Poe student charged with extortion related to gang recruitment
The Franconia Police District reports that a 13-year-old Annandale resident was charged with extortion, gang recruitment, and gang participation March 3 after he allegedly made threats against another teen and his family. The boy, a student at Poe Middle School, allegedly ordered another student to give him money, and “made a series of threats of bodily harm and violence” if the victim refused to pay, the police report.
The incident “appeared to have stemmed from a dispute within a group of students gathered together in their Annandale-area neighborhood after school one afternoon,” the police state. “Subsequently, the suspect reportedly told the victim he would be provided ‘protection’ if he joined the suspect’s gang. The victim also was reportedly told that the price of membership was $500 and if he did not provide the cash on deadline, the victim’s father would be killed.”
“School officials worked closely with police to investigate the allegations which encompassed the attempted recruitment of four students into an existing gang. Gang unit detectives later determined that the student was acting alone and there were no direct ties to any organized gang,” the police say.
Thanks Gerry Connolly, the price we pay for you to be re-elected year after year.
Anonymous:
I suppose you blame Connolly for nearly everything. IMHO, he is a truly great intellect and caring soul. I feel privileged that he is our Congressman.
Now back to our regularly scheduled commentary. . . .
Yeah, Gerry is a piece of work… he turned a blind eye towards the immigration issue brewing in Fairfax for a decade. Now, 10 years later here we are, our kids have to sneak around the halls of AHS, Poe, Falls Church, Luther Jackson, etc… in order to stay safe.
Now, shall we discuss the tax situation in Fairfax from 2000-2007, oh how transparent they were raising taxes 200% and repeatedly complaining the county has no money, or the moment revenue drops they cut library hours and staff and threaten to remove the resource officer (police) from the schools, this resource office is the ONLY think keeping our kids safe from the problem Connelly already caused? Please tell us one thing Gerry did that was bi-partisan? Shall we discuss his "town hall" meetings, his bold public discussions regarding health care "reform"?
Please, the only thing GC cares about is getting re-elected.
Interesting take on taxes. Our taxes rose, of course, because our property values increased. In other words: market forces prompted increased property taxes: This seems to be a very difficult concept for some people to grasp. It wasn't GC but the market
I'm glad I moved out of that school district. I feel sorry for the decent parents of good children who have to send their child this school every day.
I agree the parents of this child are to blame to some extent, but perhaps they both work and do not have the time and resources to properly keep the kid out of trouble.
It is easy to say that they should not have had the kid if they could not provide for him, but this problem is not going away. We, as a society, need to fix it.
The best way to so is to hold this kid up as an example and punish him, and his parents, severely. It is easy to walk the halls of the schools and identify the gang members. Let's start being proactive on straightening them out, rather than waiting until a child's life is threatened. Make it very difficult for a parent to have a child involved in gang activity, this will prompt the parent to be more involved with the child's upbringing.
A Poe student was suspended recently, and could be expelled, for trying to sell Tylenol to another student. The student reportedly claimed it was speed.
Despite these few incidents, Poe is a good school. My kids had a very positive experience there.
So naive on the taxes, then why did the tax rates raise when the market forces dictated that the houses were no longer worth as much? Econ 101, Bulova raised the tax rate to keep the taxes nice and high, see again this year, tax rates have gone up again even with the average house in Fairfax County gaining value. It is called one party politics, that is all we seem to have in Fairfax these days, there is no advocate for the tax payer.