A recent article out of Corpus Christi about gang members moving from that city to smaller towns in the Coastal Bend has state and local law enforcement officials on their toes in Bee County.

The article, datelined Robstown, quoted a Corpus Christi Police Department gang unit member as saying, “They’re moving out in surrounding small communities around Corpus Christi and setting up shop because of the (police) manpower shortages in the areas.”

Another article reported that 43 gang members were rounded up in Corpus Christi by immigration agents recently and as many as 116 of them have been arrested during immigration sweeps in Houston and Beaumont.

For prison gang members, the heat appears to be on in Texas cities.

Sgt. Drew Pilkington, the local investigator for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Criminal Intelligence Service, said Bee County is not the best place in South Texas for gang members to be locating.

CIS investigators specialize in a number of different types of criminal activity, including that of prison gangs.

“When someone is paroled, we are notified and we monitor them,” Pilkington said. “We work real well with probation and parole officials and we watch them closely.”

Information sharing is the result of a close relationship with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Office of the Inspector General and local and state investigators.

“We also have access to the TDCJ’s computer information,” Pilkington said.

Pilkington and Deputy Lt. Jason Hinds provide a special class on prison gangs, on their tattoos, their activities, their clothing and their graffiti so that people working in the prison system and in the community can detect signs of gang activity.

They recently took the class to Texas Department of Human Services personnel to teachers in the Windham School District at the Raul R. “Rudy” Garza East and West units.

Pilkington said the TDCJ maintains a Security Threat Group which monitors the releases of gang members from state prison units and which notifies local law enforcement officers of their presence.

Commander Mike Page, administrator of the Bee County Jail jail for Sheriff Carlos Carrizales, Jr., is in charge of watching for signs of gang activity inside that facility.

Pilkington said three deputies, including Sgt. Ronnie Jones and Deputies Adam Levine and Rubén Cuellar have been in Corpus Christi this week undergoing gang training offered by the Texas Gang Investigation Association.

Pilkington said Carrizales and Police Chief Joe Treviño have a unique situation here because of the three state prison units in this county and the nearby Federal Corrections Institution near Three Rivers.

“It’s inevitable that gang members will be in the community but we monitor them,” the investigator said. “We’re not singling them out. As long as they stay clean that’s all right.”

“But you bring your guns, your drugs, your sexual predators and your illegal activities here and we’re coming after you,” Pilkington warned.

“They need to realize it’s not going to be a comfortable environment for them when they get here,” Carrizales said. “I think they know how we operate here. We’ll be monitoring them. If they’re going to get involved in illegal activity, they can expect to pay the price.”

Beeville Police Chief Joe Treviño said the BPD has a gang intelligence officer who monitors all suspected gang members in the city.

“If we got any new gang members here in Beeville, it wouldn’t be long before we’d know it and we start monitoring their activity,” the chief explained.

The department also keeps a watch out for graffiti. Where gangs go, graffiti follows, Treviño noted. He asked that all residents of the city keep the department informed when and if they find new evidence of gang tagging in the city.

“That’s one thing I don’t like, graffiti,” the chief said. “It makes the town look dirty.”

“If they’re doing something against the law, we’re definitely going to be right on top of it,” Treviño said.

District Attorney Martha Warner also is known to be tough on gangs.

“If she knows they’re gang members, she’s going to go after them to the max,” Pilkington said.

Warner makes gang association pay dearly for those gang members caught committing crimes.

“Anybody associated with a prison or street gang who is charged with a crime will have engaging in organized criminal activity added to their indictment,” Warner said.

“That will mean a one-count indictment will become a two-count indictment and engaging in organized criminal activity increases the penalty range by one degree,” she said.

“So we have a full circle from the prison systems to local and state law enforcement to the district attorney,” Pilkington warned. “Beeville is not Sleepy Hollow for gang members.”