That it’s been such a rotten year for gang killings would, in a reasonable world, make no sense.

In the neighborhoods, police, code enforcement officers and peaceful residents have forged partnerships. Residents collect and report the information cops need to bust bad guys. Code enforcement swoops in to shut down gang houses with building code violations.

Another bright spot is that law enforcement agencies are using new technology to track data on the bad guys. And they’re sharing it with colleagues in other jurisdictions.

Police learned from their mistakes during the gang eruption of the late 1980s and early 1990s. They put a lot of gang bangers away for a good long time, and the violence simmered down.

Now it’s erupting again, and the community is rallying to fight it.

The Pierce County Law and Justice Council, convened by Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne, met last week to assess the situation.

Tacoma Police Assistant Chief Bob Sheehan laid out the problem. Though their numbers were reduced by attrition, violence and prison, the gangs never went away. They just got quiet for a few years.

Now police are running into second- and third-generation gang members.

Ethnic gangs are on the increase. Sheehan estimates there are 78-plus gangs with 1,800 members countywide.

Old gangsters are getting out of prison, returning to the home and the lifestyle.

And everybody texts.

“This text messaging stuff is ridiculous,” Sheehan said at Wednesday’s session. “If there’s a problem in a school, in minutes, everybody knows.”

In Gang World, texting kills.

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Greg Greer told about a fatal Sweet 16 party in South Tacoma. A Cambodian gang member allegedly shot and killed a party guest.

“These kids are texting out that their friend got killed and was associated with the Crips,” Greer said. “Two hours later, a Blood gets killed, though he’s totally unrelated to the shooting.”

Greer has worked on gang cases exclusively for five years. People who carp that the legal system takes it easy on gangsters should listen to him.

He has seven trials going now – most involving teens, all very violent, all affecting scores more people than the shooters and victims. He has no sympathy for defendants’ age or upbringing.

“Gang members need to be removed to prison,” he said. “They are not children in the things they do.”

They’re leaving Green Hill School, and, two days later, pulling into a restaurant parking lot with a friend to shoot a guy from another gang.

They’re getting bumped by someone in a club, starting a fight that involves 100 people before someone shoots a guy in the eye.

They’re talking smack about the girlfriend of a soldier just back from Iraq, and shooting him point-blank in the chest when he objects.

And no witnesses – not a single one in any of those cases – will talk to the cops.

“They are a huge, huge problem ingrained in the schools,” Greer said. “Get them out. Put them in a place where they cannot hurt anybody. If they can turn their lives around, fine.”

But don’t leave them where they can pull other kids in, or take other kids out.

For heaven’s sake, don’t put them out on the street, said Miguel Villahermosa of Tacoma Public Schools.

“Suspending a sixth-grader out of middle school is pipelining that child to drop out and engage with the criminal justice system,” he said. “Twenty-five kids are expelled at once for some kind of gang activity, and all of a sudden the community owns them.”

It’s better to put them into a separate, supervised educational program in lieu of suspension.

It’s better yet to identify the kids at risk early in life and figure out how to rescue them. He is talking about first-graders who come to school in gang clothing. He is talking about kindergartners, kids of gangsters, kicking their teachers.

School, juvenile justice and social services professionals are working on that complex prevention piece.

They, the cops and the prosecutors deserve every tool in the box to suppress the violence now, and prevent it in the future.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677

kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com