By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 27, 2009

Efforts by a street gang to recruit Fairfax County youths have led to the arrests of seven Chantilly area teenagers, ages 13 and 16, and county officials said yesterday that the episode serves as a reminder that middle school-age youths are the most vulnerable to being lured down the path of delinquency, drugs and even violence.

But as Fairfax police announced the March 18 arrests, county officials noted that their anti-gang efforts are having a positive effect. More than 70 percent of the county's seventh- and eighth-grade students attend after-school programs, academic performance has improved sharply for those in the programs, and police report a 32 percent drop in youth gang activity from 2006 to 2008.

Still, gangs have not vanished from the affluent suburban community. And this time, the Latino gang Sur 13, with roots tracing to a notorious Mexican prison gang in Southern California, tried to pick up more members at Franklin Middle School, just off Centreville Road in western Fairfax County, court records state.

A student at Franklin reported to the school resource officer that a student approached him during lunch period and asked him to join his gang, according to an affidavit for a search of the alleged gang leader's home in Chantilly. When the student refused, the leader told him not to mention the recruitment to anyone, the affidavit stated.

A second student also reported that he had been approached by the same person while at Franklin and was told that he could either get "jumped in" -- in which a 13-second beating is inflicted as a gang initiation rite -- or do "missions" to earn his membership. Sgt. William Fulton, who supervises school resource officers in western Fairfax, said missions could range from burglarizing cars to stealing cars to destroying property or spray-painting gang signs, known as "tagging."

The second student also told police that he felt intimidated, and his fear led him to participate in the "jumping in" of a Chantilly High School student, the police affidavit stated. The second student said he was taught hand signs that the officer recognized as being from the Sur 13 gang, and the student was told to wear blue clothing at school and at home.

Another student said that he participated in a "jump in" by recording it on his cellphone, the police affidavit stated, and police later watched that video.

Youths first report feeling the push to join gangs between ages 12 and 14, said Robert Bermingham, coordinator of Fairfax's anti-gang programs.

Paul Regnier, a Fairfax schools spokesman, noted that anti-gang teaching begins in health classes as early as fourth grade and intensifies in seventh grade.