![]() ![]() Last year, Salt Lake Valley gangs were responsible for 94 aggravated assaults, 54 robberies, 97 drug offenses and six homicides. In 2003, the number of serious gang-related crimes was double that of two years earlier. From 2001 to 2004, the number of documented gang members in the Salt Lake Valley rose from 3,781 to 4,544. Salt Lake City’s gang violence, once thought to be under control, has escalated in recent years. The Salt Lake City area, despite its clean-cut reputation, has all the ingredients to create gang culture, according to the National Youth Gang Center: ineffective families and schools kids with too much free time limited career opportunities and segregated, often ghettoized, neighborhoods. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, 91 Western cities outside of California have reported gang problems. Now, smaller cities such as Reno and Boise have serious gang problems, too. ![]() In the Intermountain West, gangs have pervaded cities like Albuquerque, Phoenix and Denver for decades. But it was also maddeningly ordinary: Islanders shooting other Islanders has become routine in Salt Lake City gang life, which, contrary to popular belief, is now worse than ever. The violence at Suede was the eruption of tensions that had been building for years between the gangs. His attackers were members of the Baby Regulators, another Tongan gang, and one of the Tongan Crips’ most-hated rivals. It didn’t take sheriff’s deputies long to find the signs of gang conflict: As the crowd poured out of the club, they found graffiti scrawled in marker on Club Suede’s walls, and heard shouts'“Glendale will make good on this!â€ĭetectives later learned that Tangitau was a longtime member of the Tongan Crip Gang, a Polynesian street gang that had started in California and spread to the Salt Lake Valley. As fighting erupted over his body, he bled to death in the mountain air. 22-caliber handgun that punched into his heart from point-blank range. ![]() But it was too late for Toke Tangitau: Under the bassy beats of the band, none of the police'and few of the revelers'heard the shot from the. Sheriff’s deputies called to the scene ordered Dube to stop playing and the patrons to evacuate the club. The fighting escalated into what police described as a riot dozens of clubgoers traded blows. They assaulted him on the dance floor and then dragged him out to the balcony, where they stomped on his body and kicked him in the face. Suddenly, a group of men attacked 30-year-old Kautoke Tangitau, also known as “Toke.†Someone in the front threw beer onto Dube. Just after the band began to play, pushing and shoving broke out in the audience. The good-natured revelry was short-lived. They crowded in with brothers, sisters and cousins, amping up for Dube’s outspoken lyrics and mellow backbeats. ![]() Famously large, and often tattooed, the young men and women had roots in Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii and other Pacific Island groups. The show was a reunion of sorts for young Pacific Islanders, many of whom had made the trip up from the Salt Lake Valley. Inside, they hovered shoulder-to-shoulder in the close confines of the club. At Suede, a nightclub just outside of Park City, a crowd gathered to see reggae musician Lucky Dube. 14, 2003, a warm, Indian summer’s night settled over Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. ![]()
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