Congratulations to the city and its Police Department for a continued proactive approach to combat gang crime.

It’s not easy public policy because just acknowledging gangs are around is bad PR. But there are gangs in Gaithersburg — and there are gangs everywhere. According to a gang prosecutor in the State’s Attorney’s Office who also teaches law, there were gangs in America before the country was founded and there will always be gangs.

Is the problem in Gaithersburg suddenly worse? No. Nobody says that. 

Gang problems are regional. Problems move around. Statistics are slippery. 

I first wrote a newspaper article about the gang problem in Montgomery County and the region a dozen years ago. In the years since, I have written five news stories or columns about some aspect of gangs.

I notice that whenever resources are devoted to fighting gang crime, it makes the news. Understandably, gangs make people uncomfortable.

Gaithersburg resident and Montgomery County Council member Phil Andrews chairs that Council’s Public Safety Committee. Last week members of his and another Council committee were briefed by police, prosecutors, social services people and others on the status of inter-jurisdictional cooperation in the county’s efforts to fight gangs.

He reports there is “excellent coordination” and is pleased by a “significant decrease in gang-related crime that mirrors a general decrease in the crime rate locally and nationally.” 

There are six Montgomery County police districts in the county. District three — Silver Spring’s — numbers for gang crime were highest. The sixth district, which encompasses both Gaithersburg and Montgomery Village, was second.

Overall, gang crime in the county has gone down for the first quarter of 2010 — and for the last several years, there has been a downward trend in gang crime.

Andrews shed some light on my observation that gang crime news — even when the amount of crime is small — seems to have a very loud sound.

“Street crime,” Andrews explained, “has a ripple effect on the perception of public safety.”

A three-pronged approach to gang crime — prevention, intervention and suppression — is shared by the Gaithersburg Police Department and the Montgomery County Police Department. Gaithersburg shares some services with the county department, and the two entities work together on many things.

As a reporter, I have always encountered a high degree of openness and accessibility working with the Gaithersburg P.D. when I have had questions about gangs.

Also the Gaitherburg police keep a very comprehensive data bank on all contacts with gang members and do not hesitate to answer questions about numbers.

This week Gaithersburg P.D. Detective Patrick Word told me that at the current time, there are 10 regional gangs operating in the city with 150 to 200 members.

It is estimated by the county that there are 40 gangs throughout the county.

In Gaithersburg, “our entire agency,” said Word, tracks gang contacts.

Therefore even when city police are called for something that is not a gang crime, or there is a crime in which a gang member is victim, the interaction with that individual is noted by Gaithersburg police as a gang contact. Information on individuals in gangs is updated at constantly.

“We are keeping our own numbers, and our number are accurate,” said Word. “We know what’s happening in our city.

“Usually in difficult economic times like these, crime goes up. We are lucky in our city that we have not seen an increase.”

Luck?

Mayor Katz has always been willing to talk gangs when I have asked for input.

Discussing the Olde Towne camera pilot program, the mayor said there has been no recent surge in gang activity in the city. But, he added, “[If crime is low] and you don’t do something, it doesn’t mean it will stay low.”

Katz emphasizes that the use of digital surveillance technology in Olde Towne, “is a trial.”

 Of course, there are important issues concerning the use of digital surveillance cameras to improve public safety for us to consider in this trial.

In some places, surveillance video has been used to hurt innocent people. There is debate about privacy and the impact on the U.S. Constitution’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure. People disagree on whether the data show the cameras lower the incidence of crime or aid effective prosecution. Some people say the cameras just move crime to hidden pockets.

This discussion will now take place in Gaithersburg, too.

I look forward to it.

Comments: karen@towncourier.com.

Working as a legislative assistant for the House Ad Hoc Select Committee on Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) was my first job after college. I was a political science major, and my involvement with the OCS Committee started as an internship.

I was ignorant and idealistic in those days. In 1978, the OCS bill became public law. We celebrated when the bill passed.

I left the committee for a job in another field, and then I stopped paying attention to oil and gas drilling. Been there — done that; you know how it goes.

Yet over 32 years, there have been many tragic leaks from exploratory and established undersea oil and gas drilling operations. I was unaware because I was not paying attention.

Also, during the Reagan years, much of the OCS bill’s toughness was gutted — but I did not know. I was busy.

On June 3, 1979, in circumstances eerily similar to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the semi-submersible Sedco 135 F rig leased by the Mexican government-owned oil and gas company PEMEX was working the IXTOC I exploratory well off the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula when it exploded, incinerated and sank. No loss of life was reported, but over the next 10 months 3.3 million barrels (a barrel is 42 gallons) gushed into the water, much of it ending up on the Texas coast.

The blowout was capped after two relief wells were dug. Two relief wells are planned for the Deep Horizon.

BP claims the relief wells will be dug by sometime in August. I hope they are right, but I am concerned. First, because I do not trust anything BP or any other oil company says.

Second, the PEMEX wells took 10 months in 1979 — and PEMEX was working in only 165 feet of water. BP’s Deep Horizon site is one mile beneath the surface.

Maybe undersea well-digging technology has really blossomed since 1979. Otherwise, good luck with those two wells.

Current estimates are that between 12,000 and 100,000 barrels a day are coming out of this hellish hole in the earth. No matter what measure is used, this disaster will undoubtedly overtake the PEMEX mess in volume, if that has not happened already.

Call it a gut feeling after reimmersing myself in this oily business after 30-plus years.

Reading a transcript of Congressional testimony from Transocean, (the world’s largest drilling rig owner and owner of Deepwater Horizon), BP (which leased the platform and owns the well), Cameron International  (manufacturers of the blowout preventer that failed to seal the well when it exploded) and Halliburton (providers of a variety of services to the natural gas and oil exploration and production industry for almost a century and responsible for cementing the well), reads like tragic comedy.

I didn’t watch the testimony on TV, so I could only imagine four chimpanzees seated together facing a Congressional committee while they combed each others fur for tasty fleas, scratched themselves abstractedly, and pointed at each other and everyone else in the room.

So far, it also appears that the people in the government who should have been monitoring and enforcing the law regarding offshore oil and gas operations were not performing their duties effectively.

I regret that while I was once so involved in the issues around this tragedy — even as a most junior staff person — I no longer took any responsibility as a citizen to just pay attention to what has been going on.

I think my citizenship is worth more.

Let’s hope we do a better job protecting our people and our resources in the years ahead.

Comments: Karen@towncourier.com