Emporia-Greensville Neighborhood Watch meeting centers on gang violence

JARRATT — Roughly a dozen people packed the Johns Manville Clubhouse in Jarratt for a neighborhood watch meeting organized by the Greensville County Sheriff’s Office. Sgt. Jason Rinker and Det. Chris Rook were the hosts of the meeting, which centered around the troubling epidemic of gang violence in Greensville County and Southside Virginia as a whole.

Rinker and Rook especially noted how the recruitment methods for local gangs have changed over the decades, and how authorities have been forced to play catch-up. Whereas gangs used to gather attention via peer pressure and graffiti (and still do to some extent), gangs of today largely rely on social media to extend their reach and their territory.