04-12-2008, 11:36 PM
By Kara Lawrence
April 12, 2008 12:00am
IT was the start of a typical school week at Merrylands High School on Monday morning with the school community gathering for assembly. About 750 students and their teachers were in the school quadrangle.
While the school has security fencing, the gates were open for students who were running late.
But at 8.50am, chaos erupted when five boys aged 14 to 16 dressed in jeans and hooded jumpers stormed the assembly, making threats with baseball bats, machetes and a samurai sword.
School principal Liliana Mularczyk yelled out "lock-down" - and the teachers quickly ushered their students inside classrooms.
The gang of boys pursued them, searching for a student over a perceived slight said to be about one of their cousins. Using their weapons, they smashed their way through glass windows to gain access to the classrooms.
Two teachers and seven students - three of them female - were injured after being assaulted and cut by flying glass. And when police stormed the school six minutes after the original attack, the attackers - four of whom were of Pacific Islander background and one of Middle Eastern origin - showed no fear. The youths, who are associated with a Guildford-based gang known as Gee40, laughed while in police custody and claimed there was more to come in their reign of terror.
The horrifying incident this week highlighted the youth gang culture in Sydney's west - the teenagers trying to turn their parents' adopted country into American-style gangland territory.
Students from Merrylands High were well aware of the existence of Gee40 and other gangs with members of Pacific Islander background that have proliferated in Sydney's west and use various internet sites to boast of their exploits.
One Year 11 student at Merrylands High School says he knows of about 20 students at the school who claimed to be part of Gee40.
"They yell out 'Gee40' in class to get attention and they used to walk around the schoolyard saying it," he says. "But they're basically a bunch of wannabe gangsters who are dangerous and violent.
"I think they are being tough to get the attention of the crowd."
Fights between students of Pacific Islander and Lebanese background are also common, he says. Rival groups often gather in sep- arate parts of the playground to call insults to each other during the day. He says the students gather in groups of between 30 and 40.
"The groups have their own territories," he says. "So there are some corners of the school that you know not to go into . . . if you go there, these people will throw things at you or call you names."
And he says fights between the rival groups occur every few weeks.
"There are often bins flying around and groups yelling insults at each other," the student says.
"Some students have been taken out of the school by their parents because they don't feel safe."
But Merrylands - and neighbouring Guildford - are not the only places where similar gangs exist.
Internet searches reveal they are also active in Fairfield, Parramatta, Liverpool, Punchbowl, Granville, Auburn, Mount Druitt and Auburn.
They are made up largely of a mixture of youths of Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern background. Their favoured websites seem to be Bebo.com and YouTube. It's on here they boast of their exploits, using American "gangsta"-style words and pictures.
"F . . . da cops" is a common refrain, and they often refer to themselves as "souljahs" (soldiers).
Piles of money, handguns, rifles, machetes and metal bars are featured on their slide shows, which are accompanied by "gangsta" rap music. Another common word used is "reprezent" - that is, they claim their territory according to postcode and issue threats to other gangs. On one site, entitled Granville Boys High, youths warn other "skools" that should "stay out of their way" include Parra- matta High, Merrylands High and Fairfield High.
"Oi lads or u need 2 noe dont fu . . . around alrite coz we will f . . .en kill u . . . coz we from granville boiz and we are f . . .in notorious motherf . . .ers aighht!!" the page reads.
They boast of being "wanted" by police and going to jail for a long list of offences. There are home movies of brawls and bashings on school grounds. Some of it isn't idle boasting: court reports following the Merrylands High School incident this week showed that many of the members do indeed have criminal records.
One of the youths had a prior aggravated robbery conviction.
Another, a Granville Boys High student, was on bail after being arrested on armed robbery charges last week. One of his co-accused is related to two brothers who are currently in jail.
The boy is believed to be closely linked to Gee40 and last week the courts banned the accused Granville Boys High student from associating with him. What is also emerging is a number of other Pacific Islander youth gangs in Sydney's west. These include the Crazy Little Coconuts (CLC), CB4, KVT (standing for I am Fijian in Fijian), and in Mount Druitt, The Bloods and FBI (Full-Blooded Islander). Investigators are now online trawling through a number of websites trying to determine the criminality of those pictured.
As Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione pointed out, the internet boasting is a new phenomenon that police can quickly turn to their advantage in identifying criminals.
But what has Scipione most concerned about is the obvious question: where are the parents of these so-called gangsters?
"What happened at Merrylands was disgraceful," he says.
"They're teenagers, so where are their parents? Families can't outsource parenting to the state through our police or teachers."
He says it comes back to parents taking greater responsibility for the actions of their children.
"They're 14, 15, 16 years old - they are children and they need strong parental control," he says.
Indeed, of the five accused, only one had family members turn up at Parramatta Children's Court complex to find out what was happening with their child's court matter.
And Auburn-based Pacific Islander youth worker Michael Tupou says there are some parents who simply don't care what their children are up to. But he also points to the relatively lax system in Australia available to discipline young people through family, schools and the juvenile criminal justice system.
Tupou, who met Merrylands police along with other Tongan and church leaders to discuss the problem, says many youths from Pacific Islander families are not being disciplined.
Their parents, many of them devout Christians who came to Australia for a better life, have been raised with strict discipline - which meant a belting when they stepped out of line.
But, he says, the Australian system does not allow them to follow this tradition - and their children are well aware.
"I know a lot of parents who try to smack their kids and the kids usually go and get the police to charge the parents (with assault)," Tupou says.
Similarly, police and teachers go soft on youths. He says they know they can get away with virtually anything. Even when they do go into juvenile detention, they treat it as a lark. And threats of deportation if they are non-citizens and commit crimes no longer exists, he says.
"It's not going to stop until the rules are changed," he says.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/st...21,00.html
April 12, 2008 12:00am
IT was the start of a typical school week at Merrylands High School on Monday morning with the school community gathering for assembly. About 750 students and their teachers were in the school quadrangle.
While the school has security fencing, the gates were open for students who were running late.
But at 8.50am, chaos erupted when five boys aged 14 to 16 dressed in jeans and hooded jumpers stormed the assembly, making threats with baseball bats, machetes and a samurai sword.
School principal Liliana Mularczyk yelled out "lock-down" - and the teachers quickly ushered their students inside classrooms.
The gang of boys pursued them, searching for a student over a perceived slight said to be about one of their cousins. Using their weapons, they smashed their way through glass windows to gain access to the classrooms.
Two teachers and seven students - three of them female - were injured after being assaulted and cut by flying glass. And when police stormed the school six minutes after the original attack, the attackers - four of whom were of Pacific Islander background and one of Middle Eastern origin - showed no fear. The youths, who are associated with a Guildford-based gang known as Gee40, laughed while in police custody and claimed there was more to come in their reign of terror.
The horrifying incident this week highlighted the youth gang culture in Sydney's west - the teenagers trying to turn their parents' adopted country into American-style gangland territory.
Students from Merrylands High were well aware of the existence of Gee40 and other gangs with members of Pacific Islander background that have proliferated in Sydney's west and use various internet sites to boast of their exploits.
One Year 11 student at Merrylands High School says he knows of about 20 students at the school who claimed to be part of Gee40.
"They yell out 'Gee40' in class to get attention and they used to walk around the schoolyard saying it," he says. "But they're basically a bunch of wannabe gangsters who are dangerous and violent.
"I think they are being tough to get the attention of the crowd."
Fights between students of Pacific Islander and Lebanese background are also common, he says. Rival groups often gather in sep- arate parts of the playground to call insults to each other during the day. He says the students gather in groups of between 30 and 40.
"The groups have their own territories," he says. "So there are some corners of the school that you know not to go into . . . if you go there, these people will throw things at you or call you names."
And he says fights between the rival groups occur every few weeks.
"There are often bins flying around and groups yelling insults at each other," the student says.
"Some students have been taken out of the school by their parents because they don't feel safe."
But Merrylands - and neighbouring Guildford - are not the only places where similar gangs exist.
Internet searches reveal they are also active in Fairfield, Parramatta, Liverpool, Punchbowl, Granville, Auburn, Mount Druitt and Auburn.
They are made up largely of a mixture of youths of Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern background. Their favoured websites seem to be Bebo.com and YouTube. It's on here they boast of their exploits, using American "gangsta"-style words and pictures.
"F . . . da cops" is a common refrain, and they often refer to themselves as "souljahs" (soldiers).
Piles of money, handguns, rifles, machetes and metal bars are featured on their slide shows, which are accompanied by "gangsta" rap music. Another common word used is "reprezent" - that is, they claim their territory according to postcode and issue threats to other gangs. On one site, entitled Granville Boys High, youths warn other "skools" that should "stay out of their way" include Parra- matta High, Merrylands High and Fairfield High.
"Oi lads or u need 2 noe dont fu . . . around alrite coz we will f . . .en kill u . . . coz we from granville boiz and we are f . . .in notorious motherf . . .ers aighht!!" the page reads.
They boast of being "wanted" by police and going to jail for a long list of offences. There are home movies of brawls and bashings on school grounds. Some of it isn't idle boasting: court reports following the Merrylands High School incident this week showed that many of the members do indeed have criminal records.
One of the youths had a prior aggravated robbery conviction.
Another, a Granville Boys High student, was on bail after being arrested on armed robbery charges last week. One of his co-accused is related to two brothers who are currently in jail.
The boy is believed to be closely linked to Gee40 and last week the courts banned the accused Granville Boys High student from associating with him. What is also emerging is a number of other Pacific Islander youth gangs in Sydney's west. These include the Crazy Little Coconuts (CLC), CB4, KVT (standing for I am Fijian in Fijian), and in Mount Druitt, The Bloods and FBI (Full-Blooded Islander). Investigators are now online trawling through a number of websites trying to determine the criminality of those pictured.
As Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione pointed out, the internet boasting is a new phenomenon that police can quickly turn to their advantage in identifying criminals.
But what has Scipione most concerned about is the obvious question: where are the parents of these so-called gangsters?
"What happened at Merrylands was disgraceful," he says.
"They're teenagers, so where are their parents? Families can't outsource parenting to the state through our police or teachers."
He says it comes back to parents taking greater responsibility for the actions of their children.
"They're 14, 15, 16 years old - they are children and they need strong parental control," he says.
Indeed, of the five accused, only one had family members turn up at Parramatta Children's Court complex to find out what was happening with their child's court matter.
And Auburn-based Pacific Islander youth worker Michael Tupou says there are some parents who simply don't care what their children are up to. But he also points to the relatively lax system in Australia available to discipline young people through family, schools and the juvenile criminal justice system.
Tupou, who met Merrylands police along with other Tongan and church leaders to discuss the problem, says many youths from Pacific Islander families are not being disciplined.
Their parents, many of them devout Christians who came to Australia for a better life, have been raised with strict discipline - which meant a belting when they stepped out of line.
But, he says, the Australian system does not allow them to follow this tradition - and their children are well aware.
"I know a lot of parents who try to smack their kids and the kids usually go and get the police to charge the parents (with assault)," Tupou says.
Similarly, police and teachers go soft on youths. He says they know they can get away with virtually anything. Even when they do go into juvenile detention, they treat it as a lark. And threats of deportation if they are non-citizens and commit crimes no longer exists, he says.
"It's not going to stop until the rules are changed," he says.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/st...21,00.html