Elizabeth City makes strides in curbing gang activity

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C.

In 2006, police began seeing signs of growing organized gang activity.

Now, Elizabeth City Police Chief Charles Crudup says the activity is on the decline and he's hoping that beefed up patrols, involvement by residents as well as education and intervention will go a long way toward eventually eliminating gangs and associated crimes.

There are no specific statistics on gang-affiliated activities in Elizabeth City, but North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation numbers show the crime rate in Pasquotank County increased in 2006, then dropped the following year.

Although there are still gang members in Elizabeth City, Crudup said, several local leaders have been

incarcerated for a variety of offenses, such as selling drugs, discharging weapons or other violent crimes.

There had long been drug dealing territories, but in 2006 signs were emerging of the presence of the gangs commonly known as the Bloods and Crips. Blue and red were fast becoming indications of gang affiliations, graffiti began appearing on buildings and some who were arrested admitted involvement in gangs, said then-interim Chief Frank Koch.

He said then that the gangs were in the early stages of organization, but there were concerns that violence would escalate as gang affiliations grew stronger. Police went to gang prevention training, and three lieutenants were sent to work with the Greenville Police Department's gang prevention staff.

The community also was asked to help with the fight. Police developed pamphlets that they sent through the school system to parents. The hope was that parents would help identify any gang affiliation before it became a problem.

Koch also was tasked with developing a plan for a citizen volunteer program to help police monitor criminal activity in neighborhoods. The plan was to draw on interest already generated through the previous Citizens Police Academy sessions.

In April 2007, Crudup was named police chief. That same month, there was a series of shootings between rival gang members over a two-week period. Threats and gunfire forced a few schools to lock down their buildings.

Shootings - some deadly - continued through the summer, and the new police chief implemented a zero-tolerance policy on crime. Crudup also stepped up patrols, making police more visible throughout the city and targeting the worst neighborhoods.

Crudup appointed Eddie Rodriguez to investigat e and identify gang activity and gang members in the city. He's been collecting the information and entering it into a national database. Rodriguez also has been working on prevention and intervention programs.

Still, in November, an Edenton man was shot to death while sitting on a porch in Elizabeth City. Four days later, a woman was injured in a drive-by shooting of her residence.

Police responded with the formation of the Community Action Team, consisting of four officers, one of them a K-9 unit. The team's primary duty was to work in high-crime areas, focusing on such things as gang violence, drug sales, weapons or curfew violations.

Answering the complaints of several community watch groups, newly elected Mayor Steve Atkinson appointed a crime task force made up of community members from each of the city's four wards.

"The answers to the problems, I feel, are in the neighborhoods," Atkinson said at a City Council meeting in January. "We're tired of it, and we're not going to have it anymore."

In April, the task force recommended short-term goals such as adding three new officers, 30 in-car cameras, new radios, data terminals for 10 police cars and offering cell phone reimbursement. Individual members of the community also have become more active in fighting crime in their neighborhoods in the past year, Crudup said.

"We're starting to see more citizens calling," he said. "It's clear they're wanting to take a stand."

The combined efforts have resulted in a decrease in gang activity, he said.

The City Council, in its new budget, voted to support several of the crime task force's recommendations and approved the purchase of additional surveillance cameras for city neighborhoods. Community volunteers have begun helping to monitor existing surveillance cameras and assist with police paperwork and other tasks. And this month, the Governor's Crime Commission awarded city police a federal grant to pay for its existing gang prevention and intervention investigator.

Crudup said the focus soon will turn to more prevention efforts with the help of schools and community groups and intervention efforts with the development of a program to help people exit gangs. "Hopefully, we've been successful in deterring the activity," he said.

Lauren King, (252) 338-2413, lauren.king@pilotonline.com