Parents should watch for warning signs

If you have a child in a Visalia elementary school, chances are he or she is going to get to know Rob Zieg. Maybe you should, too.

Zieg is a Visalia police officer who speaks to just about every second- to sixth-grader every year, as well as to teachers and other school officials and to parents.

He warns students about the dangers of gangs and how to avoid them.
He trains teachers to spot the signs of gang activity among students.

And he holds classes for parents on the possible warning signs of gang involvement or "pre-gang" signs and what to do about them.

"Parents need to know what their kids are doing, who their friends are, what's in their rooms, their backpacks. That's what's going to tell them who their kids are," Zieg said.

Dealing with the problem early is the reason he talks to children as young as second grade. He's seen third-graders wearing gang-style clothing, flashing gang signs.

"Second-graders can tell me what the [gang] colors are and what the numbers mean," Zieg said.

Some also can tell them about parents in prison for gang activity, the crimes committed in their neighborhoods by gang members and where they hang out.

"Once they're jumped in [a gang], they're pretty much in a gang for life," Zieg said. So he hopes trying to dissuade children from gangs well before they hit their teen years will keep some out.

But Zieg's work may not be enough unless parents act, too. And, he said, that can begin by looking for possible warning signs that their children may be involved with gangs:


Change of attitude and behavior
"Disrespect is one of the first signs. Are they being disrespectful, and are they basically staying out late and not inviting their friends over? That's the start of it," Zieg said.
He added that children may start using course language and make gang references around their parents and other family members.

If youths are involved with racist gangs, they may make a lot of racist comments, Zieg added.

And being disrespectful to parents and society is among the ways gang members gain status among other gang members, he explained. "Because the gang, of course, is their family. That family sets the rules."


Criminal activity
That disrespect can extend beyond a child's household and manifest as criminal activity.
"The more crimes you commit, the more respect you get from the gang members," Zieg said.


School
Children involved with gangs may lose interest in school, Zieg said. "If that happens, then we've got a problem."
Often teachers are the first to notice the changes, so it's important for parents and teachers to talk, he added.

But school problems don't always manifest in the lives of gang members.

Zieg said he knows of Asian gang members who have been top students and still hang out with their gangs after school.

And if children bring knives or guns to school, "it's usually for protection," which probably means other youths, possibly rival gang members, are after them, he said.


Drugs
Law enforcement members throughout Tulare County say gangs and drugs go hand in hand, with many gang members not only getting high but also trafficking drugs to fund their activities.
"Parents need to look at drug activity, paraphernalia, like little smoking pipes," Zieg said. "Alcohol, that's a biggie."


Music, video games and magazines
Lyrics about killing, guns, shooting cops and gangs, as well as video games with similar themes can give clues to the mindsets children may be developing, Zieg said.
"That's society to them. That's what they believe is right," he said.

Tulare County Sheriff's Detective Joe Aguilar, who runs gang-prevention programs for schools in unincorporated parts of the county, said magazines and books with photos and drawings of gang members or content glorifying drugs, weapons and violence also should be of concern to parents.


Computers
If their children have e-mail or MySpace Web page, parents should look at them, as youths often post photos and comments that could show gang involvement, Zieg said.

Writing in school books and notebook
Children scribbling in their notebooks and school books is nothing new, but what they're putting down may be among the biggest clues of whether they are involved with gangs.
"Basically, the writing is all about '14' and '13,' " Zieg said. Those are some of ways youths signify the Norteño and Sureño and gangs.

Other symbols can include "15," symbolizing Asian gangs, while swastikas, "311" and "88" are used by racist gangs.

"We've seen some of the kids with gang writing in their binders and comments made as far as 'scraps' and 'busters,'" said Shirley Williams, vice principal at Fairview Middle School in north Visalia.

Those are derogatory terms for gang members.

"That's not something we tolerate at school," Williams said. And parents are notified, she added.

As school books go, Aguilar said, parents should ask, "are pages 13 or 14 highlighted or marked out?"

And police said there are children who will not answer questions 13 or 14 on tests or avoid using Ns (connected to the Norteño gang) and Ms (Sureño, or Mexican Mafia) in their homework.


Clothes
Trying to get a gauge on gang involvement based on how youths dress isn't always easy.
Certainly, there are gang members who wear red or blue or other colors to show their affiliations, but Aguilar said that occurs a lot less than it used to.

And some of the "gangster" styles have found their way into mainstream fashions. So some youths may dress like gangsters without actually being gang members.

Even some of the sports shirts and jackets may have meanings to those involved with gangs that parents don't see.

For example, Zieg said, some Norteños like to wear Oakland Raiders jackets and shirts because "Oakland Raiders" has 14 letters — for "N," the 14th letter in the alphabet — and part of "Raiders" spelled backwards is "red," the gang's color.

And among gang members, "NFL" may not mean "National Football League," but rather, "Norteño for Life."

And Norteño girls have even adopted the Francisco 49ers shirts and jackets that say, "SF." To them, that stands for "Sweet 14," Zieg said. "So a lot of our girl members love those jackets."

And children avoiding certain colors could be a red flag, too, Williams said.

But no one thing is necessarily a sure sign a child has fallen in with a gang.

Zieg recounted one incident of a student wearing to school a bright blue T-shirt with the number 13 in large letters on the front.

The boy wasn't a Sureño, however. His mother had given him the shirt for his 13th birthday not realizing both the number and color might lead people to think the boy was a Sureño, Zieg said.

By the same token, he said, playing "Grand Theft Auto" a violent video game, or drug use or a change in attitude doesn't make a youth a gang member.

Often, it's the various signs taken together that parents should consider, and they can contact school resource officers to discuss what they've found and decide on courses of action, which may include the officers providing one-on-one counseling to the youths or referring them to other programs that may help.

Zieg said it's particularly important to get youths involved in after-school activities to keep them away from gang influences, and he has found that "church is a must" in further helping these youths.

"That's where the mom and dad come in. Those two are so important to make this work," he explained. "We cannot change a kid's mind. We can give them the tools, but we can't make them go to church."

And parents can't be timid about looking through their children's rooms and backpacks and computers.

If they find "negative" items — music with themes, gang literature, T-shirts showing people with guns or glorifying gangs, etc. — they need to get rid of them, Zieg said.

"Parents are in charge of the house. That stuff needs to be taken away immediately," he said. "The house needs to be a no-gang house."

And if parents are scared of their children, they still need to take action, Zieg said. "Because a kid who is in a gang is probably in charge of the house."

Getting parents in parenting classes may help, he added.

And parents can call police if they commit crimes or threaten them, Zieg said.

While getting their children arrested may not be what parents want, it could be the best thing for those youths, as their sentences could compel them to get counseling or land them in the county's juvenile boot camp, he added.

Of course, some parents are too scared to call police

"You've gotta do it. You've gotta make the call. You've gotta make the change. You can't live in fear," Zieg said.


By David Castellon
Staff writer
The reporter can be reached at dcastell@visalia.gannett.com.