Kids Shouldn’t Need Gangs
Junior Comeslast didn’t want to be a gangster. Friends and family say the 15-year-old boy deplored the criminal history of his father and a brother, shied away from drugs and alcohol.
So what drew Comeslast into the spiral of guns and gangs, which led to a spray of bullets across the front porch of a north Spokane home, killing two young girls?
It’s the same magnetism that is drawing a smattering of Spokane Valley youngsters to gangs that mirror Hispanic gangs in California and central Washington. The same allure that’s charming young kids throughout the Inland Northwest.
By all accounts, Comeslast was a regular kid up to his 14th year. Shy, naive, from a poor family but proud of his Sioux heritage. In the course of one year, his head was turned. He ignored the warnings of his brother and a cousin and found family in the streets.
Just as quickly, Spokane is changing. Three gang-related shootings this summer have Spokane residents sitting up, noticing. Less than two weeks after Comeslast was arrested, a Valley shootout left three people injured. In July, a South Hill home was shot up in a gang-related drive-by.
Experts say youngsters stray toward gangs when they lack a sense of belonging in their homes and communities. They’re searching for the structure, hierarchy, respect and loyalty normally found in a family.
It’s the nature of teenagers to feel like outsiders. They’re undergoing huge change, both physically and mentally, and gang structure gives them something to belong to, someone to look up to and learn from.
Unfortunately, they’re learning violence and hatred. They create enemies, then go gunning for them to avenge imaginary wrongs.
Spokane is looking for answers. They’ll start in every home. Children need structure, guidelines and love. They need to start life with a strong sense of security and knowledge of right and wrong, so when faced with a choice, they’ll make the right one.
Families need help, too. The community - by way of neighborhoods, schools and agencies - should step forward to provide good role models and healthy environments.
And finally, Spokane needs a stern, unbending juvenile justice system. Teenagers must learn - the first time they break the law - that there are consequences, that they can’t keep hurting without paying the price.
Duane Comeslast raised the most profound question when asked about his brother’s fate. “This world today, with all the violence … How can a kid get by all that without going through it?”
Only with help.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Anne Windishar/For the editorial board