WRAL Documentary: 'Easy Targets' -- gangs getting younger in NC

There are a problem everywhere

Everywhere in the US

Gains are a virus

They are largely involved in driving crime and violent crime

particularly gun violence violent gang members

They bring drugs into our communities

These criminals are poisoning the minds of our Children

I think it's helpful to identify what a gang is

a definition of a gang is

Three or more people with the same common beliefs working

in concert committing crimes

We know what a gang is

We know gangs are in North Carolina

How big of a problem are gangs in North Carolina

I think it's a big problem

We as late as we've got acknowledge that there is

a problem

Does Raleigh have gang problem Oh yes most definitely like

any other city Raleigh's not immune

Raleigh's not exempt from that

Charlotte Raleigh Rocky Moun Wilmington Fayetteville Greensboro Winston Salem

But there's so much the general public doesn't know about

gangs including what gangs are here

The South has seen an explosion over the last 20

years in the bloods crypts Sereno Nortenos Latin Kings gangster

disciples and the list goes on and on

What crimes are these gangs committing Some may sell drugs

Do frauds do robberies criminal enterprise

What we're doing is search warrants in Rocky Mountain Wraoch

County Sheriff's offices here

Nash County Sheriff's office

We just got done with the briefing

I'm gonna ride along with Sheriff Stone as they go

and serve these search warrants

We're after the bad actors the distributors the gang members

that are carrying guns and the ones that's causing chaos

in these communities

come out

Let's go

What kind of drugs are around there Uh Heroin fentaNYL

and guns the WRL documentary unit learned gangs are recruiting

younger and younger members

Tell me when you first were introduced to gangs probably

about 10

I mean when you were younger were you in a

gang Aged 1313 1415 years old

But now these kids are there's an issue they're not

fighting they're shooting

We heard from person after person who told us a

well intentioned law change this juvenile justice reform a few

years ago go too far

Is making it easier for gang members to recruit kids

When the state of North Carolina raised age we raised

the crime

The challenge is that the way that law has reverberated

in the streets today I'm overcapacity in juvenile detention because

these young people are being told a lie by these

gang members that they won't get in trouble

And the truth is very different

It's only two things when it comes to gang and

it ain't three it's two that's dead or in jail

We wanna grow a child and we wanna give them

a chance

They are easy targets

If we don't go to easy targets for gangs

Let's start with the back story on really how we

met Andrew

We interviewed so many people for this documentary all across

the state

And each story you'll see really helps you understand the

issue with gangs and young people and the impact on

the community

But the story that really sticks out because we just

never expected to get it was Andrews

We were in Nash County to get interviews after spending

the entire previous day with deputies as they served search

warrants

Anyone

One of the interviews we were getting was with Michael

Cannon

My name is Officer Cannon Sergeant Cannon with the Nash

County detention Center here in Nashville

He's in charge of classifying gang members in Nash County

and then figuring out where they're housed in the jail

A lot of times gangs are separated in jail and

prison because it stops fights and we're told it's really

to protect the jail employees

He said there are 10 criteria that will validate someone

as a gang member and the person has to meet

three out of the 10

So if they don't come out and tell me there's

several indicators we could look for big ones are their

tattoos

Tattoos are a story that tells it all

It's it's hidden in artwork

So you have to really study their tattoos dress code

wearing a certain type of colors

Are you hanging stuff off a certain side Handwriting is

a big one

You know are they capitalizing your CS But lower ca

crossing out their BS or vice versa Passing out CS

or this won't right with CS at all

You know that could be a sign that she might

be a crib or vice versa

You might be a blood

We learned a lot talking with him and then the

interview is over and we were chatting

Yeah I just got off night shift

I asked him do you have anyone We might be

able to interview someone who used to be involved in

a gang life You know we were told so many

times that once you're in a gang you're never really

out that some people are just less involved than others

He said hold on

I have someone in mind

He leaves the office

We thought he was gonna maybe text someone or call

someone in the community who we might be able to

interview

We're just sitting there waiting

Next thing we know Sergeant Cannon is back

He's with a young man in an orange jumpsuit in

shackles

This man is in jail

He's in a gang and he's willing to tell his

story

We agreed not to show his face or use his

real name

And when I asked him what he was in for

he said murder

Andrew grew up in North Carolina

He said he was around gangs forever since he was

10

They were just so common just a part of everyday

life but he didn't join one until later

That's that's the crazy part

I grew up going to a Baptist church to play

baseball

I was a good kid

Really The gangs and and everything never really influenced me

the way I thought they would until later on in

my teens

That's when everything started taking a lift

I was stealing cars

I was selling drugs

You just kind of got caught in it

He ended up being sent to a juvenile detention center

in Butner North Carolina

I was at Polk Youth Center

It's a youth prison

It's 17 to 21 and pretty much fight every day

People were 20 doing life

It was wild

They got nothing to lose in there

That's why violent

That's when people were forced into gangs and then you

ended up joining one

Yeah I didn't want to be in the crossfire

I'd rather be with someone that promises good and bad

but there's no really good in it

So when you got out of prison did you stay

in that gang I did

There's not really you can't really get out of it

especially when you tattoo it on yourself

My specific game we did community drives like help the

community

We got together and picked up trash

So we did good to give back for the bad

that we did

But you can't sell drugs and ruin life and pick

up trash and expect to heal

You know what you're doing It just doesn't work that

way

You said you're in for murder Yes Andrew told us

someone was attacking a family member and he ended up

killing them

We asked if being in a gang desensitized him or

was related in some way this prison that does that

to you

I've seen people get held down on the bed and

stabbed

I've seen people go to the shower and get stabbed

I've seen people about to go home die

It really changes your perspective and the way you act

when you have to fear for your life every day

And now he's back in jail in the place where

he first joined a gang

What's your biggest regret My biggest regret joining a gang

I wish I had never got involved in it

If you would have had like a mentor like somebody

who really cared about you showed an interest

Do you think it would have helped You definitely would

have helped I didn't have a father figure

He was in prison for murder for 14 years of

my life

If I had someone who could have shown me a

better way of I think things would have turned out

a little different

We spent a lot of time talking about mentoring when

we were in Edgecombe County

That's where we interviewed Sheriff Clee Atkinson

A lot of the gravitation to the gang life

They want to feel love

His big thing is trying to reach kids before they

go down the wrong path

But really even when they do he doesn't give up

on them

And the proof of that is when I asked him

if he knew anyone involved in the gang life that

I might be able to interview

Next thing I know I'm talking to a gang member

who agreed to do an interview later that day

Thank you so much for we agreed to hide his

identity

Atkinson has known and tried to help this man for

years

I helped him get his license all about sitting down

with them and say hey man listen do you know

I want you to be when the police stop you

or law force will stop you I want you to

be able to stop me hand them your driver's license

I don't want you to run because you don't have

a license and you're a gang member

He's like man nobody's ever sat me down to teach

me these things when Sheriff Atkinson called you and said

hey there's this reporter who wants to talk to you

You automatically said yes

Yeah

Why Because I trust him he never let me down

about nothing

Sean joined a gang as a teenager

I'm not gonna use it as a crutch

Like not having my father around because my dad did

prison time

My whole juvenile life growing up and my relative that

I was around half of them was drug addicts

So it wasn't gonna be no you know don't do

this don't do that

He told us you know the gang offered this brotherhood

that he just didn't have the love

Like I said I was getting from people that I

didn't even know not knowing that it was gonna get

somewhat out of hand or out of control

What was the moment where you said I am no

longer doing this when I started losing too many close

friends I'm talking about doing life double life sentences in

prison being dead

It messed with me in all type of ways but

I don't believe in the nonsense that they do out

here and shooting this and doing all that

That's a past tense life for me Sean has a

family a legitimate job and no record in North Carolina

I'm living I'm free

I'm not on no paperwork

I'm buying a house and you're trying to reach young

people to say you could do this too

I want it so bad man

That's my dream

He wants to reach kids like Sheriff Atkinson finally reached

him and I was doing my share of messing the

communities up

I'm trying to be a person that helped rebuild it

He's ready to tell the story after a lot of

years and admit hey man we've done some damage now

It's time for us to do that

That's what he said

He said I wow

He said I've really damaged the community

Who wow

Didn't know that

Yeah

I didn't know that

Said I've really hurt the community

I wanna I wanna do something else now

But who's gonna tell them you know who's gonna teach

him who's gonna show them It's a better way coming

up a needed law change

South Carolina is a step closer to raising the age

of adulthood in the justice system with an unintended consequence

Basically I hate saying like it's a free for all

Hey it's here

It's real and we don't hide it

We didn't just talk to people in rural counties for

this

They were just the first to be like absolutely

Let's talk about gangs in North Carolina

And if you have leaders in your community that is

reluctant to tell you that you have this type of

activity that's scary to me

Gangs are in several neighborhoods in the city and the

FBI is investigating them

These two alleged gunmen being heavily involved in a gang

Durham has a well known and documented gang problem

They trade gangster Crips which is responsible for a significant

portion of violent crime and drug distribution in the Durham

area

The Durham police would not do an interview on gangs

and they wouldn't say why

It's surprising because we did an entire WRL documentary on

their challenges in dealing with gun violence called Durham under

fire

But again they said no this was not the case

with Raleigh police

My name is Estella Patterson and my title is Chief

of Police for the Raleigh Police Department

Her take though was different than many of the other

people we interviewed are gangs a problem in Raleigh

You know that's a question that we often get are

gangs are a problem

I think you have to put things in perspective

You have gangs everywhere

We have gangs that are problematic that are concerned to

us

But just to say that it is a problem

I think that's a loaded question especially if you don't

give context to it

You know we have talked to sheriffs we've talked to

retired detectives we've talked to advocates we've talked to people

who were in gangs and they all say emphatically it

is a problem

Raleigh has a very big gang problem

Oh yes most definitely

They are a growing problem for sure

But you're not you're not saying that what I'm saying

is when you base it on other cities um Even

pure cities our size

I don't believe that our gang problem or our gang

issues are as great as those other cities

We wanted to know the metric for how they were

measuring this

So I asked Lieutenant Brian Bracy who investigates gangs about

numbers specific to Raleigh

How many gangs are there in Raleigh So we do

you know track our gang members as far as reporting

and things like that keeping up with the crimes that

they commit

But I just I don't have the numbers for the

exact number of gangs that we have

But you have those numbers right Because if you're not

tracking it how can you say that the problem here

isn't as bad as some of these other cities Well

think when you look at our crime numbers the amount

of shootings that we have the number of homicides the

size of Raleigh you know being the top 50 biggest

cities in the nations our crime numbers are way low

So again we looked at the numbers we pulled the

crime rates for 10 cities about the same size as

ours places with between 425 and 515,000 people

Raleigh's crime does fall towards the bottom with less than

500 violent crimes per every 100,000 people

Oakland California while smaller in size has a crime rate

three times

Raleigh's if there's something that's connected to a gang certainly

we're going to talk about that

We don't want to create widespread panic in our community

by labeling everything as a gang problem or a gang

issue

Beginning next week the state will raise the legal age

to be charged as an adult from 16 to 18

The one subject many of the people we interviewed were

on the same page about raised the age the law

stopped 16 and 17 year olds from being charged as

adults in North Carolina except for violent crimes

North Carolina was the last state to make this change

We know that when North Carolina raised the age legislation

passed in 2019 that that was a wonderful thing because

we understand fully that juveniles their brains aren't fully developed

And that's why we passed the law because we understand

that these young people are different than adults

The issue is not with the law itself but how

law enforcement officials say gangs are using it with raise

the age

Our juveniles are becoming more emboldened to commit crimes

The challenge is that the way that law has reverberated

in the streets is to make young people believe and

to allow gang leaders to tell them that they won't

be held accountable so they recruit the young to do

it

Basically I hate saying it like it's a free for

all

And so what you see are juveniles just running and

gunning they're carrying guns they're doing carjackings they're doing shootings

very reckless because the frontal lobe isn't fully developed

Some of these 1617 18 year olds will kill you

as quick as anything else

In 2019 juveniles committed nine 178 violent crimes in 2022

The most recent data available the number more than doubled

to more than 2300 violent crimes under raise the age

juveniles who commit violent crimes can still be sent to

adult court

More than 400 kids were transferred in 2023 we've got

to do a better job as adults dem mythify that

making sure that young people understand

There truly is still accountability

William Lasseter with the division of juvenile justice doesn't want

to see more kids tried as adults

He wants the adults held accountable if you were the

adult that was pushing for that kid to do those

types of crimes that you would be the one that

would be facing those serious charges

Instead of the kid

Republican Senator Danny Britt an attorney from Robison County has

introduce legislation House Bill 834

That would automatically send 16 and 17 year olds who

commit violent offenses to adult court

Instead of starting in juvenile court these juvenile crimes are

moving faster through the justice system than what they would

on a juvenile court docket

That same bill would up the charge for adults who

entice juveniles into committing a crime

You will be punished just as though you committed the

crime yourself

Not everyone is convinced these changes are worth it including

Representative Marsha Morey a former judge in Durham

I mean I left the courthouse and being a judge

because I was so involved in doing the right thing

and raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction

But now we're saying let's change the raise the age

law let's put 1617 year olds automatically in the adult

system in while she wants adults held accountable she's not

sold on adults facing the same crime as the kids

they convince to break the law

So this legislation I think we're going way too fast

for the wrong reason while the bill advanced the Senate

and the debate in Raleigh continues in Edgecombe County

I get two trays today darling

And what about a murder No bombs

There's a program desperately trying to reach kids early because

you don't need to be in here

I don't need to be in here

I'm mad at myself

But you know what I might feel like taking my

anger out on you today

Next let's end this in Edgecombe County where 12 kids

are getting a look at their possible future

It's this program called Will To Live

You're not here because you've been good

Ok Sheriff Atkinson and his staff do this once a

month

He asked us to blur their faces but he let

us show most of the day we cover them up

we take them inside and we dress them out in

inmate uniforms

They go to a local funeral home

Y'all done

Heard a million times

The pastors are going on either his jail or his

death

Looks like you guys already been in jail

So we gonna pretend like we died where the kids

fill out their own death certificates

I gotta ask them what's what's your favorite color Not

for your favorite shirt Not for a pair of shoes

not for a hat for your casket

They see the embalming room

These are real bodies here

The only difference between them and y'all is that they

live their lives

They're 8090 years old

We done bear four young people this year already

We learned 15,000 kids went through the North Carolina Juvenile

justice system last year 40% of those kids had a

parent that was not willing to help them if we

don't put forth the effort

Who will the kids go to jail We let them

talk to local gang leaders that's in our jail

They come up and try to talk to them

Look this is not the way to go

You know what you know what they call a pond

murder block

No bombs

You need to listen up and pay attention because y'all

were here right now because you ain't acting right

The inmates do not hold back

I'm from Rocky Mount

You know I was just like y'all used to have

my way

Couldn't tell me nothing spoiled

I'm kinda ashamed to look y'all in your faces because

I'm around some of my peers

My dare teacher I'm accused of narcotics trafficking

But r y'all going you'll be back here

You don't want that

They yell at the kids when they're disrespectful

You heard the man stand up

You don't show respect to these officers in here

They ain't gonna do a thing for you son

I promise you that you're gonna be one that's come

back in here

I see you

One of them hard headed ones

That anger problem you got

You think you're the only one

Look at my hands you see my pinky right there

Look at this one

I can't even hold it straight

It's broke all that's broken right now

You know why Because a girl thought she was bad

and hit me with a food tray and I beat

her till my hand was broke

You don't want this this is not the life you

want

I promise you you don't want you don't want me

Baby said she that hand broke right You still bad

do it do it

You ain't

But a scary little girl I think your tears will

end up right then

Boo boo

You can act hard how you want to but get

the back here in two more years because you're 16

right You ain't got two more years and you will

go straight back here straight back here trust and believe

if I ain't here there's gonna be a that's like

me

It's intense

But for some of these kids time is really running

out those kids that we were able to get involved

with

Within the first year their involvement with gangs

We got 70% of them out of the gangs and

of the kids involved in gangs for two or three

years

Only 10 to 15% got out based on their choices

and their actions

This is actually where they can land

The program's name will to live came out of a

conversation that Sheriff Atkinson had a few years ago local

gang members out of the city of Rocky Mount they

said we need a wheel to live because right now

we don't see it

The gang member who came up with the name was

Sean the man Atkinson finally reached but I called him

I said can I use the name And they said

yes

Now they're hoping for these kids

The will to live is found much sooner

If you feel like you're a big guy and you

want to be out here gang banging on these streets

you'll end up dead or in jail

So you guys are just gonna write down all the

problems that you have anything that's holding you back

We're gonna write them down that sticky note and we're

gonna bottle them up and we're gonna throw them in

the casket and we're gonna bury them so you can

go ahead and go for it

Each one of you individually is gonna walk up there's

a mirror in the casket and you're gonna stare at

it

and you stare right into the office until you can

leave because you still gotta change

You still got an opportunity to change

Instead of burying yourself

Let's bury the problem

Let's fix some things

This is it it's real