Springfield MO Crime Increase Due to Gangs

Police say jump in crime due to gangs
Police chief, prosecutor say grand jury meeting Tuesday will help city deal with gang members.

Amos Bridges
News-Leader

The number of major violent and property crimes in the city jumped 8 percent during the first half of 2006, Springfield police reported, and two top law enforcement officials are pointing to gangs — or at least gang members — as the problem.

"Starting last year and now this year, we're seeing an influx of people from Kansas City and St. Louis and elsewhere coming into the city and claiming gang membership," said Springfield Police Chief Lynn Rowe.

Rowe and Greene County Prosecutor Darrell Moore said Tuesday such "self-identifying" gang members — as well as their homegrown counterparts — are a central force behind the growing levels of major crimes being recorded.

"Not all the violence is attributable to gangs," Rowe said. "But there are a lot of crimes that are traceable back to these individuals claiming gang affiliation."

A number of recent robberies and shootings — such as the Hotel 7 shooting in January — have gang connections, Rowe said.

"Both of those are things where innocent people can be harmed ... and we're seeing some of the (competing members) being targeted, too," he said.

Drugs and property crime often go hand in hand with the violence, he said.

In response, police and prosecutors have been compiling information about several local groups and will likely present their findings to a grand jury to be impaneled next week.

Robbery increases

The most significant percentage increases for the six months of 2006, compared with the same period last year, were in the Uniform Crime Reporting categories of robbery (up 18 percent), aggravated assault (up 11 percent) and burglary (up 23 percent).

Larceny/theft, a catch-all category that includes shoplifting, theft from vehicles and purse-snatching, increased 6 percent — an increase of 276 reported crimes.

Rowe said that officers are seeing and recovering more firearms in relation to crime, and drugs remain a problem — despite recent anti-methamphetamine legislation making meth-making ingredients harder to purchase.

"We're seeing more and more imported meth, both in the form of ice (crystal meth) ... and we've seen cocaine being substituted sometimes," Rowe said.

The good news is that meth lab seizures have dropped by half or more as a result of the new laws, he said. "But the amount of meth consumption I don't think has changed that much."
tackling the problem

Rowe and Moore both said their departments are committed to meeting the gang threat head-on.
"We realize we're going to have to step it up a notch if we're going to maintain control ... (but) anybody that thinks they can come here and take over this territory has got another thing coming," Rowe said.

Intelligence-gathering efforts are ongoing and the department is working with other area agencies to tackle the problem, he said. "The commitment from the sheriff and the prosecutor and I is that those who need to be in jail are going to end up there."

Moore said the grand jury due to be impaneled Tuesday will provide a powerful tool in such efforts.

"That's one reason we asked for the grand jury -- to try to deal with some of these people ... and get some of them out of here and off to prison," Moore said.

Prosecutors and police hope the grand jury proceedings — which are held in private — will allow them to gather testimony from uncooperative witnesses or those fearful of retaliation.

In addition, Moore said, grand jury indictments are a way to move suspects from the streets to the courtroom more quickly than the traditional system allows.

"Our goal is to fast-track the individuals that are primarily responsible for the increase in violence in Greene County, and especially Springfield."

Moore said his staff already has access to a sizeable list of suspects and others affiliated with two known groups, each with 30 to 40 members and assorted "hangers-on." One is local, the other is largely made up of transplants from East St. Louis.

Recently retired Assistant Prosecutor Cynthia Rushefsky has been working with the police department and Springfield Public Schools to pool information about suspected members and their activities in advance of the grand jury proceedings, Moore said.

"We've got lists, we've got a pretty good idea and outline of the structure of some of the groups," he said. "(In each of the two groups) you have about 20 that would be what you would call hard-core gang members."

Some of those individuals claim affiliation with traditional gangs or sets such as the Bloods, Crips or Gangster Disciples, Moore said.

Numerically, there are probably more individuals claiming gang affiliation in Springfield than there were in the early 1990s, when law enforcement tackled an influx of about two dozen members of the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples, he said.

"We may have more in terms of numbers, but they don't seem to be as organized" as that earlier group, he said.

This time, authorities also must deal with individuals in the community — unrelated to the other two groups — who claim affiliation with MS13, a largely Hispanic gang known for drug-running and violence.

"You do have some that claim affiliation with the MS13 gangs from Central America," he said. "You don't want that, because those people are hard-core violent."

Moore, like Rowe, said the problem is still in a developing stage. Both said they were confident it could be dealt with if acted upon quickly.

"Setting aside the MS13 issue, with these two groups I don't think you have that organizational structure, but you want to interrupt that," Moore said. "It's good for us to get in on it early on and stop it before it gets more dangerous."

Turning off the flow will take a larger effort, however.

"That's going to take the community," Moore said. "Law enforcement does not have the answer to that ... I think this is a good time for citizens to become involved."