Travis Daniel Westly and Richard James Dugan are members of a street gang called the FSU Gang, which is short for the Friends Stand United Street Gang. Travis Daniel Westly is 26 years old and Richard James Dugan is 27 years old. Both of these men were recently convicted in the deadly beating of Sean Thomas Gardhouse on June 23rd, 2006. The sentencing can go either way but there’s a good chance they’ll receive 25 years to life in prison.

The FSU Gang started in the late 1980’s as a group of hard core Boston Rock Fans. They primarily listen to Rock Music and are notorious for their violence. However in recent years they have been proliferating all over the United States. How gangs operate in general is that they’ll send 3-5 Members out to a new area to form a Chapter. For a week or two they will just observe the area and get to know it.

Then they’ll start selling drugs, weapons, will run prostitution rings and will extort businesses for a percentage of their sales. They let others know they are around by committing overt acts of violence and start the intimidation process, in many cases making an example out of someone who is non-compliant. Now I want to make it clear that I’m not saying that this particular gang is necessarily involved in all of these types of illegal activities.

The Business Owners who refuse can get assaulted or even killed. FSU Gang Members in particular are into the Punk Rock scene, and mainly yuppie type middle class Punk Rock teenagers blame them for making the music look bad because of their excessive violence at Punk Rock Concerts. There are excessive complaints against the FSU Gang for excessive violence particularly in the Seattle, WA. area.

The FSU Gang once even threatened a Punk Rock Band called the Daggers. They are a hard core band based out of California. They threatened serious violence if the Daggers played a song that made the gang look bad and made them appear violent.

Now back to the issue of Travis Daniel Westly and Richard James Dugan. I agree they committed a crime and should be held responsible for their actions. But I do not believe that they intentionally intended to kill Sean Thomas Gardhouse in front of the Jack in The Box on 1100 Ontario Street in Corona, CA. I think they were just being young and macho and trying to prove themselves to their fellow FSU Gang Associates. I think it was an accident and a game that unfortunately took a turn for the worst.

But whatever we think at this point, this is just another sad situation where the damage has been done, and now it’s just time to let the chips fall where they may, that’s all we can do. Hopefully these FSU Gang Members Travis Daniel Westly and Richard James Dugan will get some help while in prison.

They both have a chance to make something productive of themselves and possibly even help and preach to others maybe some constructive career paths. I believe in the future that we need to focus on educating young people to stay in school and stay away from Criminal Gangs so they can have a shot at a real future someday.

When I was growing up it was tough to stay away from the trouble makers, they were just about everywhere. But they were a different breed back then. You might get conned into smoking pot or ditching school or even a fight, but these days students seem to be brandishing firearms more often than pencils and pens.

Tags: elgin james, friends stand united, fsu, fsu boston, uf admissions