Gov. Youngkin signs executive order to combat gang recruitment among youth in Virginia

WASHINGTON (7News) — In a new Executive Order, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin says gangs continue to grow and spread violence by recruiting new members.

The governor said gang recruitment is increasingly occurring at a young age, sometimes as early as age 10, and that law enforcement agencies in Virginia are combating more than 650 identified criminal street gangs and criminal organizations.

“I am very concerned about the sophistication of gang activity in Virginia,” Youngkin told 7News in an interview.

That’s why Youngkin signed an Executive Order to implement new strategies aimed at protecting youth from gang recruitment.

“We have had great success in addressing much of the drug trafficking problem over the past year, with dedicated efforts in partnership with federal, state and local resources,” Youngkin said. “But we’re going to take this to a whole new level. With unprecedented levels of gang activity, especially as the Mexican cartels use gangs as fronts for drug distribution, violence has increased as a result of gang activity, and that is why we do so much work there.”

In Loudoun County, Sheriff Mike Chapman announced Friday that his office had arrested an 18-year-old suspect from Alexandria in the murders of two people in Sterling, Virginia.

“We know he is an MS-13 gang member, a self-proclaimed MS-13 gang member,” Chapman said. “He is here in the country illegally.”

On Monday, 7News asked Chapman about what he’s doing to combat gang activity.

Chapman said his office is one of the few local law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., region that works with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Does the national problem of illegal immigration impact local communities like Loudoun County?” Minock asked Chapman.

“That’s right,” Chapman said. “We certainly returned more than 200 people (in the US illegally) to ICE, and about 100 of those were deported. So we work very closely with ICE. I don’t know if anyone else in the Washington, DC metropolitan area knows that, but we do because we work with all of our federal counterparts. And I realize that everyone has different roles to perform, whether you’re DEA, whether you’re ATF, whether you’re ICE, whether you’re local law enforcement agencies, but the only way you’re really going to have an impact is if you have everyone working together. And that is the key here: working together.”

“7News reported in Loudoun County that there is a student in Loudoun County Public Schools with ties to the MS-13 gang. Do you see the MS-13 gang targeting these young men to join their gang? 7News reporter Nick Minock asked Chapman.

“Yeah, it seems like they’re targeting, I would say, as young as 14-13, 14-15 years old, to try to get people involved in the gang,” Chapman said.

Chapman said his office tracks and identifies people suspected of being involved with gangs, including MS-13. That includes tracking and identifying youth with gang ties, with the help of Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officers, who are present in Loudoun County Public Schools.

“We’re certainly looking at anything that’s happening when it comes to drug distribution, anything that could be related to human trafficking, sex trafficking if it’s connected to a gang, we’re absolutely all over it,” Chapman said.

“What is the business of the MS-13 gang in Loudoun County? Are they medications? Is it human trafficking, or is there something else going on?” Minock asked Chapman.

‘Well, it’s a bit of both. It’s like anything they can do to make money. And I would say for the most part it’s fentanyl trafficking,” Chapman said. “In 2012, 2013, 2014 we had some activity there, mainly in our Sterling area with some gang members. We had a 16-year-old student who was killed while waiting for his bus at a bus stop affiliated with one of the gangs, who was actually trying to escape from the gang, and the gangs didn’t want that. He was murdered. Not long after that we had another murder over there, but that was about ten years ago. And what we’re seeing now is a new uptick in this and it concerns me, especially when you look at what’s happening across the country, across the country, when you look and you see all this activity, with all this increased crime. all these violent crimes that are happening, the open borders, the increase in fentanyl overdoses over the years, and they’re all part of that. They’re not the only ones driving it, but they’re certainly a big part of it. And so we try to make sure that we keep Loudoun safe and work extremely hard.”