http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8745664
“Street gangs
Provo gangs up on graffiti problem”
By Donald W. Meyers
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 03/30/2008 01:49:32 AM MDT
PROVO -
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Yes, there is a gang problem in Provo,” said Karza, an assistant program director at the Slate Canyon Youth Center. “We don’t want it to get worse.””
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Gang activity in Provo can be traced back as far as 1999, he said. That’s when one of the large Mexican gangs used the central Utah County city - the state’s third largest - as a base. Champagne said many of his gang investigations in West Valley City brought him to Provo to run down leads or talk to suspects.
Other gangs have links to Provo, either because they were organized there, or a gang leader decided to relocate his headquarters to a place where police and residents weren’t on to them, allowing them to work without having to look out constantly for police.
Champagne said sometimes a family will move to the area to get away from gang problems in California, not realizing their child already is a gang member. Once here, the child either falls in with a local gang or starts a local chapter of his former gang. “