Prosecutors roll out anti-gang bill

State prosecutors will push for strengthened anti-gang legislation in Annapolis this spring in hopes of garnering more convictions of gang-related crimes — and helping to combat growing numbers of Maryland youth participating in gangs and at younger ages....

In July, his client 16-year-old Edgar Garcia of Germantown, pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder after he and a 16-year-old friend from Gaithersburg stabbed another teen nearly 50 times and left him in a park in 2008. The victim, a fellow member of the Vampire Bloods street gang, was attempting to leave the group for another faction of the Bloods gang, prosecutors said. Garcia said at sentencing that he joined the Vampire Bloods while attending Neelsview Middle School.

"Kids who were white were calling him racial epithets and beating him up and the only people who stood up for him were members of the black community and ultimately gangs," said Malouf. "For him at least, it was: 'These guys are friends.'"

If a gang leader encouraging 11, 12 and 13-year olds to participate in criminal gang activity had been a child predator manipulating sexual activity, his client would be considered too young to make his own decision, Malouf told the judge. The gang leader would have been charged with a felony.