afraid of gangs but from
people afraid of the (police) task force that comes busting through
the doors," Ballard said. "We need to monitor the cops as much as the
citizens."

A middle school student wearing an oversized white T-shirt and jeans
- -- and a tattoo, "Hood Passion" -- drew attention at the West
Salisbury Youth Club off Jersey Road, where Executive Director Mark
Thompson runs an after-school program for students suspended from school.

"Youth are coming to the club with tattoos. They are not in gangs,
but the kids think it's a cool thing to do to wear rags on their
heads, all black and all white and tattoos on their arm," Thompson
said. "A kid last week with 'Hood Passion' on his arm said he was not
part of a gang, so I asked him why he was wearing it."

Community outreach

Thompson invited Assistant State's Attorney Andrew McDonald to
address the group on the Exile program he heads.

"(Kids) know the penalties for gun crimes," Thompson said after
observing comments by youth in McDonald's audience. "You get five
years in jail for this, or 10 years for that. They know the law. The
Eastern Shore is impressionable and people don't know the signs of
gangs and they need to be made aware."

Signs of "FTL," "Fruitland Posse" and "ABM" are turning up around
Fruitland, and police there are conducting community policing
training for officers and forming watch groups with landlords and
church and community leaders, Brown said.

"It is not a new concept, but we are beefing up community policing.
We encouraged landlords to get on board, and they are evicting more
tenants based on a disorderly house (regulation)," Brown said. "The
church is very involved in the community and there is increased
interest by community members."

Fruitland's Mount Olive Church pastor, the Rev. Maurice Brown, is
mentoring children who are in and out of school at a community
elementary school.

"The seller (of drugs) wants help as much as the buyer. If I can get
one off the street, one will stay off," the pastor said.