Decade of police, city efforts reduce gang problems

Visions of Crips and Bloods don't dance in the heads of many Yalies. But the recent sentencing of a Diablos motorcycle gang member is a reminder of early 1990s New Haven area gang activity. Though gangs no longer pose much of a threat, Yale students owe many of the security measures they now enjoy to past gang violence.

On Thurs., Sept. 24, Raymond "Stoney" Stone confessed murdering a member of Wallingford's James Gang in 1992 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Michael D'Amato, a James member, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Stone will now face charges for the murder and drug trafficking in a federal court. He will be among eight Diablos members charged with various offenses.

"When I was a freshman four years ago, there were certainly notions of gangs being out there," Ward One Alder Julio Gonzalez, CC '99, said. "I remember being told that the city was unsafe. Now, gang activity is a major concern in some neighborhoods, but it's not an overriding one."

Gang activity reached its peak at the beginning of the decade. In 1991, a Yale student was murdered on Hillhouse Avenue when an attempted mugging by two gang members apparently went sour. At around the same time, a Southern Connecticut State University student was murdered on Broadway, also at the hands of gang members.

"As a direct result" of the Yale student's murder, University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, said, Yale took a new approach to campus security. Campus lighting was improved, blue phones were installed throughout campus, and the campus police force increased its numbers, time on duty, and area covered. "In 1993, there was an article in The New Yorker that talked about New Haven as an example of gang activity. But the new security measures have been a big improvement," Levin said.

"In 1990, [New Haven] had approximately 35 murders," New Haven Police Sergeant Edward Kendall, a former member of the New Haven Federal Gang Task Force, said. "We conducted a study and found that 50 percent of those were gang-related. So we set up the task force and have seen great improvements since then."

The task force is a collaborative effort between local police officers and federal agents. For five years, the force has worked on targeting and reducing gang activity. This year only seven gang-related homicides are projected.

Gangs in the New Haven area, New Haven Police Lieutenant and task force member Bill White said, have historically been divided along lines of race and neighborhood. Groups such as The Jungle, Wild Wild West, Latin Kings, The Village, The Island, and The Ghetto were often composed entirely of one race. Gang activity in the area has always revolved around the drug trade, according to White.

But Melinda Tuhus, spokeswoman for the city's Fighting Back anti-drug initiative, said New Haven's drug problem no longer revolves around gangs. "The [gang] situation is a lot better than it was a few years ago," she explained. "[Problems] come and go, and lately the work we've been doing has been more focused on other aspects [of the drug war]."

Since 1993, the task force has arrested over 100 gang members. Because of the group's federal status, it is empowered to catch and prosecute criminals more effectively than city police. Wiretapping, for example, led to the en masse bust of an entire Jungle meeting.

The Task Force works not only to prosecute but to prevent gang crimes. "We go into the schools and talk to the kids. There are many programs, such as mentorships, midnight basketball, community-based policing, and after-school activities," White said. Similarly, New Haven recently won an Honorable Mention in the National League of Cities competition for its Youth-Oriented Policing program, a collaboration between the public school system and the Child Study Center. "At bottom, we try to build relationships with kids," Michael Kuczkowski, spokesman for Mayor John DeStefano, Jr., said. "Once we've built those relationships, we've found that they're less likely to act out" through rebellious activities such as joining gangs.

According to Kuczkowski, "There are still street gangs in terms of young kids getting together in groups and giving themselves a name, but they're not nearly as violent as [gangs] were in the early '90s."

Gonzalez agreed with this perspective. "There are still turf wars in the Hill neighborhood [behind the Medical School]," he said, but "it's mostly about competing for the loyalty of youths. It's not a homicide thing, like L.A. or Houston or even New York."

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