18-year-old Contrell Brown shot to death at a Wayne Trace gas station, the same fate for 17-year old Randall Paris just a week later, both murders believed to be gang related.
"I can say associates of his had gang involvement and definitely people who victimized him are members of gangs," says Chief Rusty York.
Just a quick search of Randall Paris on a social networking site makes that apparent.
Several other signs of gang involvement posted all over the site.
The letters KOD stand for the Kings of Destruction, images associated with the gang, the color red, the left side of the body, a five-pointed star different than the six pointed star which marks a rival gang known as the D-Boys.
It was July when Chief Rusty York announced the establishment of a gang task force.
"Some alarming facts: 700 firearms were confiscated from the streets of fort wayne, 340 from the southeast quadrant, this year we're on the same pace," he said on July 15th.
Statistics do show some improvement, so far this year, of the 9 homicides, 2 have been gang-related.
At the same point last year, 3 of the seven homicides were gang-related.
Still the number of shootings and shots fired city-wide are up.
The gang task force has also alerted teachers of what to lookout for, since a majority of gang members are 16 to 21 years-old, many still in high school.
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