Gabriel Tyner can hardly believe there is a gang problem in Gainesville. After all, this is Tim Tebow's town; home of the Gators, not the Bloods and Crips.
The WCJB TV-20 director and UF alumnus is now trying to inform the rest of the city on just how dangerous a growing gang population can be for Gainesville. Tyner, along with the Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County, has teamed up to make a documentary about Gainesville's gangs.
Currently titled, "Chasing Ghosts: Fighting Gangs in Schools," the film will also target the role the media and greater community play in facilitating a gang by failing to acknowledge its existence early on.
"If you put your head in the sand right now, it's just going to get worse," Tyner said.
Keith Blanchard, president of the Boys & Girls Club of Alachua County, said he has seen national "blood-in, blood-out" type criminals infiltrate Gainesville neighborhoods with memberships as high as 20 people per gang.
The big ones are all present, including the Bloods, Crips, MS-13, Gangster Disciples and Latin Kings, according to Gainesville Police Detective James McCollum.
McCollum said the problem has become so widespread that a walk around the Santa Fe College campus would result in sightings of several gang members, all of them easily distinguishable by the colors they wear.
In relation to the number of gang members in Gainesville, McCollum admits his department is understaffed. Along with Richard LaLonde of the Alachua County Sheriff's Department, they make the only two full-time gang investigators in the county.
Blanchard said that he would like the documentary to work with the GREAT anti-gang education program to create the groundwork for a true gang prevention curriculum.
"Chasing Ghosts" is looking for more funds in order to finish the film by early next year.
"We've got a growing problem," Tyner said. "I want to make a documentary that stops it now before it gets out of control."
For more information visit, www.chasing-ghosts.com.
