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Rep. Ross, Gang Work Group
meet in Vancouver
'Now is the time for action,' Ross says
Rep. Charles Ross
hopes specific ideas to reduce street crime emerge
from next week’s meeting of the state’s work group on gang-related
crime.
The work group, co-chaired by Ross, will meet Monday, Oct. 15, from 10
a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Clark County Sherriff’s Office, 505 N.W. 179th
Street in Ridgefield. The group will meet at the same location Tuesday,
Oct. 16, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The work group is tasked with finding
solutions to the growing problem of gangs in Washington.
One helpful step, Ross said, would be a statewide definition of what
constitutes a criminal gang and a criminal gang member.
“As simple as that may sound, it has been a tremendous stumbling block,”
he said. “We all know the difference between the Girl Scouts, the Elks,
and the Bloods and the Crips, but we’re having a difficult time putting
that difference into words.”
The agenda for the two-day meeting includes a discussion of the
establishment of a statewide database that would identify known gang
members to police and prosecutors.
“We need a way to tell the street cop in Yakima that the person he just
arrested is a Seattle gang-banger,” said Ross, R-Naches. “We also need
to figure out a way to share information with other states so that we
all know who we are dealing with.”
The most important thing Ross hopes to come out of the task force is
enhanced penalties for crimes committed by gangs.
“The bottom line is that members of gangs need to know they will pay a
price if they act like a criminal gang,” he said. “We need to tack on
more time to their prison sentences if they commit crimes that encourage
criminal gang activity.”
The work group meetings are always open to the public; however, time has
been set aside to hear citizen concerns on Monday evening. The
community meeting will be from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Water Resources
Education Center, 4600 SE Columbia Way, Vancouver.
The group has met in Yakima, Bellingham and Spokane to discuss local
gang problems and solutions in those areas. Future meetings are planned
for Tacoma and SeaTac.
The work group was
created by the Washington State Legislature when Senate Bill 5987 passed
the 2007 Legislature. The bill directed the Washington Association of
Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to oversee a group of legislatively-appointed
gang experts to evaluate gang-related crime.
“The people involved in this process are credible professionals and
everyone knows there’s a problem here,” Ross said. “I’m sure we can
offer up some solutions.”
In addition to Ross, other Yakima Valley members in the 17-member work
group include Yakima County Sheriff Ken Irwin, Sen. Jim Honeyford,
R-Sunnyside, and local attorney Dan Fessler, who runs the county’s
public defender program.
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For more information, contact:
Sarah Lamb, Public Information
Officer - (360) 786-7720
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