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Show Sunday,August21, 2005 F DAILY HERALD -‘@ANGs ofZion istand siiaduws. «5 sign on Skull Valley Road points to losepa, the site of a formersettlement ntof Mormons from the Pacific Islands. The church evacuated the settlement in the early 1900s, after disease and harsh winters tooka serioustoll onthe population. Despite the hard times, manysettlers cried on their way out oflosepa, prompting the name“thetrail of tears.” lIosepa exposed the difficulties ofstarting over in this harsh, isolated environment, even for the tenacious MormonSaints. This early ethnic ghetto also revealed that Zion’s many tribes mightnot settle together so seamlessly. Gangs try, and trying to grow traditional foods such as seaweed in briny reservoir water, were intensely Continued from Al shouts — “Glendale will make good on this!” hard work. They suffered from harsh winters and endured an outbreak of leprosy. Between 1907 and time memberof the Tongan Crip Gang,a Polynesian the church built a temple in Hawaii, and over the toSalt Lake Valley. His attackers were members of the Baby Regulators, another Tongan gang, and one of the Tongan Crips’ most hated rivals. The violence at Suede was the eruption of tensions the remaining losepans to return there. losepa exposed the difficulties of starting over in this harsh, isolated environment,even for the tena- Detectives later learned that Tangitau was a long- street gang that hadstarted in California and spread 1916, about 10 percent of the population died. In 1915, course of the next few years, church leaders paid for ee es ‘They spokein unaccented English and carAmerican citizenship. Yet they still stood out. “Everyone was goingto football practice, and our ore The problem was much closer to home than “Wewould drive right to the address,” Een “and I thought, ‘Holy smokes,I know these looking out for each other. house was the hangout,” says Fotu Katoa, director of the state's Office of Pacific Islander Affairs, who attended Salt Lake's East High in the early Lie revealed that Zion's many tribes might not settle cious Mormon Saints. This early ethnic ghettoalso “When we heardabout Hisparics beating up But it was also ma ‘ly ordinary: Islanders shooting otherIslanders has become routine in Salt Lakegang life, which, contrary to popular belief, is te so seamlessly. churchcontinued to proselytize throughout from East to help out the brothers.” In the Intermountain West, gangs have pervaded Polesia In Mormon churchesand schools, mis- sionaries spread heroic stories of the prophet Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young and the Utah pioneers. cities like Albuquerque, Phoenix and Denver for decades. Now,smallercities such as Reno and Boise haveserious ones problems, too. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, 91 Western cities outside of California have reported gang problems. They yenne, Wyo., Great Falls, Mont., Twin Falls, Idaho, and Grand Junction, Colo. Gangs are even turning up in towns as small as Coeur d'Alene,Idaho, and Lake Havasu City, Ariz. They'vearrived in rural Indian Country as well. The Salt Lake Cityarea, despiteits clean-cut reputation, has all the ingredients to create gang culture, according to the National Youth Gang Center:inef- The Latter-day Saints and the Polynesians forged a powerful cultural bond, based on shared values of family and authority. In Mormon teachings, obedience is paramount — to church leaders and to parents. “The LDS Church is morein harmony with our culture and waysthan any other church,” says Cliff Chase, a West Valley City police officer and a memberof the Mapusaga Ward, a gtegation. “In a sense, we were already Mormons. Chase,like other Mormons,believes the Islanders’ fective families and schools; kids with too much free destiny was pre-ordained. According to traditional time;limited career opportunities; and segregated, often ghettoized, neighborhoods. Utah has its share of domestic violence, as well. Last year, 23 people died as a result of violence in the home. And according to a recent report from the governor's office, the numbers are on the rise. Salt Lake City’s gang violence, once thought to be are tes, descendants of Israelites who fled Jefieclerh Caines bilorethe birth of Chive or wit wereguided to the Americas. Tradition holds that the Lamanites declined over thousands of years and would be brought back to God through theefforts of modern whites. under control, has escalated in recent years. From church teachings, Polynesians and American Ii graffiti to signal attacks on enemy gangs. violence, the Salt Lake City Police Department orga- that had been building for years between the gangs. now worse than ever. and orse, FTesponse tothe rise in L.A.style gang Thy werner hey we essen their parents of what that meant. Isolated from both tiene paienke a iter Aric ness fy eared Polynesian at South High, we'd drive down Thefirst generation Just as Salt Lake’s young Polynesians were beginning to band together, gangs crept in from Los Angeles. There, Latinos and African Americans were fighting over control of neighborhoods in ee a Oe ee ManyPolynesians — Tongans into these dangerous areas in the 1970s and "als, and the kids adopted the same self-defense tactics as their neighbors: They joined gangs, andeventually formed their own. The gangster life, with its money from drugs and quick elevation of status, was addic- tive. ee eeee with violence. Many Polynesian males of punishment at the hands of their fathers or ree “Wewould always get the hell beat out of us,” SaysFearl Masuisui, who grew up in East Palo Alto, ., and has roots in Samoa. Hetells of receivingbeatings with barbells and table legs. Once, he came home late from an amuse- ment park and his father beat him so badly that he couldn't go to school the next day because of all the cuts and bruises. This family violence, combined with a hostile en- nized a task force that eventually became the Metro Gang Unit. Isi Tausinga, Salt Lake City’s first Ton- gan police officer, was assigned to tackle Polynesian — I goto church with them.’ Some were myrelaGnd, a cousin of Tausinga’s, hated the police officer. “Wehad no respect for him because we thought he was sellout,” Kinikini says. “He was whitewashed.” The older generation, too, resented what rere was doing. Part of the resistance was denial. The parents from the old country held on to the concept of family respect they had taken from the islands. ‘Theywere deceived: Their kidslived double lives. ‘The other san eee cultural: In many Polynesian cultures, crimes are settled between families rather than throughthe law. In ‘Samoa, the chiefdom system called the Fad Matai allowsfortraditional apologies called iffogas, where the family of the victim confronts the family of the perpetrator, and the two work together toward reconciliation. The goals are mutual respect and forgiveness,thingsoften lost in the American justice system. According to Tausinga,the old system wasn't working:in this new place,in the midst ofthis new culture, forgiveness had given wayto vengeance. But people didn't want to hear it. “The more| brought it out, the more embarrassing it was for the community,” says Tausinga. After busting the kids in his church one too many times, he began attending another church that was mostly white. “I shed many tears on mypillow every night, We're losing these kids, and you don't have the par- 2001 to 2004, the numberof documented gang members in the Salt Lake Valleyrose from 3,781 to 4,544. ents and leaders backing you up.” In 2003, the number of serious gang-related crimes was double that of two years earlier. Last year, Salt LakeValley gangs were responsible for 94 aggra- PioneerDay violence vated assaults, 54 robberies, 97 drug offenses and Polynesian gangsexploded into the public consciousness.It was the night before the annual Daysof '47 Parade, commemorating the Mormons’arrival in On July 24, 1992,Miles Kinikini and Salt Lake's laiming allegiance and Nortefias;there are Southeast Asian gangs who rob their fellow immigrants’ stashes of cash, hidden awaybecause of their distrust of banks;there are bands of racist skinheads, and even young Straight the valley in 1847. Thousands of people had come to downtown Salt Lake to campout and save good ‘spots along the parade route. Hundreds of Tongan Crips staked out turf on State Street, just below the slope ofthe hill leading to Edge gangs who punish those who smokeor drink the State Capitol. They came for the parade, says Ki- Polynesian kids don't seem to fit the profile of gang members, however. Most Pacific Islander families arethe pictureofstability. And most Polynesian families in Utah belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-daySaints, a pillar of family values and respectability. Because of the LDS Church, in nikini, but they also cameready for action. The Ton- gan Crip Gang hadrecentlykilled three members of a Samoan gang called the Park Village Compton Crips. Word hadit that the Compton Crips hadcalled noe gang membersto help avengethe fact, Utah is home to the largest Tongan, Samoan and otherPacific Islander communities in the United Early on the morning of the holiday, Kinikini States outside of Hawaii and California. watched about a dozencars pull upacross the street Yet while Islanders makeup onlyabout 1 percent of the Salt Lake Valley's population, they comprise 13 percent of the documented gang members. Detectives saythat Polynesian gangsstand out because of their violence. Because oftheir intimidating physical size, their members often serveas enforcers for other gangsthat traffic in drugs. They're knownfor their brutal fistfights, and for shooting at their rivals and at law enforcement officials. from where the Tongan Crips were standing. The Compton Crips stepped out and began flashing signs and calling out threats. By then, Kinkini was, he says,“pretty loaded”;he'd drunka bottle of Black Velvet and taken a few hits of acid. He remembers Young Samoans pray during Sunday school at Mapusaga Ward. Insiders say that gang members use churchservices andevents to network andrecruit on the sly. A Website for Pacific Islanders in Utahrecently editorialized, “Most Tongan gang members in Utah are members ofthe Church of Polynesian parents find it hard to believe that their churchgoing children are involved in the Amer- Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We've always knownthis, yet we don't talk aboutit ...” * ican scourgeof gang violence. Their communities are supposed to embody everything this valley has stood for: family, faith and a new beginning. But the valley in the heart of the Mormon Zion has become a crowded battleground. The Polynesian Saints traveled thousands of miles from one group of islands only to find themselves in another. On the west side of Salt Lake City, ethnic communities are islands unto themselves, surrounded by a sea of white suburbia; from the vantage point of West Valley City, Kearns, Taylorsville and West Jordan, the mountains that edgethis valleyonlyincrease the sense of isolation. For young Polynesians, what started as reason- able self-defense against other ghettoized ethnic groups, or else grew out of the centuries-old rivalry between Samoans and Tongans, has become a ‘Everything was so brown’ “Saved from the wilderness”is not exactly how manyIslanders would describe their arrival in Utah. Manyof them were unprepared for the realities of urban and suburban life. “I thought it would be a place for just Mormons,” LakeInternational Airport: “Everything was so brownand looked dead,” Brunt says. Lise Tafuna’s family immigratedto Salt Lake City It hes at the base of the Stansbury Mountains in cating island beverage made from kavaroot pow- services with their tropical flower leis, lava lava skirts and sandals. They formed brass marching bands, played rugby and cricket, drank the intoxi- way to the Sierra Nevadas in California. Now little der, and received the king of Tongaon visits to this new ‘Still, members of the generation that immigrated tothe Salt LakeValley felt the difference every day between the humid islands and the highdesert, the converts from Hawaii, who came to Utah with missionaries who first sailed to the Pacific Islands in the 1840s, started a new life here. Le deraahchl oatptenadiottreed 1889, partly because of cultural differences between Saints and white Saints, about 75 Islanders left to start a new settlement in Skull Valley. The settlers named the place losepa — “Joseph”in Hawaiian — after Joseph F. Smith, who served his mission in Hawaii and would become president of the LDS Church in 1901. They irrigated and farmed, eee ue treet Deca eas i ee Ye roses. But losepa was a rough gofor Islanders used to the bounty of the tropics. Irrigating the dry coun- Fa i g didn't care about anythi This young generation of Polynesian gang mem- children collectively. Quite a few gang members ended up in Salt Lake City, a place their parents pre- Nonetheless, the Islanders settled in. They spiced up the Latter-day Saint meeting houses and Sunday sins bracketed by mountain ranges that reel all the houses,sold drugs and beatrival gang members. “1 His first clue that all was not as he had imagined came as his plane from Hawaii descended into Salt city's West side. “I was so naive.” after they arrived, it snowed; she didn't know what it was. ba- ee aae Se a looted bers became so violent and troublesome that some Culture shock Fifty miles west of West Valley City, past the Skull Valley,the third in a series of hi didn't receive such treatment, fueled an anger that says Mike Brunt, who came to Salt Lake City from Western Samoa in 1981, and now runs a Bays and Girls Cub recreation and education center on the from Tongavia California in the late 1960s. The day allegiances. resulting crashing down. through the generations. vironment and resentment toward other kids who some Polynesians call “the beast.” “Because of that, I went crazy,” says Masuisui, who,with his friends — village and the city, Tongan and English. This harsh nae oung Islanders. parents sent their kids away. Many California fami- hes had relatives in Utah, and it is common in the islands for uncles, aunts and grandparentsto raise are ito Den panefree evel instead, the delinquent Polynesian teens found vngtertry an tart gs many of which were Hispanic or black. Miles Kinikini was one of Salt Lake's gangsters, Kinikini was the youngest ; his Mormon parents had moved to Salt LakeCity from Tonga before he was born. Hesays he first joined a gang when he was in third It was the mid-1980s, and he lived in Glendale, a heavily Latino on Salt Lake’s West Side, where many Tongan families were moving. Herealized he'd be in serious trouble if he were caught walking to school alone by one of the packs of Latino boys who prowled the streets. So at age 9, he allowed a group of older him up in exchange for letting him become a “baby gangster.” Drive-by shootings picked up when Kinikini was mn oro heays es tie Dae ees toe arava wis taal ony ate NTR away from home for several months when the differences between her family and her peers at West High School became overwhelming. Isi Tausinga, whose family moved to Salt Lake from a Tongan village in 1974, when he was 12, Spoke ro Enga ns reas bet nivcpol 1athere and haveno clue what was going on,” Tausing: kids to beat bates cocaine. They waged street Tate like Varrio Loco Town. Helasal fora Tongan, bathe re strained charisma toa roanGay pveareca oreo Coconut Connection. In 1989, when Kinikini was a freshman in high school, it became the Salt Lake branch of the Tongan Crip Gang, with the arrival of an “original” California gangster. says “There were times when | wondered whether we'd made the right move.” ‘The first generation born in Utah had it equally tough, for different reasons. They knew nothing ‘T-shirts or “wife-beaters,” Dickies and Nike Cortez shoes — foal eehe ene The gang had outside this dry, sprawling city in between mountain a leadership code, é Members of the Tongan Crip Gang wore white signs spelling out “Tongan Bis thinking, “Webetter start shooting orthey're going to shoot.” Kinikini grabbed a .357 pistol and ran out to the middle ofState Street. Dropping to his knees, he fired all six shotsinto the vehicles. Parade-goers fled. The Compton Crips took off. Kinikini and his fellow gangsters ran to their cars and sped back to Glendale. But Kinikini was caught, and he knew it. There wereliterally hundreds of witnesses. He hadn't killed anyone, but his shots had hit twoof the passenae Dayslater, Kinikini turned himself in to the po- lice. Tausinga, with the Metro Gang Unit, picked him up. He Wee cuivited ce ates toil oateds Weapon and sentenced to twoyears in jail. Over the next few years, the Metro Gang Unit, flush with federal funding, made an art of catching Bang leaders, says Bill Robertson, the gang unit's investigations sergeant. Between 1993 and 2000, they slashed the number of serious gang crimes in half; drive-by shootings dropped from 125 to 68, and aggravated assaults from 235 to 102. Kinikini seemed to be a part of this turnaround. During his time in jail, he read the Book of Mormon Cover to cover and renewed his commitment tohis {amily Ce People who visited him. Once he served a mission in Northern California, ete got married and started a family of his own. But the gangs hadn't gone away; my abe eae Kinikini’ had joined Glendale. One day, about a year after he'd returned from his mission, Kinikini ran into an aunt whose house had been fit by adriveby shooting. She was sobbing. Fer aby Regulators hadsht up aca infrontof her house, Kinikini says, oAwho was inside the car. a l-yearee had been revered as a role model,” Kinikini ae hook i 2s a personal mission to stop this.” Kinikini suspected that two brothers, Finau and Viliami Tukuafu, were behind the shooting. Soone night, when his wife and infant son were out of town, he took his younger cousins to the Tukuafu home in West Valley City, threw twogallons of gas n it and lit it. Kinikini was caught, convicted of sec- year. Today, inion aot ‘ini says he’s so with, ate: ing. But looking back at the arson,hesays mpl ‘You'vegot toroll with the hood Tomorrow: Thetw. twobiggestin luences on TaperTh wo beget inuenes on § a a |