Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that he is sending state police into schools in Long Island to combat gang activity, specifically the Central American Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang — with the Democrat calling schools “the breeding ground” for such gangs.
According to the New York Daily News, Cuomo used an appearance in Long Island to announce that “gang prevention officers” will be posted in the 10 schools in Suffolk County believed to have the highest rates of gang activity.
In tough language in which he called MS-13 “domestic terrorists,” Cuomo said Albany needed to take action to make sure the gangs were “stamped out,” as school teachers are not equipped to deal with gang violence.
“This will not stop on its own,” he said. “It will stop because we make it stop.”
The officers will work with teachers to identify signs of gang activity, as well as working with students and the community, according to the Daily News. This comes on top of 25 troops sent to the area to fight the gang problem in April
“It’s back to school time and schools are where a lot of these gangs actually operate,” Cuomo said. “That’s where they recruit, that’s where they intimidate, that’s where they meet. And this is a problem that the school system does not deal with.”
According to CBS News, gang violence in the area has killed 17 people since 2016, leading to a congressional hearing, 270 arrests, and 110 MS-13 members being deported. In July, President Trump traveled to Long Island and pledged to “destroy the vile criminal cartel MS-13 and many other gangs.”
In that speech, Trump promised to protect the U.S. border to keep criminal immigrants from entering the United States.
“We will find you, we will arrest you, we will jail you and we will deport you,” Trump said.
Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY
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