South County ‘Bully Gangs’ Turn Nasty

The Sheriff’s Department has intensified its gang enforcement efforts in response to a new breed of suburban gangs in south Orange County made up of mostly white, well-to-do teenagers who are blamed for a string of unprovoked assaults and novice crime sprees.

The so-called “bully gang” phenomenon has given birth in the last two years to roughly 25 new cliques that now account for about a third of all gang membership in South County, according to Sheriff’s Department investigators.

Officials stress that the new groups are distinct from the traditional warring gangs, such as the Crips and Bloods. They don’t carry guns, pull off drive-by shootings or get into violent turf wars, authorities said.

At first, the teens--who model themselves after the grease-haired tough guys of the 1950s and go by such names as “Upper Class Rebels” and “Wanderers”--limited themselves to small-scale vandalism such as smashing car windows, officials said.

This tameness initially forced investigators to rethink the differences between a street gang and a clique of rowdy teenagers. But over the last year the gangs have unleashed more random assaults on unsuspecting victims--usually other teens who are younger and alone, officials said.

“These kids have money and cars and lots of time,” said Sgt. Dave Cherman, who supervises the department’s Gang Enforcement Team. “You have boredom in suburbia and kids with resources, and it’s bound to add up to trouble.”

Several members of a group known by investigators as “Greasers” found it amusing that their circle of teenage friends could ever be classified as a potentially dangerous gang.

“We’re just kicking it, that’s all,” one 16-year-old boy said, lacing up a pair of white Converse sneakers identical to those worn by each of his friends. “We’re not full-on gangsters or anything. That is like so stretching it.”

Slumped in patio chairs outside a yogurt shop at a Dana Point shopping center, the boy and two other Dana Hills High School students admitted they are often bored and get themselves into mischief. But they said the worst they do is pick fights and tease “geeks.” One time, they said, they toilet-papered a teacher’s house.

Nonetheless, the growing rosters of bully gangs and what police describe as increasingly violent behavior have prompted the Sheriff’s Department to step up its monitoring of the teens.

The Gang Enforcement Team has taken to mingling with teenagers at shopping centers and apartment complexes, football games and parks. They seek information about parties and ask about how the teens are doing in school and with their girlfriends.

The information goes into hundreds of detailed dossiers that investigators have compiled on teens they suspect of being gang members.

Because most bully gangs are not turf-oriented and instead have members living in any number of South County cities, the sheriff’s team also pays regular, unannounced visits to their houses. Investigators said they know what cars belong to which gang members, who in turn know the deputies by their first names.

“It’s all you can do. You just try to connect,” Deputy Dave Chewiwie said of the constant visits. “A lot of these kids are teetering on the edge. They don’t want to mess up. I’ve had kids look at me and ask me if I’m mad at them. That’s when you want to reach them. It’s your only chance.”

While gang-related violence overall is down in Orange County, gang membership has risen sharply since 1996, to its current estimate of about 24,000 known members, according to police and probation officials. Of the 700 or so who live in South County, about 250 fall into the bully gang category, they said.

“It’s all recreation for them,” said Deputy Jerry Larsen, a four-year member of the gang team. “They go to parties, smoke dope and beat the hell out of someone for fun. It’s classic thug behavior, but we know how quickly it can get out of hand.”

Officials have not compiled specific crime statistics for the bully gangs but say they are becoming increasingly violent:

* Earlier this year, seven teenage members of a loose-knit Mission Viejo bully gang allegedly attacked a 12-year-old boy in the arcade room of a bowling alley, where they surrounded him and severely beat him with a metal pipe, authorities said. It was the first display of violence for a gang that had up until then been known only for spray painting its insignia on walls and buildings, officials said. The teen suspects were arrested, and the case is pending.

* In a random attack last summer, members of a gang called “Slick 50’s” stabbed a boy several times, seriously injuring him, Cherman said. The group--whose members live in Laguna Niguel, Dana Point and Laguna Hills--had never met the victim but targeted him one night as he walked alone down an Aliso Viejo sidewalk, officials said. The suspects are now awaiting trial.

* Last month, police allege, three bully gang members attacked a 92-year-old Laguna Hills woman as she walked home from the grocery store, stealing her purse and leaving her bleeding on the sidewalk with a gash in her head. Police have made no arrests in the case.

“It’s so frustrating because these aren’t kids who have the full-on gang mentality or gang-family-tradition thing burned in their heads,” Larsen said. “They aren’t dealing with Crips jumping them every day on their way to school. They don’t come from broken families where there’s no support or guidance. There’s just no reason for them to do this. It kills me.”

But gang experts said they are hardly surprised by the formation of such groups in new suburban communities, which often lack the youth outreach programs, YMCAs and other neighborhood centers found in older areas.

“The typical mind-set in these suburban communities is ‘We don’t need that stuff because we don’t have a problem, not here,’ ” said William McDonald, a research consultant at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “They don’t plan for it, they don’t address it, and they don’t think about it.”

Marlene de Rios, a child psychology professor at Cal State Fullerton, said residents of such neighborhoods often allow themselves to feel insulated from outside pressures, which makes it more difficult to spot a change in their children’s behavior.

“There’s neglect and denial everywhere,” de Rios said. “Parents aren’t home. They’re not connecting. Their kids are going out of their minds with restlessness.”

Gang investigators say the teens, who hang out at the patio tables in front of coffeehouses in the upscale shopping centers of Dana Point and Laguna Niguel, are camouflaged by their upscale surroundings.

Instead of wearing the impossibly baggy pants and bandannas typical of traditional gangs, they favor slicked-back hair, Levi’s jeans and plain white T-shirts. Some drive vintage Ford Thunderbirds and Mustangs, complete with color-coordinated fuzzy dice dangling from rearview mirrors.

“Appearance-wise, they fit right in in these neighborhoods,” Cherman said. “The way they look, the way they dress, the type of cars they drive. . . . You wouldn’t even key up on them.”

The “Greasers” sitting outside the yogurt shop in Dana Point said there is nothing sinister about their “Happy Days” look. Rather, they described it more as a fashion fad, a retro clothing style that has caught on throughout their schools.

One 15-year-old member said the real problem in South County--one that he suspects is fueling what officials see as an emerging bully gang problem--is simply boredom, a universal complaint among teenagers.

“There’s nothing to do,” he said, running a blue plastic comb through his already smooth hair. He rolled his eyes. “Everybody thinks it’s such a great place to raise a family and all that. But it’s so lame down here. You have to like make your own fun.”