Fairfax Shows Progress in War on Gangs

4-Year-Old Effort Makes Headway, but Recent Recruitment Episode Sparks Fears

Quietly, the word "machete" has vanished from the headlines. Fairfax County had no gang-related homicides last year, and it has had none this year. Since 2005, total gang-related crime in Virginia's largest county has dropped more than 15 percent, even as overall crime has risen the past two years.

A coordinated, countywide attack on gangs in Fairfax, using social services, schools and churches as well as police, which began four years, ago seems to be working. Still, a recent episode of gang recruiting at a middle school in Chantilly, in which six 13- and 14-year-olds were arrested, reminded parents and police that gangs will not go away and helped fill a community meeting room at the Sully District police station last week, with residents eager to keep Fairfax safe.

"We've got the resources," said Bob Bermingham, who became the county's first gang-prevention coordinator in 2005. "But if we let up, you're going to see those numbers rocket."

From a tiny office inside the Fairfax juvenile courthouse, Bermingham helps marshal the county's vast resources to plug service gaps and assist police in battling gang influence. He also works with the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force, founded by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), which helps fund gang intervention and prevention services as well as traditional law enforcement.

And Bermingham, along with Fairfax gang Detective Jeff Bergman, makes house calls. He and Bergman, when alerted by an officer, parent or neighbor, will visit the home of a teenager who is on the verge of delving deeply into a gang.

"We'll sit and talk with the parents, and the kids, in their home at night," Bermingham said. "The kids are usually quiet; sometimes they'll just sit and stare." But the early warning can sometimes be the alarm families need to rescue their children from a desperate future.

Time and again, gang members have told researchers that they join gangs because they get the feeling of belonging to a family there that they don't get at home. Or they join because they have nothing else to do after school or because of a sense of hopelessness.

Although Bermingham has drawn in the county's parks, recreation, health, human services, family services and other departments to help keep teens from gangs, some of his most successful efforts have involved Fairfax police and their willingness to take nontraditional approaches.

As gang violence increased early this decade, Fairfax police "realized that we're not going to arrest our way out of it," Bermingham said. "Chief Dave Rohrer and his department have transcended the traditional methods of policing to make this happen. They've gone above and beyond just enforcement."

Some of the examples Bermingham cited:

The Road DAWG (Don't Associate With Gangs) program, in which police officers take at-risk middle-schoolers into a week-long day camp that exposes them to the positive, even fun, sides of policing. In the program, started in 2005 at the West Springfield station, 10 to 15 officers take kids to the driving range, training academy and shooting range, conduct activities and generally try to connect with the 11- to 14-year-olds. The program has been expanded to three district stations, and students are brought back months later for follow-up meetings.

In Springfield, Officer Al Cruz started a soccer league for Latino kids who couldn't afford the fees for standard recreation leagues. "I never seen a police officer like him," one 13-year-old told a reporter last month. "He's nice. He cares about us." Cruz speaks to the youths about drugs and gangs and tries to keep them from darker activities.