DA urges crackdown on street gangs

Morrissey tells panel more money needed to do job

Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 22, 2007 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey wants to get more aggressive in finding the city's most dangerous street gang members, but says it would cost nearly a half-million dollars to do it.

Without it, he told a City Council committee Wednesday, his office will be reacting to crimes as they happen, instead of going after the increasingly sophisticated gang leaders.

"I don't like feeling we're in a reactive mode," he said.

Council members seemed surprised to hear of shortages in the district attorney's office and ready to support an emergency appropriation of $460,000 to add two attorneys and an investigator to Morrissey's unit.

Council Member Jeanne Faatz, traditionally a fiscal conservative on the council, said the measure had urgency and she was eager to get the appropriation going "right now."

Other members of the council's safety committee urged the district attorney to get a request quickly before the council.

"We should fund whatever is needed," said Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez.

Council President Michael Hancock said the city should go "posthaste" in beefing up gang prosecution, not waiting for another celebrity shooting like the New Year's killing of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams.

He said there have been many other victims who have not been "fancy enough for the media."

Mayor John Hickenlooper said he was surprised by Morrissey's presentation. He said the two had talked over the issue for the past month and the mayor had obtained $150,000 in private funds for the district attorney.

"I thought that was sufficient," he said. "We must've had a miscommunication."

The private donors prefer to remain anonymous, said Hickenlooper. As for raising the rest of the funds, Hickenlooper said, "I don't think that will be hard."

Morrissey said he had not gone to the meeting intending to talk of funding needs. But when asked directly by Faatz what he immediately needed, he responded.

The money would cover investigation of unsolved cases for 18 months, he said. He said the mayor had never asked him how much he needed, as Faatz did Wednesday.

Morrissey and the police said that Denver gangs are graduating from young gangbangers trying to carve out criminal territory, to a more organized crime approach where old gang members, often fresh from prison, are more interested in making money than fighting turf wars.

Morrissey made his unscheduled appearance at what was to be a police presentation to the committee on Denver's gang problem.

But after the presentation - where police said its 41-member gang unit is battling 8,800 gang members - the focus shifted to Morrissey.

The district attorney said he headed a well-funded gang unit as a deputy district attorney in 1998 that had five lawyers, two full-time investigators and civilian help.

But the unit was disbanded by his predecessor, Bill Ritter, because of budget cuts.

After the meeting, Morrissey said Ritter, who has gone on to be elected Colorado's governor, had no choice but to slash the unit because everything was being cut to the bone.

After winning Ritter's office in 2004, Morrissey reconstituted the gang unit, though it remained a shadow of its former self.

And that's the problem, he said. While the district attorney's office has taken a step back, gangs have been going the other direction.

The shift is toward more organized crime as old gangsters try to work together to make money.

In that environment, past approaches to fight the gangs no longer work, he said. Once, prosecutors and police thought that what you needed to do to control gangs was to "cut off the head of the snake," Morrissey said.

But now, when the leader is hauled off to jail, what's left behind is a younger and "more dangerous" gang that frequently engages in "far more violence."

The best way to fight the gangs is to bring grand jury indictments against the entire organization, from the leaders to the soldiers, he told council members.

Gangs in Denver

8,811 Denver gang members

5,331 Denver police contacts with gang members in 2006

1,761 Misdemeanor gang arrests last year

1,093 Felony gang arrests last yearSource: Denver Police Department

kilzerl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2644

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News