From the back and side of the Italian Club:

Stony, I'm a member of the Italian Club and I'm cold mad.
That s*%# wasn't there yesterday. I'm going down there tomorrow...be assured, it's going to be gone.

As always, thank you for your reportage.

You do realize it's the Italian club on Horne's Way, next to the Seneca Building, and not the Italian club near Tops?

Not sure if the Crips turf reaches all the way down to the Tops area. ...... yet!

The first picture of the "tag" that you posted is a "Latin Kings" tag and that concerns me even more (although the crips tag concerns me very much) than the crip tag. The latin kings in this section of the country are more of a New Jersey gang, and have been moving inward for the last 5 or 6 years. The crips are moving down here from Buffalo and it's mostly Bloods in Philly. If there is more than 1 gang hanging around in town it is likely to get very bloody and I really hope that the city of Bradford is enlisting the help of the state police and their resources to look into this.

The citizens won't sit idly by for much longer.

I have heard from a very reliable source, that a lot of drug deals go on behind the Seneca building and the "IA" club, and the general area around the Terminal building. Speaking of the "IA" club, is it going to sit in perpetuity in the condition its in? Seems to me with that building removed it would open up that whole area. Add some good lighting, and yes, even a beat cop, and maybe these guys loitering in broad daylight, the gang tags, gang fights, gang retaliation etc. might be reduced or eliminated. I have noticed a recent resurgence in grafitti around town as well.

Something I learned in the 90's, when the Chicago gangs were making a concerted effort to expand into outlying towns like ours, is when gang tags appear remove them immediately. I can't say exactly why this works other than not allowing them to stake out turf. But state, county, and local police all to agreed this was essential. So was a no nonsense approach by the police and the school authorities. In addition, they asked for citizen reports of suspicous activity and they responded. Everything was aimed at showing the gangs they weren't welcome here and keeping them in the spotlight.

I'm not naive enough to think we stamped out all gang activity but they did go away for the most part after a while. Maybe we just pushed them to other towns that weren't as vigilant. What I'm sure of is if you ignore the signs and do nothing, the problem will get worse.

Citizen,

Ha ha! Those are workers for an out of town contractor taking a break who are working on the Seneca Building for UPB. Notice they are all wearing the same shirt? Are you just another racist who judges a book by it's cover? Certainly would seem so.

Seems like an odd allegation as the whole area around the Seneca Building is under video coverage.

BornToRun wrote; "So was a no nonsense approach by the police and the school authorities. In addition, they asked for citizen reports of suspicous activity and they responded. Everything was aimed at showing the gangs they weren't welcome here and keeping them in the spotlight.

I'm not naive enough to think we stamped out all gang activity but they did go away for the most part after a while. Maybe we just pushed them to other towns that weren't as vigilant. What I'm sure of is if you ignore the signs and do nothing, the problem will get worse." So we have to decide here in Bradford, if we are more concerned with protecting a ficticious image, or ridding our town of these unwanted guests. I personally dont think that the 'keep the public in the dark' method is working, or that the taxpayers as a whole like it. There seems to be a disconnect between the mayor, the police and the public. It also seems to me that when the town starts buzzing about this, some low to mid level arrests are made, then all gets quiet again. What i was hearing before, at least on the record, was that the local Police welcomed help from the State Police due to their work load. If we need help dealing with this problem, why not ask for help from the State police instead of the opposite. Maybe if we tried to keep the Thugs and Drug dealers out of town as hard as we are trying to keep the State Police out, we wouldnt have this haven for criminals and lowlifes. To answer Newts question, No, i cant tell the difference between the Thugs dealing on their cell phones on our streets and the workers lingering on the street corner. That must have just been the Zippo maintenence crew over there the other night...

And yes, Newt is right, one should never assume... I should never have assumed that Pitt would use local labor.

Thank you JeffT for an excellent post.

"The powers that be" want to put their heads in the sand and deny that there are any drug dealing gangs in Bradford. The people know better.

We need the city police, state police, and a county drug force all working together to fight this. IMHO

Well the 20 person brawl that involved a baseball bat and car dragging took place under cameras didn't it?

Cameras can only witness crimes, not prevent them.

It's obvious to all the citizens that "that neighborhood" .... crip turf ..... needs to be patrolled at night. A beat cop would go a long way toward discouraging the gang presence.

Why did Bradford stop enforcing the graffiti ordinance? Why let the gang tags stand? That Latin Kings tag has been up nearly a year.