When Clayton County police detective Rodney Bryant began tracking gangs seven years ago, they were easy to spot.
Gang-bangers wore certain identifiable colors. Grafitti as well as gang symbols, including hand signs, were boldly displayed. They staked their claim in certain parts of the community.
As Clayton becomes home to more residents with temporary ties to the county, authorities say gang activity is more fluid, not bound by neighborhood or county lines. The county's gang activity isn't as overt as in the past but it's on par with gang activity throughout metro Atlanta where authorities say gang membership is on the rise as new members are documented in the region almost daily.
“You used to see them running around on TV. Everybody had colors on. It’s not that easy anymore,” said Major Bruce Parks, head of the Clayton gang unit.
Gangs have become adept at social media, using it to communicate and keep tabs on each other, authorities say. They’re committing crimes - and bringing their beef - across county lines and state borders.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sat down with the gang unit recently to talk about gang activity in the county. The unit said their work has become more complicated as gang activity and crimes, rivalries and beefs have spread beyond street and neighborhood disputes.
The unit declined to give specifics as to the size, names and territories of gangs in the county but did identify seven key gangs. The unit did not want to give undue notoriety to the gangs by naming them.
In Clayton, a lot of gang activity is centered around apartment complexes where residents come and go, gang unit head Parks said. Some gangs may have up to 50 members while others may have as few as a dozen, Parks added. Drugs, car theft and home invasions typically help finance their operation, authorities say.
Gang activity may not appear to be as overt as 10 to 15 years ago, but the reasons kids join gangs remain the same, as Clayton school officials recently learned during a series of gang awareness programs.
“They join because they feel it’s protection,” said Thomas Trawick, head of safety and security for Clayton schools. “Some (join) because they want to be part of an organization. They felt people in the gang care about them because they don’t have that support system at home. Some do it for the excitement. I told them it’s a dead-end that leads to prison or death.”
Despite the recent bump in violence, the head of Clayton’s juvenile court system said Clayton’s gang activity is nowhere near what it used to be. In 2006, Clayton’s juvenile courts recorded 98 gang-related activities. Today, that number is nine, Clayton Chief Juvenile Judge Steve Teske said. Teske attributes the decrease to a series of initiatives in recent years with the local school district, courts and law enforcement that has cut the number of students going into the judicial system.
Clayton’s gang activity does not operate in a vacuum.
Authorities say they are aware of at least 40,000 gang members in metro Atlanta but suspect there are far more. For every documented gang member, there are at least another three gang members operating under law enforcement’s radar, according to James Hurley Jr. of the FBI’s Safe Street Gang Task Force’s Atlanta division. Hurley noted gang membership is on the rise as new members are documented in the metro area each day.
“As people move and migrate to the suburbs or even back to more congested areas such as intown, gang members move too,” Hurley said. “It is not uncommon in the metro area for gang members — even gang leaders — to live in cities or even counties other than where the bulk of their gangs’ criminal activities occur.”
“What we’ve seen and I’ve prosecuted is gangs come in from other parts of the metro area and wreaking havoc,” said Kathryn Powers, executive assistant district attorney in the Clayton District Attorney’s office. She is part of the DA’s major case division, which includes prosecution of gangs. One way the division keeps tabs on gangs is through social media.
In the past five years, metro Atlanta authorities have seen an influx of national gangs, with many local gangs linking up with or being absorbed by the national gangs. Some of the gangs metro Atlanta authorities have encountered include The Gangster Disciples, East Coast and West Coast Bloods sets, various Crips sets, Vice Lords, MS-13, 18th Street Gang, Aryans, Surenos and La Gran Familia.
Today’s gangs are more organized, have better-defined hierarchies and are tied to other gangs outside metro Atlanta. Gangs have become more brazen. In addition to drug-dealing, armed robberies and identity thefts, gangs are committing more murders, shootings and assaults, according to the FBI’s Safe Streets unit.
That point was brutally underscored with the Oct. 22 killing of 15-year-old Daveon Coates and his 11-year-old sister Tatiyana Coates. The Clayton siblings were believed to have been killed by Chattanooga gang members looking for another teenager who was not home at the time. Authorities also are looking into whether a third unrelated teenager's Nov. 1 death may be gang-related.
“It’s a shocking series of acts. In my seven and a half years, I’ve not seen this type of loss of life for these aged children in this short of time,” Powers said. “I wish I had an explanation for it. I was born and raised here and I can’t think of one thing that would have led to that at one time.”
The killings prompted Clayton school officials to hold a series of gang awareness rallies at the county’s 11 high schools. The district plans to do similar rallies at the middle schools in January.
“Everything that happens in the community does have an impact in the schools,” Clayton Schools Superintendent Luvenia Jackson said. “We want to be more preventive. We want the children to understand how things happen in the community, their subdivision really impact all of their other environments.”
In his five months on the job, Clayton schools security chief Trawick said he has not seen any gang activity on school grounds.
“I’m not going to be naive and say we don’t have gangs in the school,” said Trawick who headed Clark Atlanta’s security force before joining Clayton schools. As part of school safety precautions, all high school students are checked to make sure no guns are coming on campus, Trawick said. The district will return to using metal detectors when students return in January.
Gang-related cases in The Clayton County Juvenile Court
2002: 0
2003: 0
2004: 7
2005: 26
2006: 98
2007: 55
2008: 63
2009: 35
2010: 60
2011: 25
2012: 10
2013: 7
2014: 20
2015: 1
As of Nov. 30, 2016: 9
Source: The Clayton County Juvenile Court
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