Calhoun County District Attorney Brian McVeigh discusses 46 people arrested in an Oct. 5 gangs-focused warrants sweep. Trent Penny/The Anniston Star
It’s been a fatal year in Calhoun County.
There have been 15 homicides so far this year, nearly twice as many as the eight countywide murders in 2010.
The August killing of an Anniston police officer tragically underlined the year’s rash of violent crimes, spurring city residents to proclaim — loudly and often – that they’ve had enough.
They pack council meetings, sell and wear wristbands bearing slain Officer Justin Sollohub’s name and attend rallies as they demand change in Anniston, where 11 of the 15 homicides occurred.
“We have got to stop the killing here,” Anniston resident Amanda Sprayberry said at a councilman’s street-corner press conference in August.
The Calhoun County District Attorney’s Office receives a multitude of calls every day from residents like Sprayberry, concerned about the recent rash of homicides and wondering what top law enforcers plan to do about it.
District Attorney Brian McVeigh’s response to that public concern was to announce in September a multi-agency crackdown on gangs.
In that September release and followup interview with The Star, McVeigh called criminal street gangs a major problem in areas of Anniston and Hobson City.
He also specifically labelled two groups — Norwood Homes’ Taliban Clan and Hobson City’s YNTO — as criminal gangs.
But McVeigh also said this: No indisputable evidence links these groups or criminal gang activity in general to Sollohub’s murder or the recent spate of homicides.
He and police officials also have remained tight-lipped about why they believe gang activity is a problem and why they labelled these two groups as gangs, even after they publicly announced on Oct. 5 a gangs-focused warrants sweep.
That sweep led to the arrest of at least 46 individuals, mostly on various theft, burglary and failure to appear charges.
Anniston police Chief Layton McGrady said police suspected some of the people they arrested to have gang connections. But again, officials were mum about what exactly those connections were, which people were suspected of having them and how gang activity is linked to year’s lengthy list of homicides.
Still, “gangs” has quickly become the word of the month.
It’s readily offered up everywhere — at drug prevention rallies, in school parking lots, during courthouse press conferences — as a way of explaining 2011′s fatal distinction from the year preceding it.
But some residents are puzzled.
They wonder what McVeigh means when he calls gangs a law enforcement focus in the wake of Sollohub’s murder, especially when he specifically states there’s no evidence tying gang activity to the county’s homicides.
They wonder how the recent warrants sweep put a dent in the so-called gang activity when none of the people arrested were picked up on charges related to that type of activity.
They wonder why the district attorney publicly flagged the Taliban Clan and YNTO as gangs without commenting on the crimes these groups are suspected of committing and what characteristics elevate them to that criminal label.
They wonder, frankly, if the “gangs” speak is little more than a public official’s attempt at a quick fix, an easy answer to residents’ vocal questions about the safety of their community.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Anniston resident Telesa Stanford told me during a recent interview. “If you say you’re going to crackdown on gangs, say it’s because of the homicides, but then say there’s no evidence that the homicides were gang-related, that’s very concerning.”
To read more about gangs in Anniston, grab a copy of The Star tomorrow for my in-depth look at the issue. Or check back here tomorrow for the link to the online story.
