Скачать или смотреть DA's new plan to combat gangs in Beaumont

BEAUMONT- Jessica Crawford
Jefferson County District Attorney Bob Wortham says gang activity has increased this year in Beaumont, especially in the city's north end.
"Most of the murders we have here in Jefferson County are gang members killing gang members, drug dealers shooting drug dealers," says Wortham.
Wortham tells us he plans to enlist North End pastors and volunteers in lowering the amount of gang activity in the area.
"We need these individuals to come forward and go out and help relate to these young men," says Wortham. "So we can have a different direction. Have positive direction instead of a negative direction."
Jeremiah Lewis, a man who volunteers at the Sterling Pruitt Activity Center on Magnolia, says mentoring youth can save lives.
"If they see someone that cares about them, they will listen," says Lewis.
Lewis says he knows the positive impact of mentoring from person experience.
"Coming up in the North End, I was fatherless, my mother was a single parent with five kids," he says. "I would hang around with gangs, and one time I wanted to quit school but I was taught choices. I had a mentor."
Wortham says he hopes teaming up with North End community leaders will help lower gang activity and change lives.
"I don't want to have to convict people," says Wortham. "I want them to turn their life around so we don't have to prosecute them."