Gangs at Sharpstown

Friday, June 19th

This morning before school a student at Sharpstown was jumped just outside of the school grounds be a large group of boys. I was not there to see it happen, but a friend that I work with said that it was a five-on-one fight that did not go well for the one guy that was alone.

As a teacher, my friend was not able to do anything about the fight, other than call for help from one of our schools police officers and to yell at the students from the school’s parking lot. The fight was finally broken up as soon at the attackers saw the cop and took off running. The boy will be alright and was actually in class later that afternoon.

After school all of the teachers were required to be outside the school to watch out for any fights in retaliation of the fight from this morning. Teachers at Sharpstown usually walk their students to the busses in the afternoon, but today the principal wanted us to all be outside, even if we did not have a fourth period class, to ensure students’ safety while on school property. Tensions ran high after school and you could see the various cliques of students, but there was no violence after school as far as I could see.

Gangs and gang violence is a problem at Sharpstown. I have been told by the staff that it has gotten a lot more under control over the last three years, but I have been affected by gangs in one way or another everyday I have been there.

We have a very strict dress code at Sharpstown to try lower gang violence. Every students must were a geen Sharpstown polo and kaki pants. As teachers we need to monitor to make sure that no student is wearing any color undershirt other than yellow or green. Teachers also need to check the students’ belts to make sure they do not contain gang signs or colors. The gangs I know are at my school (and have members in my class) are as follows:

“LP” or La Primera – White
South Side Cholos – Black
SouthWest Cholos (SWC 13)
Bloods – Red

A lot of teachers in my school blame a lot of the gang action in Houston on the influx of people into Houston from Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. They specifically stated that the Bloods were never this big in Houston until after Katrina. It is pretty crazy to think that middle school kids can be participating in gangs.

Everyday, you can see the effects of gangs in our school. The students are divided in strict groups. The groups tend to be on race, but this is mainly because the gangs are divided by race as well. It is really sad to see this taking place at any point in some ones life, but especially at these ages.