Gang crackdown

Blair's administration distributed photographs of gang graffiti to teachers in early October and asked them to be "on the lookout" for similar symbols drawn on students' papers and belongings, according to Principal Phillip Gainous, who said gang activity in Blair remains prevalent after reemerging last year.

The new measure is part of an "aggressive approach" started this school year toward raising awareness of student gang involvement in the community and throughout Montgomery County, said Gang Prosecutor and Assistant State's Attorney Jeffrey Wennar.

In an Oct 8 meeting for parents and community leaders, Wennar identified signs unique to three or four of the approximately six gangs he believes reside in the Blair district. He also showed paraphernalia of county gangs, which, he said, numbered 23 in 1994 but have jumped to 152 in 2002.

Today's gangs are especially dangerous because they use weapons, whereas fistfights were the norm during a heavy gang presence at Blair in the 1980s and early 1990s, according to Gainous. "Now that it's more common to have weapons involved in any kind of altercation, that makes it even scarier and makes it even more urgent that we get this kind of behavior out of the school," Gainous said.

In early October, Gainous gave resource teachers approximately 16 photographs of graffiti and asked them to report any suspicions to Blair's administration or to security.

In an informal Silver Chips survey of 100 students on Oct 14 and 15, 56 percent said they feel less comfortable at Blair because teachers are involved in the search for gangs.

Nineteen percent said their comfort level would increase. Additionally, 80 percent expressed concern over unfair profiling of individuals or groups.

PTSA co-President Marilyn Shoenfeld called Blair's gangs the most diverse in the county and said racial profiling was therefore impossible. Still, several Blair gangs, according to Gainous, are "Hispanic in nature."

While Wennar said teachers are asked only to be aware of surroundings, he defended profiling as an appropriate law enforcement tool. "Just because a person is wearing this particular color or wearing this sport team's paraphernalia doesn't mean they're in a gang," Wennar said. "But there are some indicators that you want to look at. That's how crimes are solved, and that's how life is."

Assistant Principal Linda Wolf attended the Oct 8 meeting in which she saw clothing and headgear with specific gang symbols, names and numbers. Among these examples were gang members' notebooks "tagged" in a graffiti style with their friends' names and nicknames.

Wolf acknowledged the difficulty of distinguishing gang attire from harmless clothing styles, but she stressed that teachers will not actively search for suspects. "This isn't going to turn into a witch-hunt," she said.

Gainous identified one group of Blair students, all with a "black rag on their head," whom he suspects of composing a gang after he observed them act strangely during Blair's first football game. "All of a sudden, that group, in unity, came pouring out of the stands. They were definitely looking for something or someone," Gainous said. "I'm convinced that was a gang and those were their gang colors."

The Montgomery County Department of Police and the State's Attorney's office have joined with Blair's administration to combat the gang presence. Near the beginning of October, for example, the third police district, which serves Silver Spring, added a second gang coordinator to its force.

Police are working closer with Blair's administration than they have in five years, according to Gainous. Such cooperation helped Blair to contain gangs in the 1980s and early 1990s, he said, so that gang violence rarely erupted in or near the school.

In addition, Wennar is beginning an initiative to convince schools to stop the practice of handling certain crimes without referring suspects to police for prosecution. "We're trying to take more of a zero-tolerance policy on crime in school," he said. On the initiative, Blair is "very much on board with us," Wennar added, praising Gainous' willingness to face the gang problem head-on.

A key part of the new push is directed toward parents because gang members' siblings often join gangs and do so early, in middle school and sometimes late elementary school, according to Wennar and Wolf. Besides undergoing changes in appearance, students who first turn to gangs may enter a completely different circle of friends, become less interested in academic study and acquire sudden wealth—even drive home in a Mercedes, Wennar said.

Both Wennar and Shoenfeld intend to host more community outreach events to inform parents about warning signs that their student may be involved in a gang. Wennar hopes appeals for more active parenting will prevent children from resorting to gangs for companionship. "Talk to your kids; be part of your kid's life," Wennar said. "We've got to find time for our children, or else they will seek love and attention elsewhere. And that's when they become susceptible to gangs."

Despite the Blair district's high number of low-income families, Wennar said Blair's gang problem is no worse than the rest of Montgomery County's.