Report: Dayton has gang problem

Some community leaders think the gang problem is overstated.

DAYTON (AP) — Gangs are well-entrenched in the metropolitan area, despite statements from law enforcement agencies and civic leaders that the problem is less threatening than in other parts of the state or country, the Dayton Daily News reported Sunday.

In the past decade, law enforcement agencies have connected assaults, drug trafficking, shootings and homicides to more than a dozen local street gangs, according to the newspaper, which examined gang activity for five months.

“The gang situation in Dayton is real,” said Henry Guy Jones III, who served four years in prison on gang charges and is a former member of the Disciple House Gangsters, a Dayton-based offshoot of the Chicago street gang Gangster Disciples. “More new gangs are created in Dayton all the time.”

About 316 gang members from Montgomery County, which includes Dayton, have been inmates in the state’s prison system, according to a recent report by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 14 of last year, state prisons released 142 gang members back to the county.

“They’re criminal enterprises and they are expanding their territory,” said Eric Thomas, FBI supervisory senior resident agent in the Dayton regional office. “People need to be aware of the situation.”

Dayton doesn’t have the same kinds of gang problems that plague cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles or even Columbus, the newspaper said. And some Dayton community activists blame most gang-related crime on kids imitating gang life.

“A lot of this [gang] stuff is overblown,” said the Rev. Tommie Stewart, who heads Northwest Weed and Seed, a group that works to prevent neighborhood crime. “Most of these kids are just wannabe gang members.”

But in a 2006 grant application written to the U.S. Justice Department, Dayton police outlined a resurgence in motorcycle gangs in the city, as well as members of the Los Angeles-based MS-13 street gang, the Daily News said. All these gangs deal in narcotics, vandalism and violence including murder, the application said.

Harris Tay, who tutors mostly preteens at a Dayton recreation center, said the conditions that attract young people to gangs elsewhere are visible here.

“Really it comes down to a breakdown in community. [These kids] want structure and discipline so they’ll find community somewhere,” Tay said. “If your father ain’t there, you always got that brotherhood” that gangs seem to provide.

Dayton police say the city’s $98,533 Anti-Gang Initiative grant from the federal government has helped them better track gang activity.

Detective Chad Knight said police are photographing gang graffiti, cataloging distinctive tattoos on suspected gang members, collecting biographical information and regularly monitoring chat rooms and Internet traffic.