For a long time now, I'm said to anyone who would listen that the street gang problem in certain US cities (LA first and foremost) will degenerate into full blown urban warfare if radical changes are not taken to how law enforcement and public policy makers treat the problem.
Today I read a
disturbing report that shows the day of an Iraq-like insurgency on US streets may far to close for comfort.
FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- Some of America's most notorious street gangs are turning up in the military. But they aren't just serving their country. Instead, many are taking the opportunity to learn a very deadly trade.
Detective Hunter Glass is a an Army veteran and Fayetteville gang officer.
"We do know through intelligence that some gang members are actually sent into the military to learn about military tactics," Glass said.
Glass showed NBC 17 footage of a known gang member just back from Iraq firing on two California police officers -- he kills one quickly using tactics perfected on the battlefield.
"Using strictly military tactics he learned in the Marine Corps, he applies suppressive fire power right into the corner," Glass explains. "He didn't learn those tactics as a gang member."
"We came across the 18th Street gang members Web site out of New York," Glass said. "(On the site) there was a photo of a character 'El Casper' who was making the 18th Street Gang hand signal. (The photo) came from Iraq. Casper was learning all kinds of great techniques that he was going to be brining back to the streets."
Joshua Sharp is a full-time military investigator at Fort Bragg who also tracks gangs. He's very worried about what gang members are learning.
"These guys with military tactics can use it for drug buys or during busts," Sharp told NBC 17. "They know how to handle surveillance and have other useful skills."
Gang members brag they now have a pipeline from the U.S. to Baghdad and are picking up new skills, such as war time medical training.
"If you are a medic in military, you now have a valuable tool," Sharp said. "If someone gets shot up on the street, you know how to take care of it."
It's training that most local law enforcement cannot match. At Fort Bragg, military officers
are now working with local law enforcement in an attempt to get violent gang members out of the military.
"I can't think of any problem we have as a law enforcement, other than drugs, that is this big of an epidemic," Sharp said.
What we are already seeing are gang members who not only often have superior fire power to police officers (a long time problem), but now have comparable or even superior training in the use of such weapons, and in the tactics of urban warfare. I knew a State's Attorney who used to joke about what bad shooters gang members were. Sadly,
those days may be quickly coming to an end.
Worse still, a small number of ex-military gang members can pass on their skills to other members in their gang, developing a self- sustaining training regime. This would elevate street gangs into true para-military forces, which regular law enforcement would be totally unable to deal with -it would be like sending the LAPD to patrol Ramala.
I firmly believe the next twenty years will see US military forces, fighting an urban war in the inner-cities of Chicago, LA, Miami, and on down the line. We will see US soldiers on American city streets fighting the kind of war that is now tearing apart cities in Iraq. This is not to say that trend is irreversible, but unless drastic new steps, not only in law enforcement, but in public policy are not taken immediately, the trend may very well become a fait acompli.