VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) spent the day talking about gangs during an address Wednesday at the Virginia Gang Investigators Association conference at the Founders Inn in Virginia Beach.
The 25th annual conference, with about 500 people in attendance, offered new training in dealing with gangs, along with a progress report on how the region is handling them. The association said Youngkin was the first governor to address the group.
“I want to thank all of you for being so committed,” he told the association members.
After brief remarks, he spoke with 10 on Your Side about his just-signed executive order to combat gangs and gang violence.
“It establishes state police as the central repository for all gang data and requires it be reported,” Youngkin said.
The data includes tracking kids in gangs, as there are 650 gangs currently on the streets of Virginia.
“We have had an 800% increase in youth participation in gangs over the last few years, so they are recruiting even younger members,” Youngkin said.
The association was founded in 1997 by Norfolk’s first gang investigator, Randy Crank, who in 1990 formed the area’s first gang unit and speaks about young gangs today.
“They go online, and find the literature now, and they start following rules and regulations, and they try to run those gangs, but the problem is they do not have any hierarchy,” Crank said. “They are the ones doing all those shootings and all that.”
Said Youngkin: “What was local street gang activity has now become nationally-run gang activity in combination with international drug cartels.”
This year’s data versus last year in 13 targeted violent Virginia cities shows murders down 34%.
Youngkin said people coming across the U.S.-Mexico border is also an issue.
“It is the unending flow of illegal, undocumented immigrants that have come across the border has completely changed the overall violence profile,” Youngkin said. “The gangs that we are seeing are so many and these folks are associated with people who have come over the border.”
The 25th annual conference is a four-day event, and it comes about two years after Youngkin’s office launched Operation Ceasefire. The initiative funds gang prevention efforts in places throughout the Commonwealth, including five Hampton Roads cities.
The governor and Attorney General Jason Miyares boasted its success earlier in October, tying the initiative to a 30% drop in murder throughout the past year in Virginia.
“We came together as a Commonwealth,” Youngkin said. “Not as a government, but as a Commonwealth. We said we were going to bring down violent crime and we were going to do everything in order to do it.”
This trend is in line with crime stats across the country. The FBI took a look at their numbers for the first three months of 2024. Compared to the same time in 2023, they noted a nationwide murder rate drop by about 26.4%. The decrease started right around when the COVID pandemic stabilized.
In Norfolk specifically, police chief Mark Talbot said all violent crime went down by about 28%. 10 On Your Side dove deep into this drop in crime stats back in January. At that time, Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney Ramin Fatehi spoke about how the Norfolk Police Department maximized its efforts against violent crime despite an historic officer shortage.
“Individuals obviously still have to work and have to work hard,” Fatehi said at the time. “The Norfolk Police Department and Chief Talbot have done an excellent job. They have put officers where they need to be on the streets to deal with hot spots. They have put people in the detective bureau to investigate in the crimes that tend to result in the arrest of crime drivers.”
Youngkin’s remarks from the conference can be viewed below: