Las Cruces street gangs: less violence, still committing a lot of crime

There are about 4,000 members of a dozen or so affiliated and home-grown gangs in Las Cruces and surrounding communities, police say, but they don’t behave the way they used to.

“We don’t see the Bloods shooting the Crips in Las Cruces anymore,” said Officer Paul Lujan of the Las Cruces Police Department’s Street Crimes Unit. “It’s all about drugs and money.”

Members still have strong affiliations with the gangs they belong to, as demonstrated by their colors, tattoos and hand-thrown signs, and by their nicknames and the gang symbols they use for tagging. “They are proud of who they are and what they represent,” Lujan said. The difference today is that gangs have learned to cooperate with each other for a common goal, he said.

“Money is more important,” said Sgt. Frank Lucero, who has been the unit’s supervisor since May 2019. Gangs, he said, are focused on “seeing how much money they can make in the dope business.”

“It’s all about business,” said Officer Nathan Krause, who has been a member of the unit for five years. Not all gang members are “standing on a street corner in their colors throwing signs,” he said. “They are normal-looking people that are going to blend in. They don’t want to be recognized like they used to be.”

Some members of different gangs are part of “groups that are not structured at all,” Street Crimes Unit Officer Manny Frias said. In those cases, they are all working together in “a culture driven by money,” said Frias, who has been with the unit for five years. And, they use cell phones and social media to communicate with each other.

Different groups may be dealing different drugs, Lucero said, but methamphetamine and heroin are the most popular because they’re the cheapest to produce.

LCPD formed the Street Crimes Unit in 2005 because of an increase in drive-by shootings and other gang-related violence, Lujan said. “In 15 years, it’s changed quite a bit,” he said. Lujan has been with the unit since it started. The unit has four full-time officers, with others rotating in and out of the unit on a regular basis.

LCPD Chief Patrick Gallagher said of the members of the Street Crimes Unit, “their overall knowledge of criminal activity in Las Cruces is impressive and definitely impacts public safety in Las Cruces. Any time we have a serious criminal incident in town, whether it be a homicide or a serious crime, if we need to find a suspect, these are the go-to guys,” the chief said. “If they’re not the ones who find the suspect, they’re intimately involved.”

Because gangs don’t follow jurisdictional lines, LCPD works closely with the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Department, the New Mexico State Police and police departments in El Paso, Alamogordo, Deming, Silver City and elsewhere to deal with gangs. LCPD is always careful not to profile or label anyone as a gang member without documentation, Lujan said.

For some, Lujan said, gang membership is inherited because it’s part of the family they grew up in.

“They’ve seen it their whole lives,” he said. Older gang members tend to focus more on “business,” he said. They have families and they try to avoid trouble. Others, usually younger gang members, “make a lot more noise,” Lujan said. And, while gang members don’t like talking to the police, he and other gang unit members have been able to build rapport and mutual respect with some of them.

“We’ve learned that if you say you’re going to do something, you better do it,” Lujan said. Telling the truth and keeping your word is vital, he said, if a law enforcement officer doesn’t want “to lose face on the streets.”

“We feel sorry for them,” Lucero said. “It’s a horrible life.” Many gang members have grown up in very difficult home situations, he said. “You feel bad for them.” Some older gang members, especially if they’ve been shot or stabbed in a gang-related incident, may try to talk their children out of joining a gang, he said.

Poverty is an issue, Krause said, because young gang members see an opportunity to make more money selling drugs than they would working at a low-wage job.

“They’re great cops, but great cops also care about people,” Gallagher said about the Street Crimes Unit members. If there’s a way to “make somebody take the right course of action in their life, these guys will find it,” the chief said. They also work with LCPD school resource officers in individual schools to help students of all ages learn about the dangers of gangs and drugs, Gallagher said.

A huge majority of gang members are armed, Frias said, often with handguns. “There’s money, there’s dope, there’s going to be a gun,” he said.

“Those are the three major food groups,” Krause said.

In addition to dealing drugs, Frias said, gang members also sell guns underground, shoplift and commit burglaries, auto thefts and sometimes even home invasions to make money.

A lack of state gang enhancement laws is the most frustrating part of serving in the unit, Frias said. “All these states around New Mexico, why do they have gang enhancement laws” but New Mexico does not? “That’s my biggest frustration,” Frias said.

Under California’s penal code, for example, anyone convicted of committing a crime as part of a criminal street gang can have one to 10 years added to his or her sentence.

“The first step moving forward is tougher laws” and more rigorous prosecution of gang members who commit violent crimes, Krause said.

Tougher laws, judges and district attorneys are key to dealing with criminal street gangs, Frias said. They need backbone, he said, and a willingness “to stand up and say, ‘This is my community.’”