Aurora police release annual gang report that shows steady drops in related violence; cops say constant contact has been key

AURORA | Covered from head to foot in tattoos, the man strolling through a gas station parking lot on East Colfax Avenue quickly caught the gang officers’ eyes.

“Staying out of trouble?” Officer Doug Pearson asked as he held the man’s hands over his head, frisking him.

“Yeah, yeah,” the tattoo-covered ex-gangster nicknamed “Speedy” told him with a chuckle.

“Good to hear,” Pearson said.

Minus the frisking, badges and gang tattoos, the friendly chitchat looked more like two neighbors catching up in their backyards than a meeting between cops and a hardened ex-gang member on Colfax.

That friendly approach is crucial to building relationships with the hundreds of gang members who Aurora police come in contact with, Pearson and his gang unit partner Officer Jeff Longnecker said.

“If there’s not a rapport they’ll just completely shut down and not give you any information whatsoever,” Longnecker said.

And the approach seems to be working. The department last week released its annual gang report, which showed a steady drop in gang crime, particularly violent crime.

According to the report, violent gang crime was down slightly from 2011 to 2012, and is down more than 35 percent compared to annual averages between 2006 and 2011.

APD breaks down gang crime into two categories. One is gang-related crime. That can be anything from a gang member beating his girlfriend, to a gang member getting his car stolen.

The other is gang-motivated crime. Those are crimes police believe were committed to benefit the gang. It could be a gang member shooting a member of a rival gang, or property crime aimed at scoring cash for the gang.

Police logged just nine gang-motivated violent crimes in 2012, down from 29 the previous year. All nine of those were aggravated assaults, a steep drop from 2006, when there were 43 gang-motivated aggravated assaults.

For the third-consecutive year, there were no gang-motivated murders in Aurora, according to the report, though there were three gang-related murders.

Sgt. Mike Gaskill, who oversees the department’s gang unit, said gang-motivated crime can be tough to track, and sometimes police don’t know until well after a crime was committed whether it was gang motivated.

“Just because we can’t prove at the time that it benefited the gang doesn’t mean that it doesn’t, it’s just that we can’t classify it at that time,” he said.

Gaskill said today’s gangsters are also less likely to admit their gang membership. Whereas gangsters were once proud of their allegiance, and often boasted about it to seemingly anyone who would listen, Gaskill said today’s gang members have learned that being “flagged” by police as a gangster makes their life much tougher if they wind up in court.

“They might not be willing to admit they are a gang member, even though they are. Which makes it harder for us as law enforcement,” he said.

For the officers in the unit, that means looking for the telltale signs of gang affiliation. Sometimes that means a style of dress, other times it means certain sports teams favored by a particular gang.

As they cruised down Montview Boulevard last week, the two officers stopped a man who at first looked like he might be affiliated with one of the Hispanic gangs known in the area — shaved head, plain white tank top, shorts that reach below the knee and socks pulled up high. One arm was covered in tattoos, and he had an Oakland Raiders jersey draped over his other.

But when they hopped out to chat with the man, they realized he wasn’t a gang member, just a man out looking for work.

“Everybody thinks I am because of the tattoos,” the man said when the officers were done. “But I just like tattoos.”

After they sent the man on his way, Pearson said it’s not uncommon for those street contacts to come up empty.

“When you look at the cover, it’s not always the same as what’s inside,” Pearson said.

But those contacts do help the officers gather intelligence.

Last year, that keen understanding of the city’s gang scene helped investigators nab a gang member who opened fire on an Aurora apartment complex with an assault rifle, narrowly missing a family in a minivan and peppering a 10-year-old boy with bullet fragments.

In that case, 23-year-old Awath Hammad, a Rollin’ 60s Crip, was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. Another man involved in the shooting, Malcom Henderson, a Stormin’ 80s Blood, was sentenced to five years.

The two men bolted from the scene after the shooting, but gang officers tracked them down and arrested them within three days.

Longnecker said those arrests were particularly satisfying because the shootings marked one of those frustrating crimes where gang violence spills over to truly innocent people who aren’t involved with gangs at all.

As for the city’s gang crime on the whole, Gaskill said that while the numbers point to a decline, the problem remains steady and his officers don’t have a problem staying busy seven days a week.

“Just like anything else in crime we have peaks and lows,” he said.