By focusing so heavily on the Hispanic MS-13 gang, Montgomery County Police are glossing over a much more dangerous and steadily increasing group, the Bloods, one of the nation’s experts on gangs told The Examiner.
Det. Patrick Word, the lead gang officer for the Gaithersburg Police Department and president of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Investigators Network, said this week that information presented to the public at a summer news conference was at least six months old and does not tell an accurate tale of the gang situation regionally.
Testimony given at the news conference by prominent Montgomery and Prince George’s county officials overwhelmingly gave the impression that MS-13 is the biggest threat. But Word said the gang of which law enforcement should be particularly wary is the Bloods, an African-American gang based out of Los Angeles, whose strength and numbers are growing by the day.
“They are the largest threat, especially in the D.C. suburbs,” Word told The Examiner. “The police and the politicians have gotten control over the MS-13 situation, but they’re putting too much into it. You can’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
Sgt. Chuck Welch, who is in charge of Montgomery County’s gang task force, acknowledged that the Bloods are on the rise countywide, with an increasing number of neighborhood gangs modeling themselves after the infamous gang and citizens joining the ranks while in prison. However, he said the strategy in Montgomery County, at least at present, is not to go after Bloods in a targeted fashion.
“Both [Bloods and MS-13] are dangerous, but in the past MS-13 has been our primary perpetrators,” Sgt. Welch said. “The Bloods just recently started to crop up with us … the way we’re broken down is by district. As we see groups emerging, then we start focusing on them.”
Data collected by MARGIN six months ago credited the Bloods with having 400 members in the region, but Word said that number has since more than doubled to 860. And what’s worse is that this is a gang known for committing more serious crimes.
“They’re into violence, robbery, extortion, prostitution, auto theft, everything else but drugs,” Word explained.
MS-13, meanwhile, is being portrayed by police and the media as more damaging than its members truly are, according to the detective, who said that the gang is gradually morphing into a subdued version of itself.
