By KEVIN NEVERS

In November 2007 Duneland was inconvenienced by a rash of graffiti vandalism in which taggers armed with spray-paint cans made their marks on signs, walls, vehicles, and businesses. The spree ended abruptly when two juveniles were apprehended after being observed spray-painting a camper in Porter.

Then, in early December, in what was probably an unrelated incident, vandals damaged a dozen buses owned by Fairhaven Independent Baptist Church in Westchester Township, spray-painting them, both inside and out, with a mixed bag of slogans, symbols, and vulgarities.

The policy of the Chesterton Tribune is to report incidents of graffiti but—so as to give them no more notoriety than they deserve—not to describe the scrawls themselves. At that time, however, investigating officers identified at least some of the graffiti as gang affiliated.

Since then Duneland has been mostly free of graffiti vandalism, with a few recent exceptions, including some cryptic spray-painting on the Prairie Duneland Trail.

Last year’s sprees do raise a question, though: is there in fact criminal gang activity in Chesterton or Duneland?

To that question there are two answers, an easy one and a slightly more complicated one, Chesterton Police Chief George Nelson says.

“Criminal gang” is actually defined by Indiana Code, Nelson notes, in IC 35-45-9-1, as a “group with a least three members that specifically either promotes, sponsors, or assists in, or participates in, or requires as a condition of membership or continued membership, the commission of a felony or an act that would be a felony if committed by an adult or the offense of battery.”

A person who participates in a criminal gang, as defined by Indiana Code, commits a Class D felony, punishable by a term of six months to three years.

And under that definition, Nelson says, “at this time” there is no gang activity in Chesterton or to his knowledge in Duneland. “Chesterton does not have any gangs by that legal definition.”

That’s the easy answer, and as answers go it’s a reassuring one. When Dunelanders think of gangs, they likely imagine the more urban and highly organized criminal enterprises, engaged in drug trafficking and other illicit activities, with colors, signs, and turf, ready access to firearms and a willingness to use them, and frequently coercive recruitment strategies. At present, Nelson says, there is simply no evidence that anything like such an enterprise is operating in Chesterton or Duneland.

Nevertheless, Nelson adds—and this is the slightly more complicated answer—kids do form cliques, they pal around and mess around, and sometimes they get it into their heads to glamorize their consorting. “Does Chesterton have groups of young people who say they are gangs and use graffiti and commit minor petty thefts or shoplifting? Yes, we have that. We’ve had that off and on as long as I’ve been here, in one fashion or another. But they certainly don’t rise to the level of the statutory definition.”

Nelson notes that the members of these loose groups may use drugs but are not dealing them entrepreneurially. They may tag buildings and walls with graffiti and even have a knowledge of established gang symbols. “But it’s just enough knowledge to mimic those symbols,” he says. It’s conceivable too that this kid or that one has access to a firearm. “There’s not been any indication of that so far as I know but that doesn’t mean that someone didn’t steal his dad’s gun. Even so, the acts they’re committing don’t involve weapons.”

Nelson does say that, once or twice in the past, established gangs from outside the area have made unsuccessful attempts to recruit in the community. They could do so again, so he urges parents to monitor carefully their children’s activities and friends. “Be aware of where your kids are, what they’re doing, who they’re associating with. If you see anything suspicious, don’t hesitate to call us. We’re open 24/7.”

On the Ground

Cpl. Randy Komisarcik, the Chesterton Police Department’s school resource officer based at Chesterton Middle School, confirms Nelson’s assessment. He works with the community’s youth every day and to his mind Duneland is not, right now, an especially fertile environment for either gang activity or recruitment. “We have a good school system,” Komisarcik says. “The economy’s more stable. Parents are more active in their kids’ lives. They have family units. They don’t need to look to a gang for a family unit.”

One or two troubling cases have come to Komisarcik’s attention, however. On one occasion a student “decided he was going to start up his own little gang.” First he contacted a member of a Chicago-based gang through the latter’s MySpace page, then he began recruiting “school kids.” There were 14 of them, Komisarcik says, and they were into spray-painting. “That’s all they did. They never did drugs or burglaries. Just spray-painting. A lot of them didn’t even know what they were spray-painting.”

(In fact they were spray-painting the inverted symbol of another Chicago-based gang, the sort of dis that could have gotten them hurt on the South Side.)

“The student did it because he was curious,” Komisarcik says. Anyway, Komisarcik heard about the group, spoke to the students and their parents, and effectively put the kibosh on the whole thing. “It was a gang in name only,” he says. “It didn’t even fit the criminal statute of a gang.”

On another occasion, Komisarcik says, a student adopted the fashion stylings of a Michigan City-based gang: a pants leg rolled up, a sleeve rolled up. Eventually his parents pulled him from the Duneland School Corporation and transferred him into a neighboring school district. Komisarcik ran into him recently. “He’s straightened up and doing well,” he says.

But Komisarcik has not otherwise seen gang signs flashed in the schools and does not believe any gangs are presently recruiting here. There are, he notes, some gang members who have moved to Duneland from other areas. “They came here,” Komisarcik says. “They go to school here. But they’re not recruiting here. They just go to school. I don’t think there’s any recruiting from the outside.”

“Some kids want to act like they’re gang members, for respect or fear,” Komisarcik says. “But hard-core drug-dealing gangs, we just don’t have them.”

Like Nelson, though, Komisarcik advises parents to be vigilant. “Just because Chesterton doesn’t have any criminal gangs presently doesn’t mean that they won’t or can’t occur here in the future,” he says. “So it’s up to everybody—kids, schools, parents, law enforcement—to police the community and keep the criminal element out.”

Komisarcik encourages parents with questions to contact him at CMS. He also recommends an excellent resource—

www.chicagogangs.org

—for information on the gangs of Chicago and its suburbs, their symbols, their activities, and their culture.

Warning signs of gang activity

A child who becomes involved with gang activity may exhibit any of the following warning signs, as compiled from www.warningsigns.info

•A youth’s obsession with a particular clothing color. He or she may start wearing sagging trousers, jewelry with distinguishing signs or on only one side of the body, or indicates a preference for a certain brand logo.

•An unusual desire for privacy and secrecy, a change in behavior, or a withdrawal from the family.

•Declining grades at school or truancy or tardiness.

•Begins keeping late hours and breaking parental rules.

•Shows an interest in gangster music or videos.

•Changes friends and begins associating with the “wrong crowd.”

•Starts using hand signals among friends.

•Has paint or permanent marker stains on his or her hands or is found in possession of graffiti paraphernalia like markers, etching tools, spray paint, bug spray, or starch cans.

•Unusual drawings or text appear in school books.

•Is in possession of unexplained cash, clothing, jewelry, or music CDs.

•Exhibits the use of drugs or alcohol.

“None of these warnings signs alone is sufficient for predicting gang involvement, aggression, or tendencies toward violence,” the website states.

“Also, it can be detrimental to use these signs as a checklist against which to measure children. Early warning signs are just that, indicators that a child may need our help and guidance. These are behavioral and emotional signs that, when considered in context, can signal a distraught child.”

Posted 3/25/2008