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SALT LAKE CITY -- Salt Lake City police officers are redefining how they classify gang crimes. It's a model adopted by a number of cities across the country, and police say it's a major step in suppressing Utah's gang problem.
Over the past year, gang crimes in Salt Lake City have claimed innocent lives, including those of a store manager and a 7-year-old girl. Now, after city and state leaders have promised action, police say they plan to deliver.
"What that will do is it will give us a more accurate picture of what's happening in the community," Atencio explained.
Under the previous definition, a gang-related crime had to be motivated by furthering the interests of a gang. Now, any incident that involves a single gang member will be called "gang-involved."
"It doesn't matter if a gang member commits a crime or is a victim of a crime, we're going to look at it as gang-involved," Atencio said.
Salt Lake hopes to have a similar story, but police warn crime stats will have a very different look. "The actual number of crimes is not going to go up, but the classification that we're looking at is going to give us a clearer picture of how many crimes gang members were involved in," Atencio said.
We tried contacting civil rights advocates to see if they have any problem with the program. The ACLU of Utah said they didn't have enough information to comment.
E-mail: wjohnson@ksl.com