Manteca Mayor Willie Weatherford is right.

Gangs are not a police problem.

Weatherford told a gathering Thursday five things have to fail - family, church, friends, jobs and schools – before the stage is set for gang violence to reach the point it has in Manteca.

“Do you know what the police problem is?” Weatherford asked. “Picking up the bodies and following up with the information.”

It’s a message that needs to be shared again and again in small community gatherings in a bid to build synergy to reduce the influence of gangs and therefore the violence.

Some have expressed concern that the city should be doing more about reaching out to people regarding gangs. They are absolutely right.  There’s was nothing wrong with the mayor accepting an invitation to talk about gangs and hear citizens concerns at a meeting of the Manteca Tea Party.

But let’s be honest. One meeting does not a crusade make.

And that is what we need: A long-term commitment to suffocate the ability of gangs to grow and spread.

We will never get rid of them just like you can never rid a garden of weeds. But just like you can stop weeds from germinating or getting them long before they take over a garden, the same can be done with gang recruiting and neighborhoods.

Gangs are a lure because for whatever reason there is no structure or a sense of belonging in a young person’s life. There are also those who are written off or are somehow disconnected from school.  Lack of jobs also contributes to the problem. And sometimes once gangs have established themselves it is fear of one’s safety that prompts kids to cross the line. Gangs, after all, offer a sort of protection either from the gang itself or other gangs.

That message has to be told over and over again. It has to then be backed up with a strategy wedded with a call to action for the entire community.

Meetings need to take place not simply at public policy forums, service clubs, and parent gatherings at schools. They need to be in neighborhoods. And if they don’t have a neighborhood watch, you have a meeting anyway.

What started tipping the scales last time gang violence escalated in Manteca were a series of meetings with people in neighborhoods where residents felt like they were forgotten. They lived in fear of not just random gang violence but gang violence that took place almost every day where they lived and their children played.

The meetings brought out a lot of things we like to ignore. Some people don’t trust police or have given up in calling police in the belief nothing will be done. It also laid the ground work for an all-encompassing full-court press that included code enforcement and health officers in a bid to not just arrest gang members but to go after removing them from the neighborhood. One gang “kingpin” at the time in Southside Park was a man in his 50s that police were able to track down thanks in part to that all-out effort. He ended up being deported to Mexico.

Manteca Police did the same thing in going after an apartment complex in north Manteca. In both incidents not only did gang activity drop in the targeted neighborhoods but also all over Manteca.

Simply speaking one time to the Manteca Tea Party won’t accomplish that.

The gang problem isn’t a police problem.

City leaders need to tell that to the community until they are blue in the face.

And they need to do it in settings where people are comfortable.

The mayor deserves credit for being willing to listen to and talk with groups of people concerned with gangs.

But at the same time the city needs to not simply be in public relations mode. They need to take the message to people throughout Manteca.

Once that is done, a long-range plan aimed at making gangs less and less appealing to impressionable young people needs to be developed and implemented by harnessing not just city resources but that of the community as well.



This column is the opinion of managing editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA.  He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209-249-3519.