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This week Savannah Mayor Van Johnson tried to answer a question about gang violence in the city but in the end provided only more evidence of how one avoids referring to gangs in public.
"It would be irresponsible for me to call... sometimes we have groups of people that are engaged in music, engaged in sports, and people say they’re a gang," said Mayor Johnson in an interview with WTOC this week. Johnson stated "I don’t have the slightest idea" how many gangs there were in the city of Savannah.
Chatham County Sheriff Richard Coleman held a news conference less than a month ago to say that 18 groups of people that the Sheriff’s Office has intelligence on must immediately cease to exist. He said some of the groups are tied to the Bloods, Crips and Vice Lords. The Sheriff’s Office did not provide documentation for how each of the 18 groups was identified as a gang by law enforcement, reported WJCL.
Johnson did acknowledge that there are street gangs operating in Savannah today, telling WJCL, "We know we do have street gangs here," and he has listed out all of the things that are being done to deal with them, including the fact that the Savannah police department has had a gang unit for about 10 years. The city also funds a prosecutor that works out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to deal with violent crimes and he said overall violent crime is down in the city of Savannah, according to WTOC.
But then Johnson went on to explain in some detail why he believed some groups of young people were not gangs. He acknowledged that not every incident of youth crime was gang-related, and he said police should make their case in court rather than in social media posts. Johnson told WTOC he was "glad the sheriff wants to get involved" in addressing the problem of gang violence in Savannah.
A shooting took place on September 26 near West Bay Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the downtown area of Savannah. At least 27 rounds of ammunition were fired, according to WTOC. Although video was captured of individuals running from the scene of the shooting, no gang connection has been established by the Savannah police in the recent shooting, though the sheriff called it gang activity. As was reported by WTOC, last year’s Oglethorpe Mall shootout left a woman dead after she ran from the gunfire, and six men now face a 71-count indictment that includes charges of felony murder and gang-related charges.
It is a difficult question for a mayor to respond to on the topic of gang violence in his city, but that does not mean he has to answer it with a disclaimer about the unfairness of labeling certain groups as gangs. He can lead with strength on this one.
Savannah residents don’t need a primer on the different kinds of criminal gangs out there. All they need is for their Mayor to acknowledge that gangs are a problem in the city and to assert that he stands behind the police and the prosecutors who are working to combat them. That he spent a press conference about gang violence on the unfairness of labels instead is unfortunate.
Savannah has a gang unit, a federal prosecutor funded by the city, and the numbers of violent crime are decreasing. But what the city needs is the right tone on this matter of growing concern, as the sheriff in the area lists 18 gangs and there is gunfire downtown.
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