What amounts to a fan club surrounds Robert Gratton: Big burly men; young-ish guys; folks with disposable cameras angling for pictures. Not that Gratton favors anyone famous. Cheech Marin? Too muscular. Che Guevara? Hair's too thin. Gratton is short, built like a junior welterweight fighter. Unless you caught his 60 Minutes interview in May—appearing in dark glasses, zippered sweater and black skullcap—you might not even know Gratton's name.
The people who want him dead know all about him. As do the hundreds of law enforcers gathered at the Riviera last week, a dozen or so circling him like paparazzo. One Hispanic cop, gang tattoos still etched on his ankles, tells Gratton he's his hero. It's them—the cops, corrections officials and gang intervention specialists—who are dealing with remnants of Gratton's handiwork. Up close, you can see that Gratton's forearms, neck and face still bear tattooed reminders of his one-time allegiance to 40-year-old Hispanic prison super gang Nuestra Familia ("Our Family").
Since turning government informant, Gratton, a third-generation Nuestra Familia "carnalas" (leader) who once put out the G-U-N gangsta rap album glorifying the gang and promising death to the rival Sureños, has exposed the gang's secrets, particularly its plan to take over the prison system. Gratton's intel was a vital part of Operation Black Widow, the largest and most expensive prison gang investigation in U.S. history.
Thus the fan club.
Nuestra Familia has become one of the most violent prison gangs in America. Who better than an insider to provide enough skinny to cripple it? Such was the focus of Know Gangs' conference last week, as more than 600 cops and government law enforcement officials (probation, parole, corrections, juvenile services departments, district attorneys and social services offices) from around the country participated in two days of in-the-huddle gang immersion from the likes of former FBI agent and Mafia infiltrator Joseph Pistone (code name: Donnie Brasco); William Queen, an undercover Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent who became a "patched" member of the Mongols motorcycle gang; 28-year Los Angeles Police Department cop Tony Moreno (inspiration for the "Pac-Man" cop character in the movie Colors) and former neo-Nazi skinhead leader T.J. Leyden.
Gratton's was among the most anticipated presentations. By the time he got to prison—as a third-generation Nuestra Familia—the gang had turned California's max security prisons into killing fields. "Murder was a prerequisite for membership," he told conference-goers. "They were causing so much chaos, they created administrative segregation units to house us. They transferred us to other prisons, which only spread the fire." During a 15-minute intermission, Gratton told the Weekly that the war against gangs on the streets and in the prisons is long-term, but winnable. "The same way the gangs network, we have to network."
Those sentiments distill the purpose of Know Gangs, founded by former Modesto, California, cop Jared Lewis. Lewis started Know Gangs in 1997 out of concern over weakness in the gang abatement infrastructure. "I found an overall lack of knowledge of the problem," he says. "(Among other things) I worked with a federal DEA (Drug Enforcement Association) task force on gangs and drugs. I kept getting calls to provide information about gangs. Eventually, I had to pick and choose between being a cop and doing gang awareness work. Two years ago, I quit to do this full-time."
As the Know Gangs conference entered day one, across town on the 12th floor of Fitzgerald's, the Southern Nevada Community Gang Task Force was holding a quarterly meeting.
The mood contrasted with the Know Gangs confab.
There: Images of gang life flash on a movie theater-sized screen—the blood-soaked cement following a drive-by; gang members throwing up their sets; the Nuestra Familia symbol (a sombrero with a dagger knifing through). Tables held piles of gang-oriented DVDS (the Ice Cube-powered Boyz 'N the Hood) and books (Monster by former 8-Tre Gangsta Crip leader Sanyika Shakur). Cops from Canada to California dialogued on gang prevention, intervention and suppression techniques.
Here: The buffet-style lunch, small screen and sit-down-and-eat affair carried a business-like Chamber of Commerce feeling, more meeting than conference.
Mostly, the numbers told the story. According to minutes of the task force's August 23 meeting, the suppression subcommittee reported decreases in year-to-date comparisons (2004 to 2005) in drive-by shootings (135 compared to 127) and gang-related homicides (from 23 to 20). Intervention efforts resulted in the first gang symposium, as well as a 27 percent increase in employment services for gang-involved youth through the GNJ Family Life Center and a 30 percent rise in referrals for gang-involved youth from the gang task force and the Clark County Department of Juvenile Justice, the minutes note.
Via a splashy color spread, we learn that the newly created (on July 11) county District Attorney Gang Unit has won felony convictions in 89 percent of its gang cases, sent 75 percent of gang defendants convicted of felonies to prison, their sentences averaging four to 12 years. A report prepared by Reno-based Corporate Solutions elicits more self-congratulatory back-pats, noting reductions in the number of gangs and gang members from 2003 to 2004. Holding up the first Parents Handbook on Gangs, county gang specialist Jerry Simon beamed like a proud father.
Observations from the Gang Conferences
The numbers don't seem to jibe.
Corporate Solutions compiled much of the data presented in the gang task force report. Of particular note is this: Clark County's population increased from 1,620,748 in 2003 to 1,686,827 in 2004, according to Corporate Solutions, while the number of gangs decreased from 438 in 2003 to 395 in 2004, with gang membership dropping from 9,513 to 8,646 during the same period.
What explains the subtraction by addition? Surely there are gang members among the 5,000 to 6,000 migrants coming monthly into the Valley? In response to a Weekly story in the December 1 issue on two shootings at high-school football games possibly linked to gang beefs, a Clark County School District officer stationed at a suburban high school said there have been five or six shootings at prep football games this year.
Metro gang unit Det. Tony Morales says arrests, deaths and recidivism-attacking programs help depress numbers, as does purging.
"People who are in prison three years or more, once they are released, they are purged from the rolls (of gang membership files)," Morales says.
Even with that explanation, it's still hard to reconcile that there were 43 fewer gangs and 867 fewer gang members and associates in the Valley from 2003 to 2004.
According to data from the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy, gangs and gang membership have been decreasing since 2002. That year, there were 446 gangs and 10,114 gang members and associates. By 2003, there were 416 gangs (Corporate Solutions reported 438) and 9,260 gang members and associates (Corporate Solutions' report recorded 9,513). No explanation was given to explain the differences.
ONDCP stats from 2002 to 2003 show increases in gang-related stabbings/assaults (from 54 to 62), shootings (from 194 to 212) and deaths (from 26 to 34). Yet during Morales' presentation at Fitzgerald's, he cited 7-, 8- and 28-percent reductions in shootings, stabbings and homicides, respectively, from 2003 to 2004.
In 2001, Las Vegas police reported 321 gangs, nearly triple the number it had when it began keeping stats in 1994. From 1994 to 2000, gang membership doubled from 3,500 to 7,200.
So why hasn't there been a near doubling from 2000 to 2005, arguably the Valley's most explosive growth period?
"That number always fluctuates," Morales says. "We're in the process of changing how we keep data." One county source familiar with gang intelligence says law enforcement has no idea about the scale of the problem, calling it "a disaster waiting to happen."
Ramont Williams, a founding member of the GQs (predecessors of the Donna Street Crips) who now runs the H2K youth mentoring program, says gang data is being underreported for politically expedient purposes.
"You have thousands of gang members in West Las Vegas alone," Williams says. "They don't put out the real numbers because a lot of people would be pissed to find out the extent of the problem. You might have 15,000 to 20,000 gang members out here."
Lewis, of Know Gangs, declined to comment on local gang stats: "There are a lot of Metro guys here and they do a good job." Cities with chronic gang problems like Los Angeles and Chicago, (100,000 and 40,000 gang members, respectively) are seeing drops in gang-related data, he says, because of arrests and because smaller gangs are cliquing up with larger organizations, mostly for protection.
The local numbers don't fit trends showing a surge in gang activity nationwide. Lewis cites the rising influence of Asian, Hispanic and suburban gangs. One cop at the Know Gangs conference says the 311 Boyz are up to their old tricks.
"Not to single out gangster rap, but it has influenced suburban gangs," Lewis says. "A lot of the kids buying this music are suburban white kids. (Inner city) gang members often have parties in the homes of these suburban kids. Gang members are becoming more tech-savvy. Using Palm Pilots and the Internet and getting into more Internet crime and financial crime. The fastest-growing segment of the gang population is middle-class, American kids."
For what it's worth, Gratton seems to think that gangs, entrenched in American social life for the better part of two centuries, can be defeated. How?
"You can break the cycle one child at a time."