TOLEDO, Ohio — Toledo's mayor has said the vast majority of violent crime in Toledo is gang related, so we wanted to find out what is being done to keep you safe from that violence.
WTOL 11 sat down with the head of the Toledo Police Department's gang task force for an exclusive interview, talking to him about gangs, their culture, and their influence on the city.
With information from this interview, WTOL 11 has created a map that shows the territory of some of Toledo's biggest gangs.
While this map reflects only a portion of the gangs in the city, it does depict terroritories for nine of the estimated 30 to 37 gangs that call Toledo home. Toledo police say these are the locations for multiple Bloods, Crips, and other local gangs, and the map shows how wide the territories are, with a particular hotspot in Central Toledo off of Dorr Street.
No one in the Toledo police department knows gang territory better than Sgt. Mel Stachura, the head of the gang task force.
"You'll see gang members proud to declare where they're from, but these are our traditional gangs," Stachura said.
He was able pull from his years working on Toledo's streets and recite gang territory down to the block just from memory.
"You would have say the Stickney 33rd Blood gang members, so that's obviously Stickney Avenue. You have the Moody Manor Bloods, so the Moody manor that's located at 2200 Kent, that's one of our generationally known gangs," Stachura said.
Stachura discussed the seven more generationally known gangs, including:
-The Smith Park Mafia on Forest and Fernwood avenues near Dorr Street,
-The X-Blocc Block Crips at 3100 Glenwood Avenue and the gas station at Detroit and Central avenues,
-The Woodstock crips at 1100 Woodstock Ave.,
- The Southside Gangster Disciples at 900 Vance St.,
- The Cherrywood Crips at the Greenbelt Apartments,
- The RECC squad at the McClinton Nunn Apartments,
- The Geer Gang Crips at Monroe Street and Auburn Avenue.
WTOL 11 traveled to all of their territories. Some neighborhoods were quiet, others were active with people, and others still had memorials of those shot and killed.
However, the sergeant explained that new kinds of gangs are emerging, called hybrid gangs, and they are making understanding gang territory much more difficult.
"So you might see, say, the gear gang Crips, which would be Monroe and Auburn area," Stachura said. "You might see them hanging out with Smith Park people, hanging out with Southside Gangster Disciples."
These hybrid gangs mainly consist of young gang members between the ages of 12 to 17, and their loyalties change from day to day. Gang members could be with one group to stage a robbery on Friday, and by Monday they could be working with another group to attack the people they had just worked with only days before.
Stachura explained this cycle of shifting alliances is not only more challenging for the police to follow, it's creating more gun violence.
"And that's just the kind of upsetting thing with this new generation we're seeing, is that it's not Crip versus Blood, and Blood versus Crip, it's these small hybrid groups shooting it out with other people," Stachura said.
Stachura says these hybrid gangs are a serious concern, and TPD is monitoring them closely. He also said it is critical for the public to be familiar with the gang territories so that they know what areas to stay away from, especially at night.
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