WSU Sociology Students at Work for You!

Sociology 433, an undergraduate class at Washington State University, has been researching options and resources for topics that are important to your rural communities as you work to reduce poverty. Topics include: affordable housing, neighborhood safety, youth activities and much, much more.

Your community may be in contact with one of these teams, but all of their research may be relevant to the issues you are addressing. Click to the Horizons website http://www.horizons.wsu.edu/project/horizons3/community.html to read about their work.

Gang Killing

March 18, 2009 - 19 year old Ismael Garcia was shot and killed during an gang altercation at the Taggers Park. The shooters were rival gang members. This is the main reason that we need increased gang awareness and police presence in West Othello. There is not only a greater gang presence in area (that can be seen in the increase of graffiti) but the crimes committed by gang members has increased in violence. As a response to the community, the Horizons program along with partner agencies (Adams County Community Network and the Adams County Juvenile Services) has sponsored several events to highlight the growing gang problem in the area as well as to provide increase knowledge on how to identify and deal with the problem.

Community Gang Meeting
April 2, 2009

More than 70 concerned citizens filled the pews at the Othello Christian Church for a town hall meeting on gang awareness last Thursday evening. The audience was attentive and relatively quiet as people listened to two nationally recognized gang experts, Domenic Cappelluti and Steve Hollister, from the Waukeen (Illinois) Police Department, who led a 3 hour discussion on gang cultures.


Regional Anti-Gang Training for Law Enforcement Personnel
April 2/3, 2009


A two day training by Gang Combat Dynamics was attended by 30 law enforcement personnel form throughout the region, including various city officer, sheriffs deputies from 3 different counties, probation/parole officers as well as federal officers from the Immigration and Customes Enforcement.

Gangs in Schools Task Force
April 29, 2009

Over 60 individuals including community members, school personnel (from various school districts) law enforcement personnel and various probation/parole officers came together to discuss the increasing problem of gang presence in local school districts and how to approach the Washington State Legislature for policy changes that would help local jurisdictions in identifying and dealing with the growing gang presence and problem.

Leadershp Plenty Training

Community members were instructed on the Leadership Plenty training in Spokane. (pictured on the far left is Jerri Casados, thanks go to the regional Dept of Social and Health Services - another local partner in allowing Jerri to participate, and for its continued support to the Horizons program in Adams and Grant Counties)

Community members participated in the Leadership Plenty training over several day long weekend trainings. Horizons would like to thank the Othello Community Hospital for use of their conference room during the trainings.

Study Circles Facilitator Training

Regional Coach Tony Garcia, recruited and trained indivdiuals from various parts of the community to become Study Circles Facilitators.

The Adams County Community Network and the Othello Community Hospital - local area Horizons Partners hosted the training event.

Leadership Labels

Please do not delete this post. NWAF and WSU Horizons requires labels to be added to each post.