Growing up in California, 34-year-old William Trigger thought his only choice was to join a gang to fit in — now he says he’s lucky to be alive.

Leaving the Sunshine State the late ’90s to escape the strict penalties for committing crimes — the three strikes and you’re out law — Trigger said he moved to Salt Lake City and settled into what he knew how to do best: running with a gang.

With Utah County still boasting a trusting, neighborly feel and a low crime rate, Trigger said many gang members have realized what an easy target “Happy Valley” is.

“Utah County is a target for this kind of stuff because they are not aware,” Trigger said from the work diversion program at the Utah County Jail where he’s serving time for being in possession of stolen property and running a methamphetamine lab.

Gang activity is on the rise in Utah County, with five documented gangs in Provo and Orem, making a total of eight or nine known gangs in the county, said Utah County Major Crimes Task Force Sgt. Darcy Simmons.

But most people are unaware there is even a problem.

The county’s population is growing and with the growth comes an increase in crime, Simmons said. A decade ago, gangs formed more out of a desire to emulate what was happening in California, but now gangs are on the move from state to state and county to county, Simmons said, and basing some of their operations in Utah County.

A shift in gang culture

“The perception people have is ‘Oh, they are just a bunch of wannabes,’ ” Simmons said.

Just because there aren’t drive by shootings or high-profile gang wars doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist or is any less serious in Utah County, Trigger said. In the 1990s, the gang culture was more violent in California. The gangs were divided by neighborhoods and sported different colors to identify themselves, Trigger said, but now gangs are changing. Rather than working against each other to claim their territory, they are working together to make a profit.

“To a gang member it’s less dangerous, to society it’s more dangerous,” Trigger said about the gang culture shifting into organized crime.

There is less gang-on-gang violence, he said, but there is an increase in violence toward the community, more robberies and thefts to fuel the need for money and to grow the drug market, Trigger said from his first-hand experience. Running with the Diamond Street gang in Salt Lake to make money, the 5-foot-7-inch Utah County Jail inmate said he would send the younger gang members to Utah County to commit the crimes because it was easier.

Because not all gangs in Utah County are documented, it is difficult to gauge what percentage of crime is gang related, Simmons said.

“The drug crimes, the violence crimes, the gang crimes are all kind of intertwined,” Simmons said.

Gangs need money to run drug trafficking, and the way they finance their operations is through committing crimes, Simmons said.

Filling the ranks

But a gang is not effective without members.

In years past, most gangs recruited from high schools, Simmons said, but now they are trying to attract even younger members. The gangs also are targeting junior high students.

Any type of person, anyone who gang members befriend, can fall into the lifestyle. Gang members recruit the people they get along with, Simmons said, and usually the students who are seeking “association and acceptance” are those more likely to join.

To mark their territory, gang members will use a variety of noticeable and not so noticeable methods, Simmons said. The classic method is graffiti, which has been on the rise in the county. In a more discrete fashion, gang members will utilize telephone and power lines by dotting them with pairs of red and blue shoes. These shoes, tied by the laces, are thrown up onto telephone or power lines around a certain area by gangs to signify “this is our neighborhood, this is our territory,” Simmons said.

Most youths believe “the image of a gang member is cool,” said Trigger, who has been in and out of the Utah County Jail since 1998.

Growing up in and out of the juvenile system, Danny Tupu, 23, said he never knew what his potential was. Instead of applying himself in school, Tupu said he gravitated to a Polynesian gang. Rather than pushing himself to get an education, Tupu pushed other people around. With much of the gang activity circling around drugs, Tupu said gangs are used as a means of enforcement. If a drug user isn’t paying their narcotics tab, then gang members are sent to encourage them to settle their debt through physical violence, Tupu said, adding he has done that on more than one occasion.

“A lot of things idolized in gangs is money and material things,” Tupu said, adding these aspirations are fueled by the need to have power.

Growing up in a gang, no one teaches about personal identity, said Tupu, who has been in and out of the Utah County Jail since 2002 on various theft charges. It’s all about how much material worth someone can gain. Without a different view in life, a view where personal worth means something, it’s hard to understand any other way to live, he said.

A decade ago there were home-grown gangs, kids who wanted to emulate the life of a gangster but didn’t have any real influence locally to guide their activities, said Orem City Director of Public Safety Michael Larsen. Now with the influx of gang activity crossing county and state boundaries, the gang problem is becoming more serious.

Utah County is the home of Hispanic, Polynesian, Asian and Caucasian gangs, Larsen said, which is a shift from 10 years ago.

There are more people in the community now, so rather than having blended gangs, more are separating by race.

In Orem and Provo, there are 150 youths documented as gang members by the Utah County Gang Task Force, Simmons said.

Gang members don’t fit into a cookie-cutter mold, Larsen said. Gang activity attracts from any race, any city and any income.

“The parents don’t know if their kids are associating with gang members or if their kids are gang members,” Simmons said.

Combating the gang problem

To combat increasing gang activity, 22 officers from around the county are part of the gang task force, a division of the Utah County Major Task Force, Larsen said. This division is responsible for all narcotics, gang activity and property crime issues.

To help identify the local gang culture at the base level, every high school has school resource officers. These officers let Utah County law enforcement know which gangs are in schools, Simmons said. In addition to providing information, the officers handle any crimes at the schools, Simmons said. There also are counselors in each school that intervene with students who show signs of gang activity, said Greg Hudnall, Provo School District director of student services.

Notes in journals, clothing choices, behavior, these can all be signs that a student is choosing to run with a gang, Hudnall said.

If a student is showing these signs, not only will a counselor meet with the student, but he or she also will meet with the student’s parents and explain what warning signs the family should watch out for, Hudnall said.

“We have a front-line defense,” Hudnall said, adding the schools’ intervention has been successful.

However, no matter what is being done by law enforcement and school districts, Hudnall said he is seeing the problem grow and “it’s frightening.”

“What I see is an increase in gang recruitment and an increase in tagging,” he said, adding fifth- and sixth-graders are showing signs of growing interest in the gang lifestyle.

For the schools in Alpine School District, gang related activity hasn’t been a problem in the past, but during the past few years activity has been creeping up on the radar, said Paul Rasband, assistant director of the student services for Alpine School District.

Searching for an identity, many teens join gangs not for violence but as a way to find acceptance, Simmons said. The best things that parents can do to prevent their children from falling into this lifestyle is to be involved in their lives and keep track of what they are doing.

Getting out

Understanding how destructive the life of crime is, Trigger and Tupu, along with 24-year-old Homar Lira, are looking for a way they can reach out from jail to teens and share the message that there is a better path in life.

Trigger said he wants to change his life. For more than a decade, crime has defined who is, and come October, Trigger said he wants to change that by getting into Utah County schools and telling his life story.

Seeing friends die right before his eyes, Trigger said he doesn’t want Utah County youngsters to go through the same hardships.

Tupu, who is serving time for stealing a vehicle, said he already has enrolled in Utah Valley State College and hopes to take courses in sociology and human behavior. With his release date in October, Tupu said he wants to speak out about how troubled his life has been because of the choices he’s made. He thinks he can help change teens’ views of the reality of being a gang member by helping them realize they have individual worth and potential.

“It would be easier to get in there and redirect their attention,” Trigger said about telling his life story to teens and pre-teens.

Utah County is a great place to raise a family, Trigger said, and preventing teens from choosing the life of a gang member will help preserve the positive things the county has to offer and leave a good place to raise his daughter.

Katie Ashton can be reached at 344-2548 or kashton@heraldextra.com.

Gang names parents should watch out for:

Raza Jalisco Criminals, also known as RJC or RJ

801

Provo Barrio Locos, or PBL

Alley Boy Gangsters, or ABG

SUR 13, or Surreno 13

Norteno 14

Criminal Gangsters, or CG

Gang related crimes in September:

On Sept. 15, two rival gangs got into an physical altercation in Orem, and two were arrested. Both adults and juveniles were involved in the incident, Simmons said. It appeared to have been in response to a fight between involving the two gangs that occurred on Sept. 8 near midnight in Orem. Four individuals were arrested during that fight as well.

On Sept. 1, a 31-year-old Provo man was arrest after police say they found him chasing his brother-in-law with a hammer. According to the probable cause statement, Fabian Miki Gutierrez was flashing gang signs at his brother-in-law and claiming he belonged to 213 and making fun of the victim for claiming association with Surreno 13.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.