NSW Police take tough approach on Sydney youth gangs

With names like Inner West Brotherhood or postcodes like the Bra Boys a generation ago, Sydney’s modern street gangs worship gangster rap and a culture of violence. But they’re not teens gone wrong - they’re serious crime organisations in the making, writes Crime Editor Mark Morri.

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Back in the 90s, The Telopea Street gang members from Punchbowl grew up to be major players in Sydney’s most vicious Middle Eastern crime gangs.

Later involved in murder, extortion, drug and gun crime, they were allowed to run riot.

The Bra Boys were the same with their tattoos of My Brothers Keeper and postcode 2035 which the naive saw as nothing more than a gang of dope smoking surfies.

But many were drug-dealing violent thugs like Tony Hines and they went on to incite the Cronulla riots.

Standover man Tony Hines in 2002. He was shot dead and dumped over cliffs at Jack Vanny Memorial Park on Marine Parade, Maroubra in 2003.

An angry mob chases four young people at North Cronulla, as police try to protect them from the crowd. Picture: Craig Greenhill

Likewise the young Vietnamese street gangs were not a bunch of disaffected young migrant kids, breaking street lights and stealing hubcaps — they were the beginnings of the 5Ts.

One of the most dangerous bloodthirsty crime groups in the city since the Razor gangs of the 1930s, the 5Ts were responsible for too many murders to count, and the heroin scourge of the late 90s which destroyed hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Hundreds of guns seized, kilos of drugs destroyed, and thousands of disgruntled bikies charged by Strike Force Raptor.

Now we have the modern street gangs in north and south west Sydney, who worship gangster rap and its culture of violence. They carry knives, worship American gangs like the Crips and Bloods and have been involved in one alleged public brawl and one stabbing so far.

They have names like the Inner West Brotherhood, or postcode names like 2070 for Campbelltown — similar to the Bra Boys of a generation ago.

Many are of island descent who as they grow older and stronger will, as experience has seen, be targeted to become enforcers by gangs like the Rebels and other crime groups.

Strike force Raptor prepare to raid a property during a police operation.

What is different to the 1990s is the attitude of the NSW Police.

With the first real hint of trouble, they jumped and formed a formidable strike force of 20 cops across the regions to target these bands of stupid but dangerous idiots.

Likewise, when it became obvious there were groups of African youths robbing electrical stores across Sydney, the reaction from the cops was swift and forceful.

They didn’t pussyfoot around fearing they would upset the politically correct instead they formed another strike force, were not afraid to call them African youth gangs.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has lead a tough approach on rising youth gangs. Picture: AAP

When they identified the culprits, they used Strike force Raptor of bikie-busting fame to make the arrests.

It was a message — you are not shoplifting juveniles, but organised thieves and a potential crime organisation in the making and you will be treated as such.

Let’s hope the hard-headed approach by Commissioner Mick Fuller and his troops is not undermined by the growing band of softies opposed to stop-and-search procedures, sniffer dog deployment or any other crime-reducing measure that make our community safer.