When she first noticed the symbols and letters carved into the knuckles of a student's hand, Centennial High School English teacher Doreen McMahon was suspicious but decided to give the teenager the benefit of the doubt.
Now, after attending a workshop Thursday on how to identify gang activity, she's less likely to let such sightings slide.
"I had things I've suspected confirmed," McMahon said.
Students in the Clark County School District had the day off Thursday as teachers and administrators attended staff development workshops. The topics ranged from how to identify hate groups to training sessions with the latest educational software.
Police say many of the alleged members of the 311 Boyz gang attended or were former Centennial students.
Some of the gang's videotaped fights and beatings were staged in the northwest neighborhoods surrounding the campus. Two other alleged members, also arrested in connection with a violent attack that left one victim with a crushed face, attended nearby Shadow Ridge High School while a fourth was at Cimarron-Memorial High School.
Centennial Principal Gerald Velasquez Jr. said everyone who works at a school should err on the side of caution.
"Pay attention to what kids say," Velasquez told his staff. "Tell us what you hear. It may be nothing, but let us investigate and determine that."
In a brisk 60 minutes, Detective Calvin Walker of the school district police explained how to decode the latest in graffiti and hand signals, gave a rundown of the most active gangs in the Las Vegas Valley and urged teachers to share information.
"I can't tell you how many times I've been interviewing kids about a fight and a teacher walks past the dean's office and says, 'Yeah, I heard that was going to happen this morning,' " Walker told the faculty assembled in the campus auditorium. "If you knew about it, why didn't we?"
Centennial has been the subject of increased attention because of the 311 Boyz, but it's hardly the center of gang activity in Clark County, Walker said.
As of Oct. 1, Clark County this year has seen 126 drive-by shootings, 29 gang-related homicides and 12 stabbings.
"Ninety percent of the problems don't occur on our campuses," Walker said. "But we know there are gang members going to school. This isn't a problem for us, it's a problem for our community."
While the 311 Boyz have only recently been talked about, white supremacy groups have been active in the district for at least six years, Walker said. What's changed, Walker said, is that the white supremacy gangs have become more violent and are actively recruiting.
As for the 311 Boyz, Walker said he believes the group's activities were more about making a name for themselves than about white supremacy. But regardless of the motivation, their behavior was destructive and dangerous, Walker said.
Of the 447 gangs identified by the district's gang advisory team, nearly 300 had Hispanic ties, Walker said. There is also a growing number of Asian gangs.
In the last month, district police have identified 75 students of Vietnamese descent all with three fresh cigarette burns in the same place along the side of their right hands, Walker said.
"That's a lot of kids in a small amount of time," Walker said. "Once you have people marking themselves in that kind of permanent manner, we're not talking about fun and games anymore."
Even with their best efforts, educators can't replace the impact of family life on a student's decision to become active in gang activity, Walker said. Some young adults in Clark County schools may be second- or even third-generation members of a gang, Walker said. And for some young adults, the gang is the only family life they know.
"The gang has structure, whether we want to believe that or not," Walker said. "There are rules for getting in and getting out, there's discipline when you don't follow those rules and love and affection when you do. These are things young adults crave, and if they don't get them at home they're going to go out and look for them."
The school district police this year launched an aggressive campaign targeting gangs and other criminal activity at middle schools, using a federal grant to add safety officers to more campuses. It's at the middle grade levels that students are most vulnerable to peer pressure, Walker said.
"When we drive by an elementary school, 100 percent of the kids wave. At the middle schools, it's 50 percent. By high school they're all flipping us off," Walker said. "We just need to reach more of them when there's still a chance."
Joel Bertsch, Centennial's football coach, said Walker's crash course in gang awareness gave him a whole new vocabulary.
"I learned a different way of looking at things," Bertsch said. "We don't have a ton of problems at Centennial, but just like (Walker) said it's good to be aware."
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