By Luis Martinez

Harry Hu grew up in Hong Kong around the constant reminder of gangs. It was a concept that was not new to him when he immigrated to San Francisco and began attending MacAteer High School.

"I knew a lot of them, some of them were friends," explains Hu, director for Oakland Police Department's Gang Unit. "I know all about these guys, how they do things - their mind set."

What was a shock to Hu, who arrived in the Bay Area in 1974, was that unlike their counterparts in Hong Kong, these gangs would often use guns to settle their disputes.

"In Hong Kong, nobody had guns - not then at least," he adds.

Moving into law enforcement after a stint at San Francisco City College, he became an Oakland cop in 1981. A decade later, he was promoted to sergeant and placed in charge of the seven-member gang unit that monitors Oakland's 42 known gangs. Hu estimates that between 3,000 to 4,000 gang members claim membership in either African American, Asian American or Hispanic gangs.

"There's such a fluid movement of the members," Hu says. "Some move between the groups and some just move out altogether. It's very difficult to nail down the number."

Of those, Hu explains, 40 to 50 percent are juveniles. Bogged down by many other areas the unit must accomplish including gathering as much intelligence on all the criminal groups found in Oakland, continuing a partnership with merchants and community leaders in the areas they serve and prepping other police officers who must patrol gang neighborhoods, very little time is left over for prevention.

An occasional speech at a high school has to do. But even Hu admits, one or two times is barely enough for the officers to regain that certain amount of respect that's been lost and to quell the mistrust of the police that's arisen from people's experiences in their neighborhood.

The first contact he'll have with people in the community, especially with most juveniles, is strictly business.

"Usually when these people come to us, they're going to jail," says Hu maintaining that his unit's primary duties remain enforcement and suppression of gang activity.

The unit's headquarters are nestled in a small wing of the criminal investigations department. Arranged along a few desks are stacks of files and books nearly to eye-level. Somewhere on the desktops is room for another tool of the trade, a computer to keep track of the information that pours into the office everyday. The quarters are cramped and suspect and witness interviews are conducted in a room no bigger than a pair of phone booths put together.

Here, Hu has been tackling Oakland's gangs since 1991. He wasn't on the job very long when he arrested three juveniles in connection with an extortion plot on several Chinatown merchants who were being forced to pay $50 a week in exchange for "protection" from the youths.

He knows that there is a chance to push most juveniles away from the gang life. Because for the countless numbers of people he sees on a regular basis, there are also those he sees once and they never come back.

"Mostly younger teenagers," he admits. "They're not very involved yet, they're not very sophisticated."

The constant struggle he says is to destroy the image that gang members have developed for themselves.

"Every chance we get tell kids to stay out of this, there's no reward in joining a gang," he says. "Make no mistake about it everyone we see joining gangs ends up either dead or in jail"

HOME

CONTENTS