Police departments throughout Porter County are forming a county-wide task force to combat gang activity.
Valparaiso police Chief Michael Brickner, who assigned two officers to participate in the task force, said the group will meet on a regular basis to share information and work together to combat any gang problems.
Brickner said there is some criminal activity linked to gangs in the county, including the vandalizing of property with gang graffiti. He and other police officials want to focus on the problem before it becomes a big problem.
"We don't want to get to the point where we have open drug dealing on the street and drive-by shootings," Brickner said. "We're not going to tolerate that."
Brickner and other law enforcement officials talked about the gang problem and agreed this was the time to act. The group's first meeting was April 8 at the Portage Police Department.
"We want to be proactive and this is a step in that direction," Brickner said.
"We don't want to wait until we're saturated with gang activity. We see it (gang activity) here to a degree, and we don't want to dismiss its presence."
Brickner said local, state and federal law enforcement officials will be involved in the task force.
