Officers to be out in force to check mounting tension

By CHRIS TOGNERI
BEE STAFF WRITER

In response to a bloody Sunday — during which three shootings left one man dead and seven people wounded — Police Chief Roy Wasden said he will deploy as many officers as possible on weekends and during nights at least for the next several weeks.

Wasden said gang investigators detect mounting tension on several fronts, including black youth against Latino youth, Sureño gang infighting, and Sureño gang members against local Norteños.

Smaller, localized groups also are forming, Wasden said. Though they have not reached gang status, they are committing crimes such as "pocket checks," in which a group of armed youths rob a single pedestrian.

"There's been a real increase in violence (that) started in the fall," Wasden said.

Police believe these groups are committing crimes to earn money for drugs such as ecstasy, which Wasden said is the drug of choice for sideshow activities. Sideshows often are associated with hyphy music and include stunts involving cars.

The recent violence includes:

Dec. 23: Three men were shot, one in the head, after a party turned violent in the 400 block of Tennyson Drive. Police arrested one man Dec. 29.

Jan. 3-4: Masked gunmen took over two businesses, attacking employees, stealing money and pistol-whipping several witnesses, including a pregnant 19-year-old woman who also was pushed to the ground. No arrests have been made.

Jan. 7: Samuel Gray, 19, of Modesto was shot and killed at the Heritage Inn on McHenry Avenue north of Orangeburg Avenue at 1:15 a.m. Four others were shot and injured. Shortly before 3 p.m., a 22-year-old Modesto man and a Merced woman in her 30s were shot outside Alex and Sons Market at 515 N. Martin Luther King Drive. Forty-five minutes later, a 16-year-old Modesto boy was shot in the upper body outside Vintage Faire Mall. Police have made no arrests.

And sometime last week, Wasden added, police confiscated a machine gun from a Modesto juvenile.

In response to the violence, minority community leaders met with Wasden on Monday night in what participants called "an emergency meeting."

They said members of the community — including police, politicians, church leaders, school officials, the media and youths — must come together to stop the violence before it explodes.

"The kids I talk to, there's something going on," said Modesto pastor Fred Barry, who works with teens at Elliot Education Center. "They're going to the next level."

Sideshows are part of the problem, Wasden said, and police will respond aggressively when they encounter anything resembling one. In the past, officers have broken up sideshows but made no arrests, he said. That will change.

"We're going to impound cars, we're going to write tickets," Wasden said. "If we find one (sideshow), we're going to shut down the party and talk to everyone there."

Wasden said he expects some youths to complain about the heightened police response.

"We are going to be firm," he said. "That said, we are open to review. Every use of force has to be documented and reviewed by a supervisor."

But those who attended the meetings said the emphasis should not be on the police response, but on the cause of the violence.

Parents need to understand what their kids are involved in and become more active in their lives, said the Rev. James Anderson of Modesto's Christian Love Baptist Church.

"We need to saturate the community with information and really get them to understand what's going on," Anderson said. "Part of the problem today is, parents are scared of their kids."

John Ervin, president of the King-Kennedy Memorial Center board in Modesto, and others at the meetings called on community leaders to figure out where the kids involved in the gangs and violence live, then go door-to-door talking to their parents.

"Whatever it takes," he said. "A lot of those kids want their parents to step up. It's sad when you see kids carrying weapons and … they know more about weapons than I do, even coming from my background (in law enforcement). It's like, 'Wow, how'd they get that knowledge?' Why can't they apply that to something else?"

Wasden agreed that the problems often can be traced to the parents.

"Two parents actually dropped off their 13-year-olds (at Sunday's party at the Heritage Inn) to attend that party," he said.

And others at the party showed "a defiance and unwillingness to cooperate" with police after the shooting, Wasden said. "We had five people shot and we couldn't get the paramedics in there for a time because of the defiant nature of the crowd."

Modesto has experienced upswings in violence before, officials said.

But what makes the latest surge different is that the culprits are often "good kids getting sucked into a bad act," Wasden said.

"We have to bring the youth to the table," said Wendy Byrd of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "We're always talking about kids instead of to them. … Kids are a product of their environment. And this environment is that America has failed its youth."

Bee staff writer Chris Togneri can be reached at 578-2324 or .