Many people associate gangs with decrepit neighborhoods and decaying buildings, not with the well-kept streets and serene exterior of University buildings.
But inside the Fleming Administration Building is a 3-inch-thick file on gangs, including examples of dress styles, hand signals and posture that could signify gang membership.
The manila folder, which contains information used in Gang Violence Seminars that University staff and students attended last year, exemplifies the small but growing awareness of a gang presence near the University.
The West Side Gang, the Latin Kings and the West Willow Crips have all been linked to Ann Arbor at some point in the last two years.
The most serious gang-related incident that has occurred in Ann Arbor was the August 1995 slaying of Huron High School senior Tamara Stewart in a shootout between two gang members on Hemlock St. on Ann Arbor's South side. The teen-ager was caught in
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| KEVIN KRUPITZER/Daily Possible gang graffiti adorns the brick wall of a building located on Liberty Street. |
How much gang activity is taking place, the potential danger of area gangs and whether the gang activity will affect campus in the future are difficult questions to answer. Law enforcement officials, local residents, students, and University administrators all have differing perceptions of gang activity in Ann Arbor and differing experiences with gangs.
Ann Arbor Police Department officials said they are aware of gang activity, but note a steady decline in gang-related incidents during the past two years.
The Department of Public Safety said that although gang activity is present in Ann Arbor, it has not penetrated the campus area.
Meanwhile, some local young people said much of the gang activity should not be taken seriously since it involves groups of kids imitating real gangs.
Gangs and the city
Ann Arbor Police Department officials say they have identified two active area gangs, but would not release the names of these gangs.
Police said the Stewart shooting two years ago served as a wake-up call to the city that action was needed to stop gang activity.
That incident was "kind of a rallying point for the city," said officer George Patak, who works in AAPD's Crime Prevention Office.
Patak said before the homicide occurred, law enforcement officials did not focus very much on gang activity. "There wasn't enough attention paid to it because we didn't receive support from the public," he said.
Since the Stewart slaying, sporadic shootings, drug dealing activities, and home invasions have been linked to local gangs.
Ann Arbor Police Officer Alicia Green, who conducts gang awareness workshops and tracks gang intelligence in the city, said the local gangs are not just copycats. "I would not classify them as wannabes," she said.
Green said it is important to note that gang activity has gone down in the last couple of years. "Our gang activity has decreased significantly since 1995," she said.
Gang awareness seminars aimed at residents, education programs geared toward middle school students, and efficient graffiti removal, among other factors, have contributed to the decrease in gang-related activity, Green said.
Many people differ in their assessment of the seriousness of the gang problem.
"From what I gather, lately there hasn't been a lot of gang activity in the city," Chenevert said.
A presence on campus
Law enforcement officials said gang activity is confined mostly to the outer areas of Ann Arbor and does not affect campus very much.
Officer Benny Chenevert, DPS's gang liaison, said the campus police have not had any run-ins with gang members since Sept. 1996, when DPS officers identified gang members from the West side of Detroit attending a dance in the Michigan Union.
"We don't see a lot of activity on campus," Chenevert said. "We occasionally will see some graffiti on campus."
Chenevert said in August of this year, DPS officials spotted the initials "LK8" on a stop sign at Beal and Plymouth Roads. The initials "LK8" are believed to represent the Latin Kings, he said.
LSA sophomore Jennifer Meder said she "never would have thought" that much of the graffiti on walls and buildings around campus can be attributed to gangs.
Chenevert said two areas near campus that frequently get tagged with gang graffiti are the walls of Fingerly Lumber, located on the corner of Madison and Fourth Streets near the train tracks, and the pedestrian tunnel next to the Michigan Theatre on Liberty Street.
AAPD officials say they have had several run-ins with gang members on South University Avenue. Security guards who patrol South University said the street has become a popular meeting place for some who claim gang membership. "It's been getting out of control around here," said a security guard from Great Northern Security Company. "In the last year, (gang activity) has increased quite heavily."
"We've had knives (spotted), we've had stabbings, we've had people assaulted with pool cues," said another security guard.
The first security guard said that many of the youth hanging out along South University may be copying others. "We have a lot of wannabes. We also have a lot of youth who have been in trouble with the law, but they're not necessarily gang members," he said.
Leon Bing, author of the 1991 book "Do or Die," which explores gang life in Los Angeles, said that although youth often try to emulate what appears to be glamorous forms of gang life portrayed in movies and the media, there is not much that separates a wannabe gang member from a true gang member. "Gangs are the real deal," Bing said. "That's what the movies are made about. ... A wannabe is what it is, a wannabe. But it doesn't take much to push a wannabe over the edge," she said.
Bing noted that wannabe gang members often throw signs to represent the gang they belong to. In fact, other gang members may take their actions more seriously than the wannabe gang members believe.
"If they throw it at the wrong person, they can get killed for their trouble," Bing said.
Gangs here?
When gangs first begin to establish a presence in a new geographic area, residents of the community often do not want to believe that the gangs are present, said Mary Lou Antieau, judicial code adviser in the University's Office of Conflict Resolution. "Most communities' initial reaction to gang activity in their community is denial," she said.
The University community is no different.
Until several gang education seminars were held last year for Ann Arbor residents and members of the University community, many did not realize that gang activity was taking place in the area, Antieau said.
The Gang Violence Seminars, led by a suburban gang expert from the Madison Heights police department, focused on the emergence of gangs in suburbia and addressed various issues such as the posture, hand signals, clothing, and colors that can sometimes identify gang members.
Universities often can seem like they have a "glass bubble" of safety surrounding them, Antieau said. She said that when she contacted other universities to find out if they had gang policies, "they said everything from 'no we don't,' to 'huh?'"
Some students said the University's "safe" image is not one they usually connect with gang activity. "I guess I just write off Ann Arbor as being this safe microcosm - we live in sort of this fantasy world," said LSA senior Eve Madison. "I guess gangs are the farthest things I would think of when I think of Ann Arbor."
Crips, Bloods and Ann Arbor
One 26-year-old Ypsilanti resident said he has seen gang activity spread to the southern Ypsilanti area, where he lives, and also to the southern Ann Arbor area. The man said police have labeled him as a Blood gang member, although he is not affiliated with the gang.
The man said the gangs in the southern Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti region are not as menacing as they seem, and that the dynamics of the gang situation have changed since an Oct. 15 gang sweep law was enacted in Ypsilanti's West Willow neighborhood. The sweep was made by the Gang Crimes Attack Team, a coalition of local and federal law enforcement agents established in 1995.
"The gangs around here are not hardly as dangerous as they seem to be," the man said. "It died down a lot because a lot of the troublemakers are in jail."
The man said that many kids in the southern Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area wear gang colors and claim gang affiliation, but the gangs do not hold initiations in the way that serious gangs do. He said many kids may wear a certain color because they don't want to be the only person in their neighborhood not wearing that color.
Likewise, the young people may claim affiliation to a certain set, or gang, that is part of a larger umbrella group because that is the gang affiliated with their street or block.
"Like if you live in Ann Arbor, you'd say you're either a Folk or a Crip," the man said. "The Folks and the Crips, I think they have a whole lot of different sets."
Gang experts say that most gangs fall under either the Folk Nation or People Nation umbrella groups. Gangs that are affiliated with the Folk nation are usually Crip sets; gangs in the People nation are usually Blood sets. Blood gangs often associate themselves with the color red, while many Crip gang members choose to wear blue.
The Ypsilanti man said that a blue hat tipped to the right sometimes symbolizes membership to a Crip set, and a red hat tipped to the left can signify membership to a Blood set.
Nineteen-year-old Ann Arbor resident Krsna, who did not want to give his last name, said that members of Blood gangs sometimes choose to hang out along South University. "There's real Bloods that come here from Ypsi once in a while," he said.
Krsna said that whenever the "fake Crips from Ypsi" see a real Blood, they scatter quickly.
The man said some gangs have established a presence in southeast Ann Arbor. "Hikone and Platt Roads are definitely the only places (where there are) one or two real Crips who know anything about the scriptures," Krsna said, referring to a list of rules that members of Crip sets adhere to.
'It's difficult to get out'
Antieau said gang presence is not limited to local youth who hang out on campus. "I think a lot of students at the University would be surprised that there are members of gangs attending the University, she said.
The gang members who have attended the University in the past have not let gang affiliations interfere with University life, Antieau said. "There have been gang members who have gone through their entire University life without calling attention to themselves in any way," she said. "If that pattern continues, I don't have a concern."
Antieau said that despite the vast opportunities available to students at the University, a few students may prefer to remain as gang members because "they come here as gang members."
Antieau said she has heard of students at other universities who were able to attend college because their gang paid the tuition costs. "Once you have been in a gang and participated in illegal activity, it's very, very difficult to get out," she said.
Conditions at the University could potentially worsen, Antieau said, if members of rival gangs begin attending the University and begin claiming different parts of campus as territory. "If they come, and if there's violence and territorial fights as a result, then I'm going to be concerned because that would be a threat to campus safety," she said.
Antieau said she has been toying with an early draft of a University policy on gangs, and hopes to get feedback from other college administrators at the Association of Student Judicial Advisors' national conference in February.
'Mythical beasts'
Martin Gold, a research scientist at the Institute for Social Research, said it is important to stress the difference between young people who hang around in groups and commit delinquent acts and organized gangs with histories and affiliations.
"I have studied juvenile delinquency for many years, and I've come to the conclusion that juvenile gangs are like mythical beasts," he said.
Gold said that many young people who say they belong to gangs are doing it simply to earn "notoriety."
Gold said young people lack the social skills necessary to keep a gang together for a long time.
"The kids declare they're members of gangs, they declare hand signals, they put graffiti up on walls, and they become famous," he said. "But most juveniles can't sustain anything like a gang organization for very long."
"The word 'gang' conjures up an image of long history and perseverance and power, which is just what makes the kids feel great," Gold said.
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