10,000 gang members roaming the streets of Essex County

10,000 gang members roaming the streets of Essex County, and Thomas Fennelly has a dossier on every one of them.At a clandestine location in Newark, Fennelly watches over a small group of law enforcement agents who work out of a room littered with pictures of known gang members. Computers and filing cabinets line the walls, containing everything the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office needs to know about the seven street gangs that run drugs and guns through the county’s 22 municipalities."This is the nerve center," he says.
Mitsu Yasukawa/The Star-LedgerA detective in the V.I.P.E.R. Unit looks into the various tattoos and signs in the Intelligence Section at their unit headquarters in Newark.The room filled with documents is the nucleus of an intelligence-based initiative that law enforcement officials say is starting to turn the tide in Essex County’s tireless battle with street gangs and drug traffickers. Since the V.I.P.E.R. Unit, a combination of the prosecutor’s office drug and narcotics intelligence bureaus, was formed in the spring 2008, it has arrested 298 suspects as a result of targeted investigations. Fennelly said 115 of those are documented gang members and 62 are gang associates.In all, Fennelly said the unit has led the charge in dismantling six narcotics rings operating in the county.He said the unit’s success has been spurred on by a simple virtue — patience."We are attacking cases on a methodical basis. A few years ago, a lead may have been developed that two individuals were affiliated with a particular (gang) set, or were selling drugs at a location. We would get there, setup our initial probable cause, and arrest those individuals," Fennelly, director of the V.I.P.E.R. Unit, said. "We would put them out of business temporarily, but soon other people would be there.V.I.P.E.R. — which stands for violence, intelligence, prosecution, enforcement and recidivism — has three assistant prosecutors, three lieutenants, 18 prosecutor’s office detectives and a rotation of detectives from local police departments and the county Sheriff’s Office. The close-knit makeup of the unit allows investigators to quickly share information and analyze crime data to pinpoint hot spots for the drug trafficking believed to be at the heart of county wide gang activity, chief of detectives Anthony Ambrose said.

"The gang problem here in Essex is based solely around drugs. It isn’t like the gangs in Los Angeles where problems happen because you are wearing the wrong color,"

Ambrose said. "It’s mainly drug dealers, runners and couriers all the way down to the street level."Mitsu Yasukawa/The Star-LedgerThomas Fennelly, director of Essex County's 'V.I.P.E.R.' Unit, discusses investigation procedures for next operation plan during a briefing at their unit headquarters in Newark.
The task of pouring through the stacks of violent crime data falls on Toniann Mattea. As the prosecutor’s office lieutenant of detectives assigned to the V.I.P.E.R. unit, Mattea receives and dispenses intelligence connected to nearly every shooting, assault and homicide that takes place in the county, which allows detectives to identify crime trends and work to close out gun violence cases quickly."We have recognized that we have to get after the shootings, because when you feed them in, they become the basis for a later homicide, a later gang retaliation," said Prosecutor Paula T. DowThe unit has worked closely with a bevy of agencies ranging from local police departments to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Ambrose said through close cooperation, law enforcement officials have been able to eliminate borders between agencies in the county and setup a unified front against street gangs, especially the area’s most prominent organization, the Bloods.The combined effort was key in a summertime take down, dubbed "Operation Bloodette," leading to the arrest 43 members of a female-led narcotics ring that flooded Essex County with more than $2.5 million dollars of PCP, crack cocaine and marijuana each year."We noticed street level dealers in Valisburg. Some of the players involved saw a heavy East Orange police presence in the area and thought they would get away by moving their stash houses across the street to the Newark side, not realizing that all sides were working together," Fennelly said.Once the drug dealers are taken off the streets and brought before an Essex County judge, V.I.P.E.R’s trio of assistant prosecutors have been able to use asset-forfeiture statutes and harsh plea agreements to keep them from reclaiming their territory. Of the 70 defendants arrested in a string of high-profile raids in 2008, all but one have been either indicted on charges stemming from their arrest or pleaded guilty.Prosecutors attribute the courtroom success of V.I.P.E.R. unit cases to Dow’s decision to assign specific assistant prosecutors to the unit, rather than trial courts, which allows them to be involved an investigation from the date of arrest to the opening arguments of a trial.East Orange Police Chief Ronald Borgo believes information sharing with the V.I.P.E.R. unit has been key in helping local police in Essex County stay on top of gang activity in their municipalities.
"It’s great to be pro-active and collaborate with the Prosecutor’s Office, to be able to give them intelligence and then be able to receive intelligence back immediately so we can hit the ground running to improve the quality of life out here," Borgo said. "Chief Ambrose has an understanding of the problems of our cities."Ambrose and Dow’s understanding of gang activity in the county is straightforward — they said each set is a disease that needs to be cured"

Gangs are much like a cancer," Dow said. "We are removing them. We are eliminating the structure."