Another Hispanic teenager was brutally attack by a group of males all dressed in black in the Grant Avenue Shopping center adjacent to Georgetown South. This victim was beaten and had a stab wound in his back.
Manassas City police, according to News and Messenger, feel that this incident is related to the stabbing death of 15-year old Miguel Hernandez on Friday. They also feel it is gang related. Both victims have been Latino. Two arrests have been made in the Friday in the murder of Miguel who was just walking home with his classmates after school.
The second victim’s injuries were non-life-threatening.
What can the ordinary citizen do? Are there precautions to take? Why are young Latino males being preyed on? Is this behavior emanating from Georgetown South? Someone knows something.
Is there a fund for Miguel Hernandez’s family? Is that family safe?
This kind of behavior is very unusual for our community.
The leader of the All Saints Youth Ministry sent out the following yesterday, for those who might want to donate money to help Mickey’s family:
“Donate: the costs related to funeral & burial expenses are certainly unexpected and can be very overwhelming. As a Youth Ministry community at All Saints, we would like to help alleviate some of this cost. If every teen contributed a couple dollars or if every family contributed a little money, that would go a long way in reaching out to Mickey’s mom and dad. If you feel called to give some money, please write a check to All Saints Youth Ministry and put “Mickey fund” in the memo line. Cash can be given too, but please put in an envelope labeled “Mickey fund”. Money can be dropped off at Youth Group on this Sunday or next Sunday. It can also be dropped off with any secretary (at the rectory) throughout the week as long as its clearly marked for Youth Ministry. We would like to receive all funds within a week by the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Then, we will pass on the support with your prayers and well wishes to Mickey’s family.”
Emma, thank you very much for this information. I wish they would put up a paypal account somewhere. It would reach more people.
Could you suggest it?
How about some directions for people who don’t go to that church? Where might money be mailed or dropped off?
Here’s the link to local information on gang/crime prevention from the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force.
http://www.pwcgov.org/default.aspx?topic=040069000300003548
The same information is also on the City of Manassas website:
http://www.manassascity.org/index.aspx?NID=70
Thanks, Cindy. Are there particular recommendations, more of an acute set of directions, that the police or gang task force have come out with?
I was thinking more along the lines of what can be done to protect the kids from these monsters?
@Moon-howler I’m sure I’ll find out more when I go to Mass this evening, and will let you know.
This is sad…and scary. I’ve heard some people advise others to carry guns because of these episodes. But that won’t fix the problem.
Moon, I could drop a check off with mine this week while in the city working.
Thank you Emma. Thanks Laf. Mr. H also said he would go if I got him the info.
I can’t state it any better than the gang task force:
What You Can Do:
Community Members
Become involved in community organizations and coalitions that promote positive activities for youth
Be positive role models
Become educated about gangs, and crime in general, in the community
Seek and maintain a close relationship with the police officers who patrol your neighborhood
Become involved in your local Neighborhood Watch, or consider starting one if none exists
Report graffiti to the police department, and then work together to remove it after it has been documented by police officers
Become familiar with the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets.
Parents
Educate yourself on the signs of gang activity
Maintain an open line of communication with your children
Be engaged in the lives of your children
Know who your children’s friends are
Insist on knowing where your children are going and what they are doing
Pay attention to behavioral changes such as the way they dress, school attendance and performance, and the company they keep
Pay attention to music/Web sites/wall posters
Trust your instincts; if you feel that your child is starting to become involved with gangs, follow-up on it and be curious
Business Owners/Retailers
Remove graffiti as soon as possible after you have reported it to the local police, and they indicate that you can remove it
Report any gang activity to your local police department
Enforce “No Trespass/Barment” notices
Consider the use of a surveillance system
Employ adequate lighting both inside and outside
As mush as possible, make sure that your business and areas of your business complex are visible to the passing public
Work together with other nearby businesses to visibly display a sense of ownership and concern over what takes place in the immediate area
Start and enforce a “no gang colors” policy in your business
Contact your local police department’s Crime Prevention Unit for information on its Business Watch Program. Prince William County Police Department’s Crime Prevention Unit has a Business Watch Program and a Certified Crime Prevention Business Program.
Specifically for this situation, I would look at the safety of that cut-through that the students take and consider closing it off, if possible.
I would ask that people stop criticizing the GTS community as a whole though or calling out an entire ethnic group as scapegoats. It doesn’t do any good to beat down people. The public doesn’t know about the work residents are doing to change their community from the inside out – it’s not all about painting fences.
Anti-Gun is definitely the way to handle this particular incident. Now nevermind nearly everyone involved is a teenager and wouldn’t be able to legally carry a firearm for self-defense anyway, this is THE apex anti-gun teaching moment, here! Helluva Point!! I think that the whole Bristol Palin beating Brandy to enter the final round of DWTS is another good anti-gun moment!
Slow, a lot of your post doesn’t make sense to me but the part about teenagers not carrying guns came through loud and clear.
I don’t know what the answer is other than to find out what is going on and lock the perps up. Something is going on though.
@Slowpoke Rodriguez
Actually, I didn’t say anything about being anti-gun, though I prefer people not carry them (cops, military excluded). What I said is that carrying a gun isn’t going to fix the problem. Sure, you might be able to shoot someone, but there are still going to be gangs, and shooting someone will just perpetuate a gang war. So Cindy’s link’s recommendations make more sense.
Oh and when I refer to carrying a gun, I mean as self defense. I’ve heard adults say they advocate other adults carrying guns for self defense, and they use this incident and similar incidents as examples. Again, though, carrying a gun isn’t going to fix the overall problem and could make it much worse when gangs are involved.
I hope either of these cases aren’t argued from a POV of the gun issue. I think everyone here knows that I’ll argue pro but I don’t see how it pertains to this discussion. I think what needs to be discussed is motiviations on gangs and gang membership, how the community combats gangs at both a community and government level and how do we deal with children that may be inclined or have joined a gang but still *may* be “saved”.
From a community standpoint, if GTS wants to have an armed neighborhood watch – I’m all for that – but I don’t live in that community and it’s upto the community to figure out how they want to protect themselves because as this incident illustrates the police cannot be everywhere.
I guess I am looking at long range and short range protection from gangs. Obviously something is going down to have all this killing/maiming. We don’t even know if it is coming out of GTS. It could be coming out of Colonial Village for all we know. Who knows.
This situation is very much out of the norm.
The Washington Post reports that police think the beating Sat night had to do with Friday’s killing but stopped short of calling it retaliation. They do not think either incident was random.
The WaPo also reports that Police presence has been stepped up considerably.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/21/AR2010112104088.html
Yeah, you would hope people wouldn’t use this incident to spin their particular side of the gun control argument, but just read some of the online comments in the newspapers, stuff like, “This is exactly why I am pro-gun.” That kind of knee-jerk reaction is what we do NOT need.
Here’s Roanoke’s new crime initiative:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/268318
Big Dog took part in a community walk through GTS years ago.
Just a couple of neighborly comments:
(1) Join your Neighborhood Watch and be an activist in it. Never be afraid to report what you see because you fear it could turn out to be nothing and you might be embarrassed. Let law enforcement sort out the wheat from the chaff. That’s what you pay them to do. If people like you do not create a constant inflow of citizen leads or suspected leads, law enforcement is without an important intelligence tool. It works. You would be amazed at what law enforcement can do with just a snippet of a lead from the likes of you. To that I can attest. But do not expect personal feedback. First, law enforcement has a lot to do. Secondly, it they are on a good lead, they cannot tell you about it without creating a risk for any future court case. Trust them to do their job and do it well.
(2) Don’t be surprised if one day you decide to go out for a fast food bite and wind up sharing the seating in a local eatery with an anti-gang task force unit all dressed in black, armed to the teeth, and on a food break. Thank them. You can be sure the gangbangers have noticed this and are heading for cover.
(3) Cutting off the shortcuts is not a bad idea. We had a situation in which kids had beaten down the fence behind a long-abandoned single-family home and were coming into our community on suspected drug peddling and acquisition capers. We convinced law enforcement and the HOA to rebuild that fence and cut off the shortcut, even though the property technically belonged to someone else. It worked. The traffic ceased; and the residents of that street now claim that they live in a very quiet corner of the community. It is worth a shot. It forces the miscreants to use more open ingress and egress, where they are more easily spotted by police patrols and NW.
Thanks for your insight, Wolverine.
This incident as really rattled as well as deeply saddened the entire community.
Mickey Hernandez’s death is just senseless. 15 is too young to die.
My recommendation. Long Range Protection from gangs: .308. Short range protection from gangs: 9mm-.45ACP should serve you well.
Realistically, Slow….realistically…not the testosterone way.
Obviously we can’t send school kids off armed, much less armed to the teeth.
Stop codling the fricken people who are involved in this crap, and start enforcing and supporting all legal efforts to rid our midst of these uninvited trouble makers. I guess not everyone is here just to do an honest days work are they, but then “how can you tell” right?
The most important thing is to stop pretending there isn’t a gang problem locally. All along when graffiti was put up in Point of Woods all I heard people saying was it was just “wannabe gang members” or just imitators. There is a big gang problem in places around here and something really needs to be done about it, or we’ll just start seeing more and more of these kinds of incidents.
As a side note, there’s even been incidences of gang graffiti on the sidewalks of the main roads that surround my neighborhood in Gainesville. When me and neighbors spotted it while walking our dogs – we called the police and they confirmed it was indeed gang graffiti – which it looked like to my untrained eye. Unfortunately, it seems the gangs are marking territory all over the place, even out here in Gainesville. Not good at all and the more the problem is brought to the forefront the better. I like Wolverine’s comment about the anti-gang task force being more visible – that’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Exactly, Wolverine. GTS has been working a Virginia Cooperative Extention master gardener to plan landscaping along the fenceline between the community and the shopping center that involves some kind of thorny piranha type bushes that will discourage loitering there. Natural barriers are common sense solutions.
@Second-Alamo
Who is it we are coddling and how are we coddling them, SA?
Oh and who is ‘them?’ All Hispanics?
@cindy b
@Cindy and Wolverine,
Nothing says hands off like poison ivy, holly bushes and rose bushes.
M-h, throw in some barberries and mahonia too!
@Second-Alamo
People who are here to work usually don’t dress in gang garb or wear gang tattoos. That’s how you can tell.
Went to the visitation today. How depressing.