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wait for action
on city gangs
Recent revelations about gang activity near Central Middle School and Westside Park will require nothing less than an all-out effort to stop it before it gets out of hand.
City council vowed to take up the issue at its planning retreat in April, and it presumably would have a plan in place at least by the time the new fiscal year starts July 1.
But judging by a recent near-fatal beating of a young man at the park and a gang-related shooting near the school, there is no time to wait.
The fact that organized gangs are in Whiteville should give every resident great cause for concern, and not just those who live in the immediate area. Once gangs gain a foothold and recruit more followers, they will spread their tentacles even farther and can be extremely hard to combat, especially with summer just around the corner.
Westside Park will be emblematic of the struggle to control gangs, which apparently use the park as a meeting place. We disagree with Councilman Harold Troy’s comments Tuesday night that the park should not have been temporarily closed. It was done because illegal activities at the park are a threat to Central School. When the school superintendent and school principal make the request for the sake of the safety of schoolchildren, it’s time to listen.
Whether intentional or not, the temporary closing also sent a message -- sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
When the park is taken back from the criminals and parents and grandparents can feel good about taking their children there, one important part of the fight -- winning back the park -- will have been won.
We encourage Mayor Dial Gray, city council and community leaders to initiate a gang task force not in May or June, but now. This initiative should involve council, the police, volunteer organizations such as the DREAM Center, the community, the schools, churches and outside law enforcement agencies that know something about gangs, among others.
Whiteville Police Department has pledged to step up patrols in the area and has, but the department is understaffed and can only do so much in the short run.
It’s easy to see what gangs have done to neighborhoods in places like Los Angeles, but perhaps we thought that would never happen here.
It has, and we can’t wait until July 1 for action.