Posted on 11/10/2006 9:36:58 AM PST by BurbankKarl
Responding to calls for more police officers to contain San Fernando Valley's spike in gang violence, LAPD Chief William Bratton said Thursday that he "can't manufacture cops" and the Valley would have to make do with those it has.
With extra cops already deployed to the Valley to confront an increase in robberies, including a rash of holdups at local restaurants, the Los Angeles Police Department can spare no more, Bratton said.
"I only have so many officers to go around," Bratton said. "I can't manufacture cops."
City Councilman Dennis Zine, who represents the West Valley, said the Valley needs more officers to quell the gang violence, and assigning them should be as high a priority for the city as cleaning up Skid Row and patrolling other parts of town.
"If they can put 50 officers on Skid Row for drug dealing and other crimes, then they can address these serious crimes with other officers in a community where people are in fear," he said. Enjoying an 8 percent drop overall in crime from last year, Los Angeles still has pockets of resistance that are bucking the downward trend, including some Valley neighborhoods scarred by gang violence.
Some local neighborhoods have seen a 50 percent increase this year in gang crime, the largest contributor to Valley killings. So far this year, 37 of the Valley's 72 homicides have been gang-related. Last year at this time, 28 of 65 homicides were gang-related.
With a growing Valley demographic group 14 to 20 years old, gangs have found fertile ground to beef up their ranks, said Deputy Chief Michel Moore, the Valley's top cop. And for those young recruits, violence is the ticket to gang stardom.
"It really is a rite of passage," Moore said. "It shows you how warped their minds are - that they would put in this `work,' such as shooting people in the street, committing crimes against people for no other reason than they want to belong to a gang."
There's also concern that gang members being released from prison could try to reorganize, leading to more violence, Moore said.
But even as gang violence increases in the Valley - which represents one-third of L.A.'s population - it accounts for only about one-fifth of the city's gang crime, Moore said.
"I think there are safe places in the Valley - many more safe places than dangerous ones," Moore said.
Throughout L.A. last year, there were 486 homicides, of which 249 were gang-related. Downtown and South Los Angeles - making up about 25 percent of the city's population - account for nearly 75 percent of all gang crime, officials said.
So far this year, more than half of L.A's killings again have been gang-related. Citywide, there have been 408 homicides - 227 of them gang-related.
And the surge of Valley violence at the hands of young and old gang members has alarmed Zine, who has asked for a meeting with gang leaders and gang-intervention groups.
"We need to say, `OK, this is the problem; you're creating death and violence in the community. We need to come to a solution,"' Zine said.
With more police slowly coming in - the LAPD aims to add 1,000 more officers to the 9,000 it has now, but the move is expected to take at least five years - officials are also looking to local youth-oriented organizations to step in and help drive down crime.
Last month, Moore, Zine and other local officials met with youth groups, nonprofit agencies and faith-based organizations in Canoga Park to start building a community-based coalition to address violence and provide alternatives to joining gangs.
A four-day concert and anti-gang event kicked off Thursday at Pierce College. And activities designed to help youths find options, other than joining gangs, will resume Nov. 18 with a community cleanup in five of the city's most blighted areas. The efforts are backed by 107 churches and other civic organizations.
"We feel this will give kids vision for the neighborhoods instead of contributing to the destruction of their community," said Jeff Fischer, pastor of Hope Chapel in Winnetka and organizer of anti-gang events. "They will be able to feel what it's like to contribute life instead of death to that community."
Several hundred teenagers from all over Los Angeles showed up for the concert Thursday night. While many came for the music, others were keenly aware of the need to push the message of nonviolence and cooperation.
"We're heading toward dark times. Gangs have enhanced. Teen suicide has increased," said Roman Bonilla, 18, of Winnetka. "What we're doing is starting up a peace movement. If we don't, who will?"
This feels like history repeating itself.
And yet how much of LA's income is from Valley taxes? 85%? The city is sucking us dry.
Got a link for this?
Could the NRA ask for a more fitting slogan?
Hello, people!? This is exactly why we have the Second Amendment. Leaving the defense of your own life, the lives of your loved ones, as well as your property to the government is simply insane!
Well LA, you're on your own. I advise GUNS!!
So that's the sound I keep hearing out of my left ear. Ugh!!!
I've never been to LA or the Valley - but I guess I had always thought of the Valley has a white middle to upper middle class refuge from the rest of LA. Maybe I'm still stuck in a 80's mentality about that area.
Has the Valley deteriorated that badly?
What are the bad and good parts of the Valley?
Criminals go where the pickin's are easy. There ain't much to steal in metro any more. And the cops are too nasty in Torrance. So the Valley it is.
And the gangs are spreading their turf constantly. Glad I got the chance to move out of that cesspool, Calif does not believe you have the right to defend yourself.
Guns work good. Having one in my car enables me to drive through the bad part of town late at night and give a friendly wave to the drug dealers and pimps that stand in the middle of the street as I pass on through.
It used to be in the 80s. Now if you dont live south of Ventura Blvd, or north of the 118, you are in the free kill zone.
If cops can't be manufactured, then let's re-assign cops from other areas of law enforcement and beef up the robbery units. Maybe it's time to re-write various vice laws, giving up the prohibitions on adult vice and put in regulatory vice laws, like we do with alcohol. Then police officers from the drug and prostitution squads could be re-tasked to the robbery unit. It will never happen though, makes too much sense. ;-)
Once he gets them all in one place, he ought to just take 'em out. But, nooooooooooo... he wants to talk.
"We need to say, `OK, this is the problem; you´re creating death and violence in the community. We need to come to a solution,"´ Zine said.
How about going to the county supervisors and get private cops.
LOL, sounds like a college professor's solution, or what you'd write in a boring term paper just to say what the professor wants to hear. The reality is these thugs only understand violence, and that's the solution with people like that.
Neighborhood / Population / Hispanic / White / NativAm / Asian / PacIsland/ Black
San Fernando 24,804 91.4% 6.4% 0.5% 0.9% 0.0% 0.7%
Pacoima 69,032 88.8% 3.9% 0.3% 1.4% 0.0% 5.5%
Arleta 29,452 81.6% 7.6% 0.4% 8.7% 0.1% 1.6%
Sylmar 64,079 75.1% 16.9% 0.4% 2.8% 0.1% 4.7%
Panorama City 77,908 74.7% 8.3% 0.2% 13.2% 0.1% 3.4%
Sun Valley 54,539 71.7% 20.3% 0.3% 6.3% 0.1% 1.4%
Mission Hills 18,764 69.0% 17.6% 0.4% 9.3% 0.1% 3.6%
Lake View Terrace 18,481 69.0% 9.7% 0.4% 4.9% 0.1% 16.0%
Van Nuys 128,078 59.2% 26.3% 0.3% 7.5% 0.2% 6.5%
North Hills 62,900 58.8% 22.6% 0.2% 13.4% 0.2% 4.7%
Canoga Park 44,254 58.1% 25.4% 0.4% 11.3% 0.2% 4.7%
North Hollywood 153,406 58.0% 28.2% 0.3% 7.8% 0.2% 5.4%
Valley Glen 49,839 51.2% 37.8% 0.3% 5.6% 0.1% 5.0%
Reseda 64,020 49.8% 31.9% 0.3% 13.0% 0.1% 4.8%
Winnetka 50,594 48.9% 27.3% 0.3% 17.7% 0.2% 5.6%
Granada Hills 68748 33.0% 45.2% 0.4% 17.1% 0.1% 4.3%
Tujunga 25,767 29.3% 60.0% 0.4% 7.2% 0.1% 3.0%
Burbank 105,127 25.3% 61.2% 0.4% 10.8% 0.1% 2.2%
Northridge 84,334 24.6% 50.2% 0.2% 18.8% 0.2% 6.0%
Valley Village 20,705 23.1% 64.3% 0.2% 5.3% 0.1% 7.0%
Sunland 23,321 22.7% 66.7% 0.6% 7.4% 0.1% 2.5%
Glendale 203,905 18.8% 60.2% 0.2% 19.3% 0.1% 1.4%
Tarzana 34,714 16.1% 72.3% 0.2% 7.0% 0.1% 4.4%
Chatsworth 41,379 14.2% 62.0% 0.3% 20.2% 0.1% 3.2%
Woodland Hills 70,541 13.7% 74.1% 0.2% 7.8% 0.1% 4.0%
Sherman Oaks 56,280 11.2% 76.5% 0.3% 6.7% 0.1% 5.2%
West Hills 42,405 11.1% 72.4% 0.3% 13.4% 0.1% 2.6%
Toluca Lake 6,298 9.7% 79.9% 0.3% 5.0% 0.0% 5.0%
Encino 48,605 9.1% 82.1% 0.2% 5.6% 0.1% 2.9%
Studio City 41,400 8.1% 81.6% 0.2% 5.8% 0.1% 4.2%
Calabasas/Hidden Hills 24,920 4.8% 86.9% 0.1% 7.1% 0.0% 1.1%
Last time I checked, this country still has the capability, if not the will, to manufacture additional jail cells. Now if we could just find the ability and the will to elect politicians who will pass laws and appoint judges to fill up the additional jail cells with violent offenders, we might be on the way to help solve the Chief's problem.
But heck, it's alot easier to blame the object (the gun), assist the career criminal in his abdication of personal responsibility, and continue to scratch our heads about the ongoing violent crime in society. (/sarcasm)
LOL! If that isn't a statement from some 3rd world banana republic, I don't know what is. Welcome to California, gringos.
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