Gang activity like a cancer to community

PACKET EDITORIAL, Jan. 14

By: Packet Editorial
   Let’s not get carried away and start talking about the "crime spree" that’s hit Princeton of late — but let’s not stick our heads in the sand and pretend something isn’t going on here that’s more than mildly troubling.
   Last weekend’s back-to-back armed robberies on Aiken Avenue in the borough and Mount Lucas Road in the township might not add up to anything more than a couple of unusual (if harrowing) incidents, unconnected to any other recent reports of wrongdoing. Likewise, a sudden increase in the number of cars being broken into in the borough’s western section and a rash of credit-card thefts reported on the university campus should not necessarily be mistaken for a rising tide of criminal activity.
   But a nasty fight in broad daylight this week between Latinos and blacks in the heart of downtown Princeton — with unmistakable gang overtones — cannot be dismissed as an isolated event. This street brawl, which may have involved as many as 20 people, some of them wielding knives and sticks, comes almost exactly a month after a 17-year-old Princeton High School student was shot in the back in Trenton, an event that may have been gang-related. This was preceded by at least two instances of reported black-on-Latino assaults in Princeton, which were in turn preceded by the shooting death in Trenton of 18-year-old borough resident Jean Mario Israel — whose funeral was attended by more than 100 mourners, many of them clad in gang colors, spouting gang slogans.
   Meanwhile, Princeton High School was locked down for a day because of the threat of gang-related violence against a student. On Halloween night, a group of 40 to 50 young people, some of them reportedly wearing gang colors, showing gang signs and making machine-gun-like inflections in words understood to be gang signals, went "wilding" through the borough’s western section, threatening other children to hand over their Halloween candy. Gang-related graffiti has been spotted around town, most recently on a new fence in the racially mixed John-Witherspoon neighborhood.
   It is no longer possible to think of these episodes, violent and otherwise, as coincidental. Nor can the Princeton youngsters engaging in these acts any longer be written off, as they have often been in the past, as a relatively harmless bunch of gang wannabes. Once the aberrance of their behavior reaches a certain level, it doesn’t really matter whether these miscreants actually belong to a gang or are merely acting like they do. The end results — graffiti, a street fight, an assault, a shooting, a killing — are the same.
   Back in November, the Princeton Township Police Department, John Witherspoon Middle School and Corner House, a nonprofit counseling agency for adolescents, young adults and their families, co-sponsored a forum to raise public awareness of gang behavior, and outline steps parents and community groups can take to help prevent youngsters from getting involved in gangs. The forum provoked some useful discussion, and represented a good starting point for a concerted community campaign to stop the infiltration, and possible proliferation, of gangs and gang activity in Princeton.
   But it’s now clear that one well-attended forum wasn’t nearly enough. Nor will the collective efforts of police, schools and counseling groups be enough. The entire community needs to be made aware of the dangers posed by gangs, acknowledge that their presence and influence are undeniably in evidence even here in affluent Princeton, and become involved in crafting a comprehensive response — prevention, intervention, education, enforcement — that is needed to combat this dangerous condition.
   Denial is no longer an option, and the situation has long since ceased to be somebody else’s problem. Gangs are a cancer on our community, and the whole community needs to be part of the cure. If we want not only to stop the growth of gangs but to eradicate them from our system, it’s time for the entire Princeton community to become aware, involved and energized — to come on like, well, gangbusters.