The game is played out across the city. Cat and mouse, cops versus street gangs battling over turf, drugs, weapons and this deadly serious matter of respect.

Unless shots are fired, as was the case this past weekend, no one hears about the skirmishes that occur multiple times a day. But the Portland Police Bureau's 28-member Gang Enforcement Team tracks them all.

The gang enforcement officers investigate, make arrests and act as resources for other cops. They show up at crime scenes and wherever gang members like to congregate, working the crowd to gather information.

This summer, as gang shootings continue to rise, I wanted to explore Portland's gang problems in a way that reveals the inherent gray areas of this world within a world.

The last column featured a man who works at a Gresham funeral home. His brother, in a gang, died in a shooting. Two brothers. Same family. One in a gang, the other in the straight life.

For this column, I wanted to hear from a gang cop whose assignment sometimes seems futile. I was told Jason Hubert knew the gang world. Turns out he's been with the Portland Police Bureau for 19 years, 16 with the specialized unit that targets gangs.

He agreed to meet at East Precinct. I expected a law-and-order rant, perhaps complaints about the system coddling the gangsters.

But all Hubert wanted to do was talk about failure.

"Let's start with no one in a gang gets a pass," he said. "They make the choice. But why do they make that choice? When a kid makes a wrong turn and ends up in a gang, that child was let down by people and institutions."

He rattles off the culprits: broken families, people in the city who don't give a damn because gangs happen in a neighborhood far from their own, schools that don't serve their students, and even the police.

The police?

Yes," Hubert said. "But we're working to change that."

He said police, with support from the chief and top commanders, are working to return to the concept of community policing. Instead of simply responding to radio calls, police are getting out of their cars to meet and talk with young men and women.

"If I go into Columbia Villa, or to a park in the Cully neighborhood, I get out and shoot baskets with the kids," Hubert said. "I talk with them, see what's going on in their lives. They see me not just as a cop. It's not an arrest that makes a difference, but a connection and good interaction. I'm not alone, either. More and more officers are doing this."

Hubert said he loves his job and couldn't imagine a better assignment. The crimes are among the hardest to solve. When unit members arrive at the hospital after a gang shooting, Hubert said, the gang members are very respectful to them.

"They know us and we know them," he said. "But here's what we get at the hospital: 'I don't know who shot me.' 'I know who shot me, but I'm not going to talk about it.' 'Nice of you to come, but my homies and I will take care of it.' Sometimes they do, and we're back at the hospital, this time talking with a victim who was a suspect a month earlier."

The general perception, Hubert said, is that gang members are thugs, cold-blooded killers. In a group, he acknowledged, there is a certain amount of posturing. But, he said, one-on-one the young men and women show another side when they meet with someone in the bureau's gang unit. The cops, he said, are not the enemy. The enemy is another gang, often separated by just a couple of neighborhoods.

"When I'm with some of these young people, I see their inner child," Hubert said. "It sounds crazy, but they can be very charismatic with incredible life stories. People would be surprised.

"But they have no direction in life. Who doesn't want attention? It sounds like a cliche, but it's true. The gang becomes the family and support system."

Hubert said many of the disputes start over what seems stupid: A member of the Crips, for example, gets on Facebook and posts a photo taken in Portland in what is considered Bloods territory. Or rival gang members trash talk via Snapchat. And that leads to gunfire.

Many adults, Hubert said, can't understand the world in which the gang kids were raised: violent images easily accessible on the internet, music videos that glorify and sanitize gang life, and video games that numb a child to violence, making it hard to distinguish between shooting an icon on a TV monitor and pulling the trigger at someone on the street.

More kids than police officially count are affected by gangs. He said officers can designate a person as a gang member only when there is "clear and convincing" evidence. Indicators, which must be checked off on a form, include: a person admitting to affiliation, participation in a gang initiation ritual, committing a crime facilitated by gangs or to benefit a gang.

While still an investigative unit with a primary mission to get criminals off the street, Hubert said, the gang unit in recent years has become more focused on prevention.

"When we talk with a kid, we always ask if they want out," he said. "Our goal is to give kids options. I feel sad for many of these kids. I take some under my wing. I use my own dollar to take them to a Timbers or Blazers game. I want to show them there's a different life. The way I do that is to approach them with respect."

In a few minutes, Hubert will rejoin team members on a stakeout for a gangster in his 40s. At a certain age, it's hard to escape gangs. This man has shot, over the months, at seven people.

"We have to get him off the street," Hubert said. "This is everyday life for this guy and for some people like him. I once asked one man how many times he'd been shot during the past month. He told me four or five times."

Hubert knows that some people don't care about gangsters. Arrest them, get them off the street. He understands. But every young person is worth saving because somewhere along the way the symbolic village failed that child.

"We can't give up," Hubert said. "But it's hard to bring them out of something that they believe to be family."

He picked up his backpack. Time to get back to the stakeout.

"If I talk to 10 kids and can impact one, that's a good outcome," he said. "I'll never know if I made a difference. Maybe a kid makes a change. Maybe he doesn't end up in jail."

He closes the door as he leaves the precinct.

"I have to try," he said. "I have to try."

--Tom Hallman Jr..

--thallman@oregonian.com

503-221-8224; @thallmanjr