Plans to crack down on gangs get sidelined by legislators

OLYMPIA – Six weeks after proposing tighter laws to clamp down on gang crime, Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna has watched most of his proposals wither away in the Democrat-controlled House and Senate.

“The bill is considerably watered down from the original proposal,” McKenna said Thursday.

Gone are his proposals to make gang graffiti a felony on the second conviction. Gone is a plan to tack an extra one to two years onto gang members’ prison sentences. Gone even is McKenna’s proposed definition of “gang,” a key part of enforcing anti-gang policies.

What’s left? An estimated $26,000 state study.

And on Wednesday, even the study – originally proposed by McKenna – was stripped of his oversight. A Democratic lawmaker from Enumclaw, Chris Hurst, amended the bill so that McKenna’s office would no longer convene the work group. Instead, that would be done by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

“That’s a petty move by Rep. Hurst, who told his colleagues that we can’t let the attorney general have this,” McKenna said in an interview. “We’re just shaking our heads.”

Hurst, a retired detective, says he’s just trying to ensure that politics don’t hamper whatever changes the group recommends in January.

“I don’t want anyone killing the bills by saying they’re politically driven,” he said. “Unless we get a good balance of people (on the work group) who are not interested in grabbing headlines or in future political office, it’s not going anywhere.”

The law enforcement association is nonpartisan, Hurst notes, and its members have plenty of street-level experience dealing with gang crime.

“Quite frankly, Rob McKenna isn’t out there arresting anyone,” Hurst said.

Despite the tussle, many lawmakers – Republican and Democrat – say they share McKenna’s belief that gang crime is a fast-worsening problem in Washington.

“We’ve all got a problem with this stuff,” Hurst said. “And Eastern Washington is just getting whacked by these gangs right now.”

“This is not an issue we can run and hide from,” Sen. Jim Clements, R-Selah, told a House committee last week. He’s the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 5987, and residents from Clements’ Yakima-area district have repeatedly shown up at hearings to say they’re fed up with threats, violence and graffiti tagging by gangs. Clements said he’s heard from children in his district who say they’re afraid to go to school.

“I have a 10-year-old daughter,” Julie Schilling, a member of a Yakima-area business group, told a House committee recently. “When I grew up, I could walk down Main Street. Here in Yakima, I don’t want her to walk down Main Street by herself.”

The Senate already has approved the bill unanimously. It calls for a study of gang crime in the state, due to lawmakers by Jan. 1.

A study can be the death knell for an idea in Olympia, but proponents maintain that this case is different. The goal, Clements said, is to follow the same path lawmakers took with an overhaul of sex-offender laws last year: study the most effective ways to clamp down on crime, then change the laws to do it. The sex-offender study led to the passage of 11 bills last year.

“Let’s not do it in a panic. Let’s not emotionalize it,” Clements said. “Let’s keep it in its true perspective and bring professional people together” to recommend fixes. The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Chris Marr, D-Spokane, and Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

At hearings, police and other officials have said that gang membership and gang crime were suppressed by anti-gang task forces and programs in the mid-1990s, only to re-emerge as those groups and services faded out. Spokane police say there’s been a sharp upsurge locally in the number of gang members and their affiliates.

“This is a very serious problem,” Lacey police Detective David Miller told lawmakers recently. “… The gangs are back and they’re bigger and badder than ever.”

Gang members in Yakima have been linked to many crimes, including stabbings, fights, intimidation, auto theft, graffiti and drug dealing, said Yakima County Sheriff Ken Irwin.

“They degrade entire neighborhoods,” he said. Gangs destroy rental homes and threaten neighboring families, he said. “If they’re not already there, they will grow into your neighborhood.”

At hearings, Yakima and Pierce County residents described a surge in drug dealing and vandalism by gangs, including using acids to etch gang grafitti onto business windows. The only way to remove the marks, business owners said, is to have the entire window replaced. Schilling said that over a recent two-week period, $100,000 worth of local businesses’ windows were etched with gang grafitti.

“We spend an awful lot of time over here talking about quality-of-life issues,” said Rep. Charles Ross, R-Naches. The state spends millions of dollars on bridges and parks, he said, that are suffering extensive vandalism from gangs.

“I think they’re taking an opportunity to destroy communities,” said Rep. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, whose son worked in a police anti-gang unit in Los Angeles.

Under present law, Clements said, juries cannot be told about a defendant’s gang affiliation or if a crime – such as an assault – is linked to a gang initiation.

Some proponents are suggesting California-style gang injunctions, which allow cities and counties to go to court and seek injunctions preventing individual gang members from certain activities in certain areas, such as wearing gang clothing, making gang gestures or associating with each other.

“The effort is to get them to behave in a more civil manner or leave the safety zone,” said Chris Johnson, McKenna’s legislative point-person on gang issues.