Gangs are not just Chattanooga's problem because communities outside the city limits are seeing a rise in gang-related crimes, police say.
"We do have a gang problem, and the longer we ignore it, the more problems we're going to have," said Hamilton County Sheriff's Lt. Gene Coppinger.
For the last eight years, the lieutenant has worked with the sheriff's office and other agencies to identify gang members in the county's jail population, then share that information with police in the field.
Not all community violence is gang-related, officials say, but when 60 percent of the city's shootings can be linked to gang activity and those groups spread into outlying areas, city police and sheriff's deputies see the same problems.
Lt. Van Hinton, who works narcotics for the sheriff's department, said drugs and property crimes are calling cards of gangs. He said he's seen a spike in the amount of gang activity in the county's unincorporated areas over the last three years.
"I would say that the Hamilton County community at-large is impacted by it," he said.
He sees the solution as a "block-by-block" education of residents on what to look for with gang activity, which is similar but can differ in the more rural areas as compared to Chattanooga.
There is less street-level drug dealing, he said, but more use of houses in which to sell drugs. Buyers usually come to houses for frequent, short visits near the first and 15th of the month, when many drug users receive their paycheck, he said.
The scale of the problem is not along the levels of "LA or Chicago or Detroit or Atlanta or D.C.," he said. "We're Chattanooga. It could be a lot worse than it is now. We are putting the right things in place to combat this."
A community response
Some of the solutions have been discussed at length in a number of meetings over the last two weeks in the wake of two fatal shootings in two months at the Kanku's on Wilcox Boulevard.
Following the shootings, store owners met with City Council members and brought in more security during certain store hours. Community groups met to discuss the problems, and County Commissioner Greg Beck held a rally, calling for a ceasefire in violence among youth in Chattanooga neighborhoods.
Mr. Beck said he is working with community churches to adopt Brainerd High School, Dalewood Middle School and Woodmore Elementary School. The details are incomplete, he said, but he hopes the adoptions will offer mentorship and afterschool connections between the schools and churches.
Also last week, the U.S. Attorney's Office held a previously scheduled gangs summit which brought in 300 people from schools, clergy, law enforcement, courts and local government.
City Councilman Peter Murphy who, along with Councilman Russell Gilbert, have held or attended many of the recent meetings, said the gang summit was a "sea change" in the way the problem has been addressed.
BE ON THE LOOKOUTBelow are some signs your children may be involved in a gang:* Change in lifelong friends and reluctance for you to meet their new friends* Change in style of clothing, wearing of one color predominately* Negative contact with people of authority* Any interest in or the making of graffiti* Symbols, including tattoos, body piercing* Violent outbursts* Being secretive of where they are going and whom they are meeting* Poor school performance* Fear of going to school or disinterest in attending school* Drug and alcohol useSource: New York Gang Investigators Association
Roots of gang problems begin with concentrations of poverty, poor parenting and lack of options, all areas that defy simple solutions, he said.
"One of the ways that you do it is by standing up and saying out loud, 'I can't do it alone,'" Councilman Murphy said.
Robert Schreane, chairman of the North Brainerd Community Council -- a consortium of nine neighborhood associations in the area -- has held meetings with his group and Mr. Murphy and is planning a meeting with Kanku's owners next week.
Mr. Schreane is calling for a more consistent approach to violence and its contributing factors in the community. In the past, he said, neighborhood leaders have worked with city offices to clean up blighted areas and also with police on increasing patrols.
Both have been successful, but only for short periods, he said.
Richard Beeland, spokesman for Mayor Ron Littlefield, said police and other city services will respond when called.
But there isn't enough manpower for police to be on every block nor is there enough staffing in other city departments to tackle every issue of blight without the community calling to report such problems, he said.