Increase in gang activity has caught police attention
Morgan Hill – Gang members and anyone identifying with them in any way, beware – Morgan Hill Police Chief Bruce Cumming and his department are focusing their efforts on throttling gang activity in the city.
Morgan Hill has seen a gradual increase in gang-related activities over the past several years, but even more significantly in 2005, when a gang retaliation led to the shooting death of a Gilroy man.
Morgan Hill Police completed training last week with Gilroy’s ACT, or Anti-Crime Team, focused on stemming the tide of gang activity.
“We’re just finishing up two days with everybody in the department, from patrol to records to dispatch to special operations, everybody in the PD is participating in this training in conjunction with GPD,” Cumming said. “We are strengthening our resolve to deal with these gangs before they get out of hand … These thugs and gangsters – some are very young but they still are thugs – if they want to do things, they’ll have the entire police department on their back every minute of the day.”
The department has just expanded its gang strategy, Cumming said, and will be focused on gang activity.
“We’re not going to wait ’til this thing gets bigger,” he said. “This is kind of a warning to gangs out there, that we’ll be watching them every minute of the day to the best of our ability. They are bullies, and they’re not going to bully anyone in this community. They’re not going to bully this community. It doesn’t matter how young they are, they’re very unpredictable, very violent. They’re trying to make a name for themselves. Well, if they try to do something like that, we will arrest them and put them in jail.”
The latest activity police suspect may be gang-related occurred last weekend.
Police are searching for a carload of suspected gang members who allegedly followed a group of Morgan Hill residents and brandished a gun to threaten them.
Morgan Hill Police Cmdr. Joe Sampson said Monday that the victims called police at approximately 11:30pm on Jan. 20 to report they had been followed from Del Monte Avenue area by several suspects described as heavyset, Hispanic males, possibly in their late teens or early 20s, in a dark blue minivan.
“We cannot say this is definitely something gang-related, but in light of recent activities, we can’t rule it out,” Sampson said.
The victims told police they were followed by the suspects to the intersection of Cosmo and Monterey, where they stopped to make a right turn onto Monterey. The mini-van pulled up beside them, and as they turned onto Monterey, the suspects pulled in front of them, forcing the victims to stop.
“At that point, one of the victims notices one of the passengers pointing a weapon, a handgun with a silver barrel,” he said.
The victims then drove off, headed down Monterey, Sampson said, with the van following them for a short time.
Police are still searching for the suspects.
