Gang activity in Peoria is slowly on the rise according to area law enforcement. Peoria police say, the fatal shooting of a teen last weekend occurred during an altercation between two men believed to be involved in gangs.
Tuesday night, dozens of area residents and students gathered at the University of Illinois Springfield in Peoria for a forum on gang activity.
Detective Elizabeth Blair and Lt. Jason Haynes of Pekin's Federal Correctional Institute in have studied gangs extensively.
"There's a number of them initially that you see that steal cars, they do the retail theft and then they move up to the more violent kinds," said Blair.
The UIS Peoria Center event was featured in a WEEK/WHOI-TV report on March 23, 2010.