gang warfare

Last week we had a morbidity and mortality (M & M) lecture about the gunshot wounds we have had in the last year. Mind you, I don't work in a Level I trauma center. We transfer bad trauma to the county hospital. However because I work in the hood, we get more GSWs than you would think. The drop off kind.

We have had a few already this year, so as a part of the lecture we had someone from the police gang unit come and talk about gangs in the area. We had done this before years back when violence was on the rise in the city. I'm not really sure if this benefits us all that much but it certainly is interesting. There are at least seven gangs in the area around where I work. It seems gangs don't wear colors much anymore, too obvious the police I guess.

Here is an interesting tidbit: Gang members like to be dropped off at the hospital, rather than have an ambulance called. Apparently that makes them look more tough - they didn't have to be a wuss and have the ambulance called. Apparently that gives them more street cred...

So one of the things the cop told us was that there are a couple of gangs who come downtown on Sunday nights. On those nights some of the clubs have 18+ nights (legal age in our state is 21). There are fights every Sunday usually at closing time. There have been a couple of shootings this spring. The thing is last night there were four shootings. I don't know if any of them went to our ER, I wasn't working.

It feels like its going to be a bad summer....