Gang violence concerns in Hendry County after fatal shooting of 16-year-old

A 16-year-old girl is dead, the apparent victim of alleged gang activity in Hendry County she was not involved in.

We are now asking whether there is a real gang problem in the rural communities of Hendry County or a case of wannabes.

Roosevelt Adderly, III, and Jayden Lawson, both 15 years old, have been accused in the death 16-year-old Ja’yanna Johnson at a dance party just outside Clewiston.

During a press conference, Hendry County Sheriff Steve Whidden said that the two are known gang members.

This statement from the Hendry County sheriff could worry residents, so Thursday, we got to work in that community.

This community is located just south of the banks of Lake Okeechobee, off of U.S. Highway 27, just south of Clewiston.

We spoke with David Thomas, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, but an expert in law enforcement since he spent many years in it. He said that now that the two teens are behind bars, more people connected to them and their rival gang will come out.

Thomas said gang violence can happen anywhere.

“We like to think gangs are a part of big cities, and the reality is [is that] they are everywhere. No one is immune to it,” Thomas said.

Thomas worked with local law enforcement in the past, and he knows what comes out of gang-related crimes.

“I guarantee you, once the sheriff’s office starts to dig in, what they’ll find is that, yeah, it’s probably been a lot of back and forth with these groups, with these two gangs, or these members that has gone back and forth on social media, and in the past, when I’ve worked with agencies, we have been able to track every shooting,” he said.

But he said that at this age, the problems start at home.

“Our society, especially in the State of Florida, we are so accustomed to guns being around,” he said.

We reached out to the District 3 commissioner about where this shooting happened in the Harlem Gardens apartment neighborhood, but we haven’t received a response yet.

But is anything being done to keep this community safe now that HCSO said it was a gang-affiliated shooting that resulted in Johnson’s death?

If we get an answer, we’ll keep you updated.