Yakima County

Are civil liberties at risk if we implement laws that might bring relief to communities terrorized by out-of-control gangs?

A delegation of Yakima Valley residents appear willing to put those civil liberties on the line, telling lawmakers that they simply can’t take it anymore.

One high school senior told members of the House Judiciary Committee that she and her siblings have been forced to crawl around on the floor of their home to avoid gunshots aimed at a neighboring house, Beth Leah Ward reports in the Yakima Herald online.

"I don't think it's fair that I have to be afraid for my little brother and sister," Anna Aburto, a senior at Davis High School, told the House Judiciary Committee. "I'm afraid to go out in my neighborhood."

I recently wrote about this problem in Outlook, a small town in rural Yakima County, where one six-block area is home to as many as 150 gang members, where one in every five residents is said to be in a gang. The unincorporated town is only sporadically patrolled by Yakima County Sheriffs’ deputies, and has been plagued by shootings and assaults. There are few community resources for dealing with kids lured by gangs.

At least eight of two dozen homicides in Yakima County last year have been linked to gangs.

It’s a small town America we’re not accustomed to reading about. Yakima Herald-Republic reporter Melissa Sanchez vividly describes a six-block area of the unincorporated town of Outlook in rural Yakima County in central Washington, home to as many as 150 gang members and only sporadically policed.

She writes of a sheriff’s deputy shot in the leg by one gang member to impress other gang members. Of a 22-year old man charged with shooting and killing a 14-year-old runaway after she planned to report being raped at a party in town. Of the shootings of at least three teens in the past 16 months. Of a community where one in every five residents belongs to a gang, and many of the rest live terrified behind locked doors.

No community block watch groups exist here. There are few organized activities for young people. Law enforcement falls to the Yakima County Sheriff's Office, but only four deputies are on patrol at any given moment for the entire Lower Yakima Valley, a sprawling geographic area. And often, the sheriff admits there are even fewer deputies on patrol.

The community has cobbled together a response. The sheriff’s office and school district have joined forces to obtain a small grant - $40,000 – to hire a social worker to go into homes after gang-related arrests and help connect the families to needed social services.

"We found that poverty is a big contributor to why people get involved in gangs," said Heather Elmore, education services manager for the Northwest Community Action Center, which is involved in the project.