Drugs and gangs go hand and hand, and this summer, Morgan Hill
police officers will be cracking down on both, focusing efforts on
rounding up criminals, taking drugs off the streets and possibly
even keeping kids from becoming gang members.
Morgan Hill – Drugs and gangs go hand and hand, and this summer, Morgan Hill police officers will be cracking down on both, focusing efforts on rounding up criminals, taking drugs off the streets and possibly even keeping kids from becoming gang members.
Special Operations Det. Mindy Zen and School Resource Officer David Ray are teaming up for a drug and gang suppression program that began this past weekend.
“One way that you do that is to target certain people that are suspicious, that have committed crimes before, that are on parole,” Morgan Hill Police Chief Bruce Cumming said. “They’re going to have the time to focus on this, not have to go around taking calls for service and writing reports.”
The special Street Crimes Team, which will not cost the city extra money, will work for six months this summer until the end of August.
“We’ll be busy working weekends, some weekdays, different times of day,” Zen said. “It’s a short period of time we have for this focus, so we’ll be busy the whole time. We’ll be doing probation searches, going to visit known gang members and drug users, going to places where these activities are more common, like some of the motels and hotels. We’re going to hit hard during this focus.”
Zen and Ray added that local police officers look for gang and drug activity, as well as other criminal activity, year-round, but this team provides an opportunity to suppress those two categories of crime.
Cumming views the team as a preventative effort as opposed to a reactive effort.
“You can compare it to the fire department: they want to prevent fires by cutting weeds, clearing a defensible space around structures, making sure wiring is up to snuff, those kinds of things; it’s the same thing here,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of success over the years with this model. You can fight crime one of two ways, for example. You can stake out a car, wait for someone to break into it, wait for weeks if not months. Or, you can look at the list of people on parole for burglary and watch what they do.”
As a part of the suppression effort, Cumming said, Zen and Ray will look at Morgan Hill’s parolees.
“Oftentimes they have drugs on them, maybe burglary tools, a screwdriver or crowbar, that’s possession of burglary tools,” he said. “Or, they’ll have a gun. If these people are on probation or parole, they have search clauses, they or their residence or vehicle can be searched without any sort of warrant. Usually, if they’ve done stuff before, they’ll do it again.”
Morgan Hill has a large number of parolees, according to a recent report, but has comparatively less serious gang-type activity than other areas, including Gilroy. What Ray and Zen would like to do is keep kids out of gangs altogether.
“We’ve put together a curriculum aimed at elementary school kids, and we’re working with the (Morgan Hill Unified) School District to develop something,” Ray said. “We’d like to have something in place next year, if we can.”
MHUSD Superintendent Alan Nishino said the district is receptive to the prevention program.
“The only thing is that we have to find a way to make it an efficient program, as it will take away from the teachers’ classtime,” he said.
Ray, who has been with MHPD for four years, said he believes it is very important to get the preventive curriculum moving forward. People in Morgan Hill may not perceive the city as a hotbed of gang activity, but the gangs are there, he said.
“There are no wannabes,” he said, referring to younger kids who may not be taken seriously as gang members. “If you have gang tattoos, if you wear gang colors, if you associate with gang members, you are a gang member.”
Although gangs are believed by some to be composed exclusively of male juveniles, there are some females that get involved.
“There are few girls that are actively involved, but we see girls doing things to help their gang member boyfriends or family,” said Zen, who is a 9-year-veteran of the MHPD. “Sometimes they’ll hide the drugs, or keep the money or weapons for them, maybe wear their colors.”
As school resource officer, Ray sees gang and drug activity at the high schools.
“High school age kids are where we see most of the activity,” he said. “But gangs do not have an age limit. There are 50-year-olds who are still gang members. And we see multi-generational gang membership. Dad was in a gang, now the son is in a gang.”
Ray and Zen are perfect for the team, Cumming said with their training in these areas. Both have attended conferences with multiple law enforcement agencies as well as focused training programs on the two topics.
“This is a not only smart policing, it’s also cost-effective policing,” Cumming said of the team effort. “Say we go down to the cinema, we see three kids there who are on probation, and they’re not supposed to be out after curfew. If we pick them up, we likely prevent some kind of monkey business or crime … The courts tell you you have to be in, just like your mother.”
Ray said the he sees the effort as something that can be a big bonus for Morgan Hill.
“What we’re doing, we’re trying to improve the quality of life for everyone in the city,” he said.
