HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – As Kent County authorities believe that gang activity is behind a rash of gun store and cell phone store burglaries that stretch westward to the Lakeshore, one man who has been there tried this summer to steer at-risk Holland area youth away from that lifestyle.
At least five suspects, ranging in age from 14 to 19, have been held in connection with this latest crime wave, and Sheriff’s Sergeant Joel Roon made the assertion of a link to gangs based on evidence gathered during a Tuesday break in at a gun shop in Cascade.
Michael Perry has been a team leader in the Career Connection program with Holland’s Escape Ministries since his release from state prison after nearly three decades behind bars last November. “Some of these kids, they deal with a lot of peer pressure,” he said during a Wednesday appearance on “WHTC Talk of the Town.” “They’re thinking about what their peers are thinking about them, whether that is what they’re thinking about them or not.
“I was the result of one of those youths falling into peer pressure, and because of it I was incarcerated for three first-degree murders and three attempts, so I have a lot of understanding as to what these youth go through. I have actually lived where they live, I’ve been through what they’ve been through, and I know this is a place where they do not want to go.”
According to Ministry Director AJ Westendorp of Escape, who oversaw the program that gives youths work experience in a small-group setting, there were 42 participants this summer, up from 35 last year.
There has been no word from the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department as to whether or not any of the teens in Kent County custody are involved in the cell phone store burglaries in Jenison, Allendale and Holland’s North Side over the past month.
