The Solution is Real Simple"

By Keith Eldridge

Reporter KOMO TV

TACOMA - A former street gang member is giving some of our top government and community leaders the straight talk on how to tackle the gang violence problem.

He says hiring more police is not the solution.

We see the aftermath of gang violence; the lives taken and the lives ruined.

"The solution is real simple," said former gang member Lawrence Stone.

Stone says he originally came to this high level meeting in Tacoma to just listen, but felt compelled to speak out.

"Because they can't understand the culture of what would drive another man to pick up a gun to kill another man as a teenager," Stone said.

The police departments were there along with the Tacoma City Council, tribal leaders and social service agencies. They are all pleading for help from Sen. Maria Cantwell to fight for more federal dollars to fight the gang violence problem.

Stone says police can't do it all. They need mentors like himself and his program for these young men.

Stone told Sen. Cantwell: "If me and you flew to China and we didn't have an interpreter, we'd both be stuck. So if you fly in here and you don't have an interpreter the money will always get wasted. We'll never get to the bottom of it if you don't learn to respect the interpreter down here. I'm the interpreter."

But his outreach program is having a hard time finding money because the federal government has been cutting the dollars the used to go help tackle the gang problems.

Senate aide Lee Lambert says it helped keep him out of gangs as he grew up on Tacoma's Hilltop.

"I remember being afraid as a child and I remember my mom looking out for me and making sure I didn't make choices that were bad. I had that support structure partly because of the federal grant that she had that led me to the work I do now," he said.

What these groups have going for them in asking for these federal dollars is that they don't have to reinvent the wheel. They've been through all this before.

In the 80s and 90s in Tacoma when the gangs ran, wild they were able to get to the heart of the problem.

What they didn't have back though are people like Stone who admits he planted the seeds of the problem we see today, but hopes to be part of the solution this time around.

Cantwell hugs Stone as she leaves, "Thank you. Great to meet you." Cantwell says she'll be lobbying the Senate to restore the money that used to go to fight gang violence.

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