Based on material presented by Detectives Teddie Weston and Steve Hutchinson of the San Diego Police Department Special Investigations Street Gang Unit
By Phillip E. Bonham
President, Management Alert Group, Ltd.,
Co-chairman Drug Abatement Task Force San Diego Apartment Association
And Scott Silverman
Vice - President, Management Alert Group, Ltd.,
Co-chairman Drug Abatement Task Force San Diego Apartment Association
Note: Detectives Teddie Weston and Steve Hutchinson were guest speakers at the December 15 meeting of the Management Alert Group. Their talk focused specifically on the major gangs known as the Bloods, Crips and the Syndo Mob, operating primarily in Southeast San Diego. Therefore, the examples given don’t reflect the behavior associated with Latino, Jamaican or Oriental gangs. Nor do they cover such problems as the methamphetamine labs in the East County.
No area in San Diego County is immune from the problems of gangs. Any owner or manager wanting to protect his or her assets should know what is going on in the area. This is an important precaution, as necessary in rental management as doing periodic rental surveys or targeting one’s advertising to a specific market.
Clothing and colors
The most obvious way to identify suspected gang members is by the type of clothing they wear. The Bloods wear anything red, including shoes, shirts, hats and jackets. The Crips wear blue, while the Syndo Mob wears green and white.
These colors are extremely important in identification, both for the gang members and for owners and managers since they let the viewer know “who’s who” at first glance. This can be a great help to the on-site manager, for example, since an ordinary citizen will not normally wear one color so constantly.
Hand signals
Another way to spot gang activity is to look for hand signals. Among the typical greetings they use with other gang members is a raised clenched fist or a hand held in front of the chest with some fingers extended in certain configurations.
n another tell-tale gesture, the gang member raises both hands with the palms extended as if asking a question. In fact, what they are asking the viewer is “What kind of drugs do you want?”
Unusual activities
Even if you don’t realize what specific gestures mean and/or are not aware of the gang colors, you will always be able to spot activities that are not “normal” for your area, including such tell-tale activities as:
Groups of people hanging around the building,
Cars driving up to the curb to meet someone, then leaving after a short interchange or words or packages,
Small children on bikes who continually ride through the property or hang around the corner and act as lookouts.
· On one of our properties recently, I found someone who was not a renter standing on an upstairs balcony using a portable cellular phone, while observing the intersection of Euclid and Imperial. Obviously, he was not reporting the weather.
What can the owner do?
Our experience has been that most gangs and dealers do not want confrontations with owners if they can avoid it. Owners can deter a great deal of crime-related activity just by visiting the property often.
It’s also very important for managers and maintenance people to be aware of suspicious actions. The key for owners is to screen all potential managers vigorously, both to be sure they can perform their duties and to verify that they are not part of the problem themselves.
Criminal drug activity will not go away by itself. Unless we all work together – owners, renters, the police, the City Attorney, the City Council, and the Board of Supervisors – we can look forward to the same kind of severe problems now being experienced by Los Angeles.
Next month we will explore some specific problems we have encountered first-hand and explain how er were able to solve them without any major confrontations with the gang leaders.
If you are concerned about the growing problem of drugs, street gangs and related crime, you may want to participate in the association’s newly-formed Drug Abatement Task Force. For more information, please contact the SDAA office at 297-1000.
Reprinted from
Rental Owner Magazine