SALT LAKE CITY — Juvenile suspects this year alone have been involved in crimes like car burglaries, police chases, kidnapping, shootings, and murder and experts say it's part of a concerning trend.
Gang prevention advocates say they have to reach kids at ages younger than ever to keep them away from a gang lifestyle.
Andrea Atencio-Valdez is the program coordinator for Choose Gang Free, a gang prevention and intervention program that works under the Unified Police Department and the Salt Lake Area Gang Project.
Specifically, the program targets local kids, schools and communities to help combat juvenile gang activity.
Atencio-Valdez has been part of the program for nearly a decade and has seen many changes, especially how the gang lifestyle is moving from middle schools into grammar schools.
She explained that advocates are now seeing at-risk behavior starting in second grade, which means elementary school principals are calling her, in need of help.
“Jumping people into gangs and that’s one of the big things that we are seeing, the threats and these little groups of kids clicking up and saying, you can’t play on the playground, this is my playground," Atencio-Valdez said.
If those behaviors are left unchecked, some of those kids quickly progress from wannabes into what detectives call “gonna be” gang members who commit violent crimes.
Det. Jerry Valdez of the Salt Lake Area Gang Project sees the progression a lot.
“We’re like; these are just kids!" he reflected. "We don’t even know a lot of them at the time because of how young they’re getting.”
Valdez has been with the Gang Unit for about a decade and knows the history of Utah’s violent gang activity from the 1990s.
However, while most gang members in the 90s were adults and many went to prison, Valdez said gang members now are mainly juveniles, with a lot of influence from California.
“Now, you have other kids that are not part of the gangs, that are taking these firearms to school because now they’re in fear because they’ve seen, 10 to 15 people beat up one person," Valdez said.
Atencio-Valdez says her group will never give up on these kids, but she does admit it can be really tough when she learns one of the young people she met through the program is now behind bars as a suspect in a violent crime.
“But we keep going, we keep pushing, we keep reevaluating, what can we do better?" she said. "How can we adjust to what we’re doing and come back at it a little harder.”
