Gang hotspots in ChattanoogaThe task of stopping gangs in Chattanooga is going to take people who will quit pointing fingers and start holding hands.
That’s what several local leaders say about findings in a six-month assessment of gangs’ presence and impact in city and county schools and the larger community.
“Everybody knows we have gangs — you didn’t need a study for that,” said Ann Jones Pierre, with the community-building Neighborhood Alliance.
“The question is, what is the community going to do about that? It’s not one person’s responsibility. Everybody in government is going to have to help. It’s your responsibility with our tax dollars.”
But that’s going to mean overcoming profound distrust of the very institutions entrusted with finding solutions — the criminal justice system, elected officials, church leaders, nonprofits and schools — documented in the study by the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies.