< Sports Jersey Or Gang Symbol? Why Spotting MS-13 Recruits Is Tougher Than It Seems

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

We've been working with member station WNYC on a reporting project looking at efforts to fight the international gang MS-13 on Long Island, N.Y. The gang is behind a rash of deadly violence there, and they are recruiting younger and younger kids. School administrators and law enforcement officials are actually struggling to find out who is a member of the gang and who isn't. As NPR's Joel Rose reports, that's not easy.

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: This summer, immigration authorities arrested a 19-year-old high school student from Long Island. He is still in detention and facing deportation, accused of being a member of M-S 13.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Spanish).

ROSE: His mother insists her son is not a gang member. NPR agreed not to name the family because they're undocumented immigrants and fear they will all be deported. The only evidence, according to his lawyer, is he was suspended from school for drawing the number 504 in a textbook. That's the international calling code for Honduras, where the student is from, and where MS-13 has ties, and for drawing devil horns on a calculator. Reporter Sarah Gonzalez of WNYC, who interviewed the mother, pointed out that bull horns are a symbol used by MS-13. Sarah asked if there's any possibility that her son is in the gang.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Spanish).

ROSE: The mother pointed out that there's a man with horns painted on the front of her son's school. The mascot of Huntington High School is the Blue Devil. Sarah looked it up.

SARAH GONZALEZ, BYLINE: I had just Googled it and saw the mascot. And yeah, there's devil horns as part of the mascot.

ROSE: Sarah and I went to Long Island to find out how schools and police are confronting MS-13. They're under pressure to stamp out the brutal gang, and they're on the lookout for any sign of it. But experts say it's not always easy to identify who is a gang member and who's not. And getting it wrong, students and families say, can have tragic consequences. MS-13 started in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Their weapon of choice?

ANGEL MELENDEZ: A machete and a baseball bat, or a rock, or a shovel, anything they can find.

ROSE: Angel Melendez is special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security investigations in New York. At first, he says, MS-13 members were not difficult to spot.

MELENDEZ: Everybody thinks about an MS-13 member, and the first thing that comes to their mind is an individual with a tattoo of an M and a 13 across their face.

ROSE: As the gang spread to Central America and then back to cities across the U.S, Melendez says it became more subtle. Now, members might display their MS-13 affiliation by wearing certain colors and sports team logos. But experts caution that those gang identifiers can vary widely from one place to another. They evolve rapidly, and it's possible for police and schools to make mistakes. Alex Sanchez was an MS-13 member. Now he directs the nonprofit Homies Unidos in Los Angeles, trying to keep kids out of gangs.

ALEX SANCHEZ: You can't really just racially profile somebody and say that they're a gang member just because they're using these hats or attire.

ROSE: On Long Island, some Central American immigrants say they are being racially profiled. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, charging that undocumented teens are being illegally detained based on unsubstantiated evidence that they're gang members. And Latino students here say they're the only ones who get in trouble for wearing clothing brands associated with gangs, as they told my colleague Sarah Gonzalez of WNYC.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: (Speaking Spanish).

GONZALEZ: Versace belts, Nike shoes and Chicago Bulls jerseys are part of the gang. That's what they told you at school?

ROSE: The area has a troubled history. Suffolk County police were accused of discriminating against Latinos for years. And several schools on Long Island refused to enroll some undocumented immigrants a few years ago, until the state attorney general stepped in. Police Commissioner Timothy Sini says his department is making progress with immigrant communities. He says officers are trained to look at more than just clothing before putting suspected gang members under surveillance.

TIMOTHY SINI: It's a strict criteria. It usually requires several indicators before someone is confirmed as an MS-13 gang member.

ROSE: Sini declined to say exactly what those criteria are because police don't want gang members to know what they're looking for. School districts often take their cues from police. The Huntington School District, which includes the school we heard about at the top, did not reply to multiple requests for comment. We did talk to nearby Brentwood School District, which has lost several students to MS-13 violence. Spokesman Felix Adeyeye says their top priority is keeping schools safe.

FELIX ADEYEYE: We have to make sure that our students are free from harassment, from bullying and from feeling intimidated by organized gang activities.

ROSE: Gang experts say schools should suspend students for serious behavior problems like threats of violence, but some kids should be kept in school where they can get the help they need. Meena Harris directs the National Gang Center, which is funded by the Justice Department.

MEENA HARRIS: Let's not go immediately to kicking them out. Let's find out what's going on with that kid or those groups of kids. Let's get the whole human story behind it.

ROSE: Former MS-13 member Alex Sanchez says some teenagers may just be experimenting with different identities.

SANCHEZ: Many of the young kids want to join something. They want to seek something. And if we don't provide an alternative to gangs, they choose whatever they have available for them to deal with their problems.

ROSE: Sanchez says schools and police can use gang identifiers like clothing to figure out which kids need help, but only if they know how to read the signs. Joel Rose, NPR News.

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