In middle school, they were friends, playing in the same local football league. Some kids played for the Crofton Cardinals. Others wore the jerseys of the Odenton Wildcats.
It was innocent then, when the Cardinals - three seasons undefeated - began calling themselves TNT, or The New Threat. The kids from Odenton became ESD, or the East Side Diamonds.
Born of a sports rivalry, the two groups developed into what Anne Arundel County police are calling dangerous gangs. A resulting conflict left 14-year-old Christopher David Jones dead late last month. Days later, the home of someone erroneously believed to have been involved in Christopher's death was firebombed.
The death of Christopher, who was riding a bicycle in his neighborhood, has angered and shaken a middle-class community where families move for good schools and safety. It has also provided a stark illustration that gangs are not a problem confined to inner cities and the suburbs closest to them.
Experts say gang activity in suburban and more affluent communities, prevalent since the early 1990s, is expected to peak in coming years as the population of the most susceptible youths, ages 14 to 17, booms.
"The suburban gang trend is on the uptick," said Dan Korem, author of Suburban Gangs: The Affluent Rebels.
The development poses a challenge to law enforcement, schools and parents. Tackling the problem has been complicated by classroom privacy laws, and by the difficulty in figuring out whether a group of teens who give themselves a name will blossom into a dangerous organization or will dissipate in a few months or years, as they often do.
"We're not saying that every kid on a street corner with a T-shirt down to his knees is necessarily a gang member," said Baltimore County Police Chief James W. Johnson.
'Fatherless generation'
Of about two dozen gangs identified in Baltimore County, most have fewer than 25 members, Johnson said. In some cases, he said, "10 kids get together and decide to form a gang," and often it doesn't last.
"Yes, we do know there are gang members in the schools," said Anne Arundel Police Lt. J.D. Batten Jr., head of the school safety division, during a recent legislative hearing examining legal changes intended to prevent deaths such as Christopher's. "It is not illegal in the state of Maryland to be a gang member. To be a gang member is not an actionable offense," Batten said.
