Police sirens are heard in my city as often as a declining pulse in the E.R. and most of the time one has something to do with the other. The police have become the most powerful gang in America.

Sheriffs are like mighty tyrants and their reign of terror is looked over because unlike most gangs they have a secret weapon, a secret identity... their badge.

Badges enable the police to do as they will, and trust, they will. Once you're in the system hope is almost well — hopeless. A record is like an infection that spreads until it consumes you or destroys you and that is the mission statement of Sac PD's war on gangs, to destroy them.

Americans today have been brainwashed to believe all people should look and think like them. Right and wrong are no longer determined by one's own morals. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying gangs are righteous, more like misunderstood by those not a part of the lifestyle. To people like me gangs are nothing more than a way of life, not a vicious army as depicted on the 10 o'clock news.

But as Americans we think about how can we point fingers at gangs for their ways. Look at American history, our fore fathers killed and died for the same reason gang members die today — colors and territory. There was no war on America when the Indians were murdered, enslaved and infected by illness they never even dreamed existed. And why did they die? Territory. The same territory we walk upon today.

There was no war on gangs when Africans were first kidnapped and brought across our seas and then terrorized in this country. And for what? Nothing more than a color. So what's the difference? America was founded on gangs. America was founded on a gang mentality. And the casualties aren't even half as numerous today.

If you ask me, parents should spend more time loving their own children so they don't have to run to the streets. Raise their kids to be smart enough to follow their own hearts and trust their own morals. Because gangs aren't going anywhere and never will. I do have a more suitable cause for those righteous cops out there still trying to save the world though, a war on crooked cops. But that's a whole other story.

So let me be the first of many to say I'm happy to be pro-gang.

Editor's Note: The Sacramento Press editorial staff edited this article after it was published for grammar and formatting only.