Police say gang crimes occurring in flurries
Local gang members committing increasingly sophisticated crimes
Published: Thursday, May 15, 2008
By DAN JOHNSON
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
A quick check of police logs indicates that long stretches of time have passed during the last several months without major gang arrests in Petaluma.
On the surface, this seems to confirm the hunch of some local residents that gang activity is subsiding, but Jason Lechleiter, the Petaluma Police Department’s only full-time gang officer, says that the pattern simply has changed.
“At this time last year, gang incidents were more constant: We saw one or two felony gang crimes every two weeks,” he said. “Now we’re seeing spurts where gang crimes kick up, and then they disappear.”
Some figures suggest that gang activity is decreasing this year. Police have made 17 gang arrests from Jan. 1 to May 9, compared with 95 during all of 2007. This year, police have dealt with 18 gang-related incidents, excluding graffiti and minor vandalism, compared with 81 last year.
But gang-related incidents involving graffiti and minor vandalism are increasing at a higher rate than in 2007. So far this year, 42 arrests have been made, compared with 89 last year.
Lechleiter says that just as in 2007, more violent gang crimes have been occurring than in previous years and more hardened gang members have been coming to Petaluma from other cities. During the past seven months, gang members from Richmond, Novato, Vallejo, Santa Rosa and Marin County have been arrested in Petaluma.
And hometown gang members have been committing increasingly sophisticated crimes.
“Local gang members are getting older and understanding more about what gang culture means and how it works,” Lechleiter said. “They’ve been choosing to adopt the gang lifestyle, and some of them have been committing more intricate, violent crimes.
“Instead of gang members attacking someone with a baseball bat or having a fist fight, we’re seeing carefully planned robberies and attempted murders.”
Lechleiter says that some local gang members are reappearing after being absent for several years.
“Some people who were put in prison or who have had to serve lengthy jail sentences now are getting out,” he said. “This hasn’t happened in Petaluma before, and we’re watching them to see if they’ve been rehabilitated.
“We’re very aware of them.”
Lechleiter says that the 60 documented gang members in Petaluma still generally are from 12 to 25 years old and come from a wide variety of ethnic groups. About 90 percent of them are male, and they are found in many parts of the city.
“Not much has changed in these respects,” he said. “If anything, gang activity is more imbedded throughout the community. Gang culture is not new any more, and its roots are getting deeper.”
Gang-on-gang battles have continued to increase as more norteños, who identify with the color red, have come to Petaluma, which mainly contains rival sureños, who claim the color blue.
In 2007, a few incidents occurred in which non-gang members wearing red clothing were attacked in Petaluma. A few of these incidents were gang-related, while a handful of others might have been.
“In the last few months, attacks made just because of colors haven’t been an issue. We’ll always have one or two of those type of incidents happen from time to time,” he said.
In October 2006, Lechleiter’s boss, Sgt. Jim Stephenson, supervisor of the street crimes and gang enforcement unit, said that the gang situation was under control but potentially could explode. Lechleiter says that the situation remains the same, and that resources are strained.
“We have around 10 part-time gang-enforcement officers, but definitely need another full-time officer because the gang issue has advanced and grown,” he said. “We have been pro-active in our approach to gang enforcement, and give all of our officers’ training updates.
“We can call on the other officers and detectives to help, but this is extremely taxing on the department, because they have to stop everything else they’re doing.”
Lechleiter, who joined the Petaluma Police Department in 2003 and was named Officer of the Year in 2006, has increasingly become a valuable resource as he has gained an in-depth knowledge of gang activity.
“I have learned how important it is to know who is currently involved in gang activity here, and to know something about them — what they do, and where they go to school or where they work,” he said. “By continuing to gather information, I’m better able to keep the situation under control.
“The more you know, the more avenues you have to do what you need to do, whether it be enforcement or just interaction, on a good or bad level, with gang members.”
(Contact Dan Johnson at dan.johnson@arguscourier.com)
