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US: Growing Kurdish gang activity flusters
police
28.4.2007
By Jared Allen |
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April 28, 2007
Neshville, -- A brutal Donelson home invasion
and an attack this week on a Hispanic student at
Glencliff High School are not necessarily isolated
incidents but a part of what Metro Police are
describing as an up-tick in the visibility and
activity of members of Nashville’s Kurdish Pride
gang.
In February, according to police reports, three
armed and masked men charged into a home in the 200
block of McGavock Pike – a predominately Hispanic
neighborhood – and held up the eight men and one
woman inside.
Before the assailants fled, one of them took the
lone woman into a separate room and allegedly raped
her, police said, adding that the victim was several
months pregnant.
Last week, Sex Crimes and Hermitage Precinct
detectives arrested
a 17-year-old Kurdish teen and Glencliff High
School student and charged him with the rape, after
his DNA sample matched a sample taken from the
female victim.
The teen, Zana Abdulgad Noroly, of 229 Shawn Drive,
was a suspected member of the Kurdish Pride gang,
Nashville’s predominant Kurdish gang. Six days after
his arrest, Noroly committed suicide by hanging
himself with his bed sheet while detained in the
juvenile detention facility in the Juvenile Court
complex
Retaliation suspected
On Tuesday, the Metro Police’s Gang Unit arrested
three individuals and secured juvenile court
petitions against two others – all of Kurdish decent
and all individuals police identified as Kurdish
Pride members – after the five males apparently
charged into Glencliff high, pulled a Hispanic
student out of his class, and attacked him the
school hallway.
Arrested in the assault was an unidentified Kurdish
juvenile, as well as Zarko Novakovic, 19, of Rychen
Drive, and Chia Silveani, 19, of Leopole Road.
Silveani is a former Glencliff student. Novakovic
has never been associated with the school, police
said.
Police said the attack appeared to be in suspected
retaliation for disrespectful comments the Hispanic
17-year-old student made about Noroly.
The incident caused school administrators to place
the school on lockdown for much of the day Tuesday.
School officials also cancelled a boys soccer game
against Antioch High that Glencliff was scheduled to
host that night.
The game was played Wednesday, but at Antioch and
with a significant police presence, Metro Police
officials confirmed.
Bad blood brewing?
Despite the recent activity at the hands of Kurdish
gang members – all of it aimed at Hispanics in
Nashville – Gang Unit specialists say they are not
aware of any current conflicts between any Kurdish
gang members and any Hispanic gangs or gang members.
Nor are police aware of any bad blood between the
Kurds and the Hispanic community in general.
“They are not targeting the Hispanics, per se,” said
Det. Mark Anderson, Metro’s lead investigator of
Kurdish gangs. “In fact, it’s probably quite the
opposite between the Hispanic and the Kurdish gangs.
They actually get along pretty well.”
Anderson described the Donelson home invasion not as
a gang-initiated crime or a crime to target a
specific group, but as “more a crime of convenience
or opportunity.”
And he noted that, while Hispanic, the 17-year-old
Glencliff student who was assaulted by Kurdish gang
members was himself not affiliated with any gang.
All that being said, however, the Kurdish gangs
“appear to be becoming more active” around
Nashville, Anderson said.
“I don’t know if they’re growing in numbers and I’d
be hesitant to say they are,” Anderson said. “I
think they’re just becoming more visible.”
So far, police have not seen spikes in any specific
criminal activity at the hands of Kurdish gang
members, aside from assaults.
“Right now, it appears to be fights,” Anderson said.
Schools take notice
Ralph Thompson, assistant superintendent of student
services with Metro Nashville Public Schools, on
Thursday said the interaction between Kurdish and
Hispanic gang members on school property has lately
“been volatile to some degree.”
At the same time, Thompson downplayed the danger
Kurdish gang members pose to other Nashville
students.
"There's no more concern about the increase in
[Kurdish Pride] activity as it is in anyone else's.
It's just their time right now. There's no pattern
to it. It's them today, it could be the Bloods or
the Crips tomorrow,” Thompson said.
Metro Police spokeswoman Kristen Mumford on Thursday
said that the increased police presence at the
Glencliff-Antioch soccer game was in response to the
fight at Glencliff, not in response to any suspected
animosity between Kurdish and Hispanic Metro
students.
“Glencliff could have been playing anybody,” Mumford
said. “It was just because of what had happened at
Glencliff that they had some extra Flex [Unit] guys
out there... There was no talk of rumblings or
anything like that.”
But Anderson noted that, as Nashville gangs go,
Kurdish Pride has been one of the hardest to get a
handle on.
“They’re hard to read,” he said.
And, apparently, hard to find.
Noroly was the only person Police – including Gang
Unit officers and Hermitage Precinct Detectives –
were able to even identify as involved in the
Donelson home invasion.
And authorities are still looking to make positive
IDs and arrests of two of the five Kurdish Pride
members who attacked the Glencliff student.
In addition to searching for those two individuals,
police officials said they are still actively
looking to develop additional persons of interest in
connection with the home invasion.
Police have yet to comment on whether Noroly’s
suicide note yielded any additional information that
is proving helpful to their case.
nashvillecitypaper com
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