Ephrata reveals plans to deal with gangs

EPHRATA — Laws making it hard for gang members to congregate, increasing information on gangs and more enforcement are part of Ephrata’s plan to deal with gangs.

The city revealed the general outline of its plan at a recent council of governments meeting. City Administrator Wes Crago said the planning has been going on for some time.

“What we are starting is wanting to make this something where all of us are involved,” he said. “We’re going to share what we’ve been working on for the last six, seven months. It’s going to start going on in the public in September.”

Ephrata Police Cpl. Joe Downey started by saying the gang problem in the city is not new, pointing to a motorcycle gang house down the street from where he moved 18 years ago.

“What was the response to (the gang) back then? Their whole attitude was they don’t poop in their own backyard, so we just ignore them, for the most part,” he said.

That gang left because another motorcycle gang told them to leave, Downey said, enforcing it with a murder and attacking another person in Spokane.

“It was not a community. It was not a law enforcement effort that got them to close up shop,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

The issue is gang members are getting younger, bolder and not afraid of causing trouble in the area, he said, adding the gang members want people to know what their area is.

“I started calling places that have active programs, really trying to get aggressive about it. Everybody is happy to talk about it,” Downey said. “Everybody is starting to get on board.”

The city is starting to track gang members in the area, he said. The city recently joined the information-sharing program Gangnet. The program, started by the Spokane Police Department, allows police to learn about gang activity in the 20 participating counties in Washington.

“Generally for us, unless the guy is running around saying, ‘Yeah, I shot because he’s a Sureño and I’m a Norteño,’ we’re not putting it down as gang-related,” Downey said. “We just put down there was a shooting, there was a stabbing.”

The city is trying to attack the problem before it becomes bad, he said, adding information is one of the department’s best tools for dealing with the issue.

“We’re having people who one of their specific duties is going to be keeping the information entered,” he said.

Another place the city is looking at is limiting gang members’ access to public parks at night, Downey said. The city is adding signs showing the hours the parks are open.

“(The parks) do have hours of service. They close at 10 (p.m.) A lot of people don’t know that,” he said.

The city is looking at adding ordinances to combat gangs, including a law prohibiting people from interfering with pedestrian traffic, Downey said.

“If people feel they’re intimidated enough that they have to walk around somebody, that’s a violation,” he said. “What they were having in Toppenish is gang members standing right in the street, in the parks, throwing signs, wearing all the clothes, and because we drive by a park and you see 90 percent of the park empty except for the gang members here and everybody else well over there ... That’s violation of their code.”

The city attorney is examining other similar codes, Downey said, adding no city wants to be the first one to be sued because of a code.

“We’re also looking at loitering codes,” he said. “This is not a law-enforcement-only issue. We cannot do it by ourselves. We have places in town where they hang up loitering signs and then the employees say, ‘No, it’s OK if you kids hang out.’”

If the employee gives people permission to loiter, the police can’t do anything about it, Downey said.