I want to tell everyone a little bit about my background and why I’m interested in gang related studies. First off my name is Brad and I run this website by myself. I started researching Northwest gang activity in the year 2004. I would say the main thing that sparked my interest was after a series of gang-related shootings in Yakima. The police refused to release what gangs were involved so that’s when I started my quest to find out what gangs were responsible for the violence.

I started researching gangs in the Yakima Valley, mainly because that is my hometown and I was already somewhat familiar with the Surenos and Nortenos gangs just from the neighborhood I lived in and the schools I attended. When I started my website I only had information on Yakima Valley gangs because that’s all that I knew. Soon afterwards I began to receive e-mails asking me to add information on Seattle-Tacoma area gangs. Luckily the job I had at the time I was a delivery driver and was able to visit many different cities in Western Washington. I was always on the lookout for graffiti no matter where I went.

What turned out as almost a part-time hobby has turned into a daily thing for me now. I’ve received hundreds of e-mails from police officers, youth counselors, city leaders, news reporters, concerned parents and current and former gang members. I try to answer everyone’s questions that contact me. If I can’t, I try my best to point them in the right direction.

I’m not sure what I will do with all this information I gather, but it has really sparked my interest in finding a job related to gang prevention or something along the lines of that. If you have any community meetings or anything you think I would enjoy attending please contact me. I hope everyone enjoys my website.

Thank you,

Brad, nw_gangs@comcast.net

Race: 1/2 Caucasian, 1/2 Puerto Rican/Spanish

Date of Birth: 09/07/1980

Hometown: Yakima, WA

Current Location: Seattle, WA

Favorite Movie: Training Day

Favorite Musician: 2 Pac

• NWGIA newsletter (January, March 2008)
  
• Seattle P-I newspaper (March 2008)
• KOMO-TV channel 4 (March 2008)
• KOMO 1000 AM (March 2008)
• Seattlecrimeblog.com (March 2008)
• Central District News (March 2008)
• Myballard.com (April 2008)
  
• KUOW 94.9 FM (April 2008)
• KIMA-TV channel 29 (May 2008)