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Let's offer youths better choices at crossroads

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published June 15, 2007

We want to smirk and think the gangs of eastern Hillsborough County are just a bunch of wannabes, posing for pictures with twisted fingers and talking tough because they saw some rapper do it in a video.

We want to believe Sheriff David Gee exaggerates gang-related crime problems simply to gain more funding for his deputies.

After this week, however, can we still scoff?

The Sheriff's Office and nine other agencies arrested some 40 gang members and got warrants for nearly 60 others. Undercover agents bought 29 guns from gang members, including automatic weapons and sawed-off shotguns. Marijuana, cocaine and crack cocaine were seized during raids.

Names such as Sur 13, Latin Kings and the Mexican Mafia have become part of local law enforcement's lexicon. The Kuntry Boyz, a Seffner gang rising out of a neighborhood near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Pine Street, is being blamed for 365 crimes.

And you thought the words Seffner and gang would never appear in the same sentence.

"I don't think it's a little problem; I think it's a burgeoning problem, " Gee said of his agency's ongoing battle with gangs. "We may not be Chicago, but give it five or six years, and you will have a real problem."

Still, you talk to some folks, and it seems they don't want the Sheriff's Office to take action until the violence reaches the real-life danger level glamorized by Hollywood.

Why are we waiting for the Bloods and Crips to arrive?

Gee isn't waiting, and I'm not buying the notion his warnings about gangs are blown out of proportion. More and more, young teens settle fights with guns instead of fists, and the gang culture is undoubtedly a factor.

Besides, Gee doesn't necessarily need to exaggerate to get more money.

Funding for the operation that netted the gang arrests on Monday came from a $25-million federal anti-gang initiative. With Congress considering a sweeping anti-gang measure, more funding appears to be on the way.

What that bill needs are sufficient provisions to bolster existing intervention programs and create new programs for kids.

Gee will be the first to tell you that law enforcement efforts have to be coupled with prevention. It's no accident that he served as chairman of the Bill Carey Brandon Boys & Girls Club for the past five years. It's no coincidence that Gee is part of a group raising money for a new Riverview Boys & Girls Club.

But we need more. The waiting list for the summer and after-school programs at the Brandon Boys & Girls Club is five pages. At the county's Mango Recreation Center, the park closest to the Kuntry Boyz neighborhood, 350 kids entered a lottery to get in its summer program, and another 150 sit on a waiting list.

Critics may argue that such programs can't reach the hardcore kids who have lost their way. Maybe, but what we really should ask ourselves is where we would be without the Carey Boys & Girls Club or the Mango Recreation Center. How many more crimes would the Kuntry Boys allegedly have committed? How many more arrests would Gee have made on Monday?

At a time when needs are going unmet, it is frightening to think the county recreation department will endure budget cuts because of the state Legislature's zeal to cut property taxes. We should be talking about spending more, not less. We should be designing a gym for the Mango Recreation Center and a multipurpose room for the Boys & Girls Club.

But our clamor for property tax relief apparently will leave the county with little choice.

Whether a child makes the right choice or not, we have an obligation to provide options. When they reach the crossroads, they need to find a viable path to success free of obstacles, roadblocks and waiting lists.

Trust me. If we don't provide that path, we're going to end up spending those property tax savings on alarm systems, insurance deductibles and replacing stolen property.

If we're lucky.

That's all I'm saying.

Ernest Hooper also writes a column for the Tampa & State section. He can be reached at hooper@sptimes.com or 226-3406.

[Last modified June 14, 2007, 06:58:23]