Pictured from left: Jose Ramirez, who is the current President of the Georgia Gang Investigators Association and District Attorney Keith Higgins.
On January 16 and 17, the District Attorney’s Office for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit provided a gang training course to area law enforcement officers and prosecutors at the College of Coastal Georgia. Prosecutors from the District Attorney’s Office and more than 25 law enforcement officers from the Glynn County Sheriff’s Office, the Glynn County Police Department, the Brunswick Police Department, the Camden County Sheriff’s Office, the Kingsland Police Department, the Appling County Sheriff’s Office, the St. Marys Police Department, the Georgia Ports Police Department, and the Georgia State Patrol attended the training, which was designed to teach the skills and knowledge needed to recognize, identify, and document criminal street gangs and their members so that criminal charges can be brought and effectively prosecuted under the Georgia Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.
As a sponsor for this training, the District Attorney’s Office paid the course fee for any law enforcement officer who was currently employed by a law enforcement agency in Appling, Camden, Glynn, Jeff Davis, or Wayne counties. When the application of the District Attorney’s Office for a Gang Activity Prosecution (GAP) grant from the Georgia Department of Homeland Security was denied, District Attorney Higgins decided that this training was so important that the District Attorney’s Office would pay for the training from asset forfeiture funds the Office had obtained from the civil forfeiture of money and other property that were either proceeds of a crime or were intended to be used to facilitate a crime. In providing this training, District Attorney Higgins stated that “As the gang problem continues to grow on our streets, I am committed to protecting our citizens from violent criminal street gangs and their crimes. I will continue to assist our law enforcement agencies, as best I can, to secure the training and the tools they need to effectively combat this threat to our safety and the safety of our families.”
The course was taught by renowned gang instructor and subject-matter expert, Jose Ramirez, who is the current President of the Georgia Gang Investigators Association.
For more information about the District Attorney’s Office, visit our website at brunswickda.org.
