The long-anticipated answer has finally arrived, and now it is official: Tacoma has a gang problem.

It seems obvious at this point that the Tacoma City Council’s decision to spend $50,000 on a study to determine the extent of the gang problem was a bad idea. At best it was a well-intentioned exercise in redundancy. Let’s look at some of the results:

• Gangs infest more than half the city
• Gangsters sell drugs and use guns for violent crime
• Youths are recruited into gangs in middle school

If the authors of the full 316-page report, Missouri-based Executive Interface, LLC, …

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When the sun shines down, as it occasionally does here in the Northwest, its densely packed clusters of photons do a lot more than just deliver a megadose of Vitamin D.

The results are a mixed bag as sunbeams turn houses inside out and people spill forth. Many use the invigorating power of sunbeams for summer activities such as outdoor sports, barbeques, parties and events that can only be done outside.

A small percentage of people, whose summer activies are always anticipated at the cop shop, meander along the heated pavement and contribute to the seasonal spike in street crime.

Like the Taliban awaiting the Spring fighting season, much of the crime stats spike during the long, hot (or at least warm) summer days. Some of the criminal activities that move outside during the summer include drug dealing, tagging, random street crime and gang shootings.

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