Teens say gang activity common in northwest

Erica D. Johnson

Friday, Aug. 29, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.

Some local teenagers say the recent arrest of nine alleged gang members charged in a violent attack in a northwest neighborhood didn't surprise them because gang violence is prevalent at Las Vegas Valley high schools.

The nine teens police say are part of a gang called the 311 Boyz were arrested last week and charged with multiple felony counts in an attack that left another teen with serious injuries.

Most of the teens involved are students or recent graduates of Centennial High School and Cimarron-Memorial High School. Police said the teens were from middle and upper middle class families.

Police in Metro's Gang Unit say the teens also videotaped themselves committing a string of other violent acts in neighborhoods around the high schools throughout the summer.

"There is no doubt in our mind that this is a gang," Sgt. Dave Stansbury said. "We're strictly sticking with a gang mentality."

High school students from the schools said Thursday that this type of violence is nothing new to area high schools, where battles between gangs play out on a daily basis.

Marie Valerio, a senior at Centennial, said students at the school were familiar with the 311 Boyz, but that there are at least 10 other gangs visible on the Centennial campus.

In addition to the 311 Boyz, many teens claim to be affiliated with Skinheads, a white supremacist group, as well as the Bloods and the Crips, street gangs that originated in South Central Los Angeles, she said.

"There's every kind here," she said.

Valerio said the visibility of gangs at the school appears to have subsided since the arrest of the 311 Boyz.

"People aren't getting in trouble as much anymore," she said. "They're getting smarter now."

Most students at Cimarron-Memorial said they had never heard of the 311 Boyz until the teens were arrested, but that Skinheads, Bloods and Crips were prevalent at their school.

"There are definitely gangs at this school," said David Lewis, standing outside Cimarron-Memorial Thursday after school.

Lewis said the gangs are most visible in the hours after school and that gang rivalry often fuels fights in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus.

"I've seen many people get jumped over there," Lewis said, pointing to a soccer field across the street from the campus. "In the parks, on the street, across the street."

Darnell Couthen, spokesman for the Clark County School District Police Department, would not comment directly on the amount of gang violence at local high schools, saying his comments could interfere with Metro's investigation.

He noted, however, that a police presence on campuses generally reduces gang violence. Two uniformed officers are assigned to every high school in Clark County and they also patrol the neighboring communities, he said.

"We're very proactive," he said. "Because of our presence, any gang activity that might be there is reduced. We don't see a lot of it."

The officers handle criminal activity at the schools, but minor altercations are usually handled by administration, he said.

Metro Police said the teens charged in the July attack threw rocks and beer bottles at Stephen Hansen, Craig Lefevre and Joe Grill during a melee that broke out when the three tried to leave a party in the gated community of Canyon Terrace in Summerlin.

Hansen suffered severe facial injuries in the attack.

Ernest Bradley Aguilar, 17, Steven Gazley, 18, Jeff Hart, 17, 16-year-old twins Anthony and Brandon Gallion, Matthew Costello, 17, Christopher Farley, 18, Dominic Harriman, 19, and Scott Morse, 18, will be charged as adults.

They face 13 felony charges, including attempt murder and battery with use of a deadly weapon, among other charges in the attack.

Stansbury said the gang's members have confirmed that the name 311 stands for KKK, because K is the 11th letter of the alphabet. It was still unclear, however, whether the gang is affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan.

"I don't think it's any relationship with the (Ku Klux Klan)," Stansbury said. "We think they are a completely different group. When you confront them about this, the first thing they say is, 'No, it's different.' "

Stansbury said the group could have chosen the name for an "intimidation factor," not because they are members of the hate group.

He said some of the teens have mentioned that the name could also be associated with a rock band of the same name.

But several Centennial students who knew the teens said the 311 Boyz were well a known hate group around the school campus.

They said the teens had Nazi paraphernalia attached to their backpacks and some of them have tattoos promoting racism.

"They have a lot of Nazi stuff," Valerio said. "They all have tattoos and stuff."

Rikki Sinclair, a sophomore at Centennial, said she knows the teens are affiliated with a racist group, but that the teens didn't cause problems at school.

"They were really nice guys so when I found out, I was like, whoa," she said. "We never had problems with them. When they go out and drink and get drunk, it's a different story."

Samantha Ryan, a sophomore at Centennial, said the teens' arrest won't necessarily lead to the downfall of the gang.

"There's still more here," she said. "There's just going to be more and more and they'll do the same things the others did."

Many of the teens' attorneys said they were unaware of the significance of the gang's name and most of them deny that the gang even exists.

Gazley's attorney, James "Bucky" Buchanan, said Metro detectives are "barking up the wrong tree" by classifying the group of teens as a gang.

Gabriel Grasso, Brandon Gallion's attorney, said he didn't know what the name meant but that he doubted the teens were affiliated with a racist group.

In order for a group to be considered a gang, he said, the group has to have a history of committing crimes. No past crimes have been proven, he said.

"Legally, they can't classify this as a gang," he said.

Andreanna Gray, a sophomore at Cimarron-Memorial, said she's seen several fights between other gangs break out in school hallways.

She said school police are quick to intervene when those types of confrontations occur. Still, she said, school police have little control over what happens off school grounds.

"I know a lot of kids who bring weapons to school to use after school," she said. "It just depends on who says what and at what time."

Ja Niece Smith, a sophomore at Cimarron-Memorial, said violence between gangs at Cimarron-Memorial has subsided since last year. Most students involved with violence last year were suspended, she said.

So far this year, "there might be issues, but I've never heard about anything serious," she said.

Joanne Gray, Andreana's mother, said she worries about her daughter's safety while on school grounds, but trusts that school police will keep campuses safe.

"It's always a big concern, especially in this environment," she said. "You just have to trust the system."

Gray said school officials can only do so much. She said she hopes parents will take note of the violence that is plaguing their children's schools.

"We'd all like it to stop, but it starts at the home," she said.

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