Dangerous gang members troll the Park City area and Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds is mobilizing to arrest them before they gain neighborhood footholds.
“This is not an insignificant problem,” Edmunds said in a telephone interview. “It’s a growing one.”
Next year Edmunds hopes to have a detective investigating gang-related cases full time. Currently, part-time Detective Andrew Burton gathers gang intelligence for the department.
“[Burton] is a tremendous resource,” Edmunds said. “He has actually documented a significant number of known affiliated gang members.”
A three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice funds Burton’s salary, fuel and equipment.
“We continue to see a rise in the number of incidents and the number of gang members we have contact with, and we certainly don’t want to abandon the response,” Burton said about the grant, which is in its second year. “The expectation is that the [Sheriff’s Office] will continue the program on its own.”
According to Burton, he has documented about 35 mostly Latino gang members who live in Summit County
“We also have a few white supremacists. We’ve documented a few Asian gang members and a few other Crips and Bloods,” Burton said.
About 100 documented gang members total have been stopped in Summit County, many from other parts of the state, Burton explained.
“Some of these gang members who we have documented are pretty dangerous guys They have perpetrated violent crimes in Salt Lake, Evanston (Wyo.), and other areas,” he said. “They are coming here because some of them have jobs in Summit County and some of them have friends they come up to hang out with.”
During the coming budget cycle the Summit County Council should put more money behind reducing gang activity, Edmunds said.
“If you’re going to get out in front of a problem like this, you’re going to need to dedicate resources to it,” the sheriff said. “Other areas may have to suffer so we can dedicate the necessary resources to this problem.”
But it’s unclear how much money he will request.
A program with charts, graphs and photographs will “shock” elected officials when it’s presented a few months from now, Edmunds said.
“This is definitely something that I’m going to be hitting them up on. It’s not scare tactics,” Edmunds said.
Summit County Councilman John Hanrahan said he would consider putting more money toward gang enforcement.
“I was a little bit surprised,” County Councilwoman Sally Elliott added about the level of gang violence in the Park City area.
Summit County Attorney David Brickey said there are cases that involve gang members right now in 3rd District Juvenile Court in the Snyderville Basin.
“We deal with this issue in juvenile court every time we’re in front of [the judge,]” Brickey said. “As the county is growing, the sheriff is being proactive, and I appreciate him recognizing that which is inevitable.”
Gang members probed in Summit County were linked to a dangerous set of Nortenos, a Hispanic gang in Porterville, Calif.
“We’ve paid attention to the number of incidents and the number of gang members who we’re running across,” Burton said. “We have seen an increase in graffiti, the number of gang members contacted and the number of misdemeanor crimes committed by gang members, like theft.”