Posted on 09/16/2002 7:44:34 AM PDT by chance33_98
Peace for gangs? Warring sides struggle to rid Valley streets of violence By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer
VA N NUYS - On an August weeknight, tattooed members of the Valley's most notorious street gangs met in a church conference room where they bowed their heads in prayer.
"The only thing that we could ever ask of any neighborhood here, the only thing - let's not kill ourselves, man," gang intervention specialist William "Blinky" Rodriguez said in an impassioned speech. "Let's let our jefas (mothers) sleep at night."
Eighteen hours later, in the very same room, buttoned-down cops, prosecutors and community members opened notebooks and talked strategies.
"We needed to do something in the community to attack a spiraling increase in gang crime," LAPD Deputy Chief Ronald Bergmann told the San Fernando Valley Coalition on Gangs. "We're moving along."
In an unprecedented show of cooperation and participation, both sides of the gang war are working toward the same goal - ridding Valley streets of violence.
Murder and other gang-related crimes have climbed across the Valley and Los Angeles to their highest level in years, fed by hard-core gang members out on parole, a new generation of grade-school-aged recruits, and police response hampered by policy changes following the Rampart scandal.
The Valley has seen a spike in homicides, with 83 recorded so far this year - 22 percent more than in 2001. Nearly 60 percent of those homicides are gang-related.
And while violent gang crime jumped as high as 20 percent earlier this year, it has slowed recently, and, as of Sept. 1, there is only a 1.24 percent increase compared with the same period last year.
Police say there are about 20,000 gang members in 80 gangs across the Valley, stretching from Canoga Park to Pacoima. Turf battles, drug sales, disputes over women and decades-old grudges fuel many of the beatings, running gunbattles and drive-by shootings.
In the days after the Labor Day weekend, for instance, three men were killed and seven people were wounded in gang-related violence.
The street violence has been tearing at the fragile, tenuous connections that gangs have been making.
Over the last three months, as many as 50 members of some of the most notorious gangs have sat at the same table, eaten pizza, looked each other in the eye and talked about their problems at weekly meetings sponsored by Rodriguez and his team with Communities in Schools.
Veterans and younger active gang members alike have sent at least one critical message at the meetings.
"Let's put the guns down," said "Trippy," a 25-year-old member of Westside Reseda, a regular at the meetings. "All the (stuff) is stupid."
Sporting contests Out of the juntas , as Rodriguez casually calls the gang meetings, have come agreements to meet on the football and softball fields for good-natured sporting contests. Out of Bergmann's coalition has come a community pilot project to prevent youths from joining gangs in the first place and to help veterans get out.
Each approach is being touted as a positive step forward.
"It's a lot harder to shoot someone who you've met face to face and shaken hands with on the football field," said Robert D. Arias, president of Communities in Schools.
Others see it as a broad-based and comprehensive approach to gang violence.
"I think it is a very thoughtful approach to gang violence in the Valley," said LAPD Assistant Chief David Gascon. "I like it. I think it's an excellent model. I think we're going to see not only quick results but long-lasting results."
The efforts do, however, have critics.
"It's all talk," said one law enforcement officer familiar with the plans. "The hard-core gang members out committing the crimes aren't going to play on the football field. They're not going to come in and talk to police and try to get help."
Bergmann, who watched a football game last month between Pacoima gangs and Barrio Van Nuys, disagrees.
"If they're out there playing football and baseball, they're not out there gang-banging," he said. "People can be taken away from the gang influence and become successes, other than how many people you gun down in the streets."
Combined approach Members of Bergmann's coalition are set to roll out the Community Advocacy Program at the LAPD's Foothill Division in Pacoima on Oct. 15. The program, modeled after the Burbank Outreach Center, combines law enforcement officers, educators and others to assess problems and connect families and their children with community services.
Authorities have decided to begin the pilot program in Foothill, an area where gangs flourish. Police say there are more than 3,500 gang members in 30 gangs in the Northeast Valley area alone.
The program will work with youths before they join gangs and veterans who need help out.
The program may best fit individuals on the bubble, but questions remain about if or how the program will target hard-core gang members, responsible for the bulk of the violence, police said.
Suppression, an overwhelming police presence, may be the best tool to combat the hard-core gang members, some police say. But for that the LAPD needs more experienced cops at a time when the department still faces a shortage of gang specialists and patrol officers.
At full deployment, there are upward of 60 gang cops in the Valley. And a policy instituted post-Rampart limits police to work in these specialized units to three-year terms, to prevent abuses.
Some police say gang street cops with valuable intelligence gained after years in the trenches are cut out of the loop at the coalition meetings.
But principals say gang specialists have been present at the meetings and defend the coalition as a step forward for law enforcement whose motto has been "lock 'em up and throw away the key."
"It's a refreshing departure from business as usual," said Paul Vinetz, supervising Los Angeles County probation officer. "I don't know of any other initiative as grand as this. It is a wonderful opportunity that the LAPD is supporting and sponsoring."
Bergmann hopes to raise $30,000 to begin a billboard campaign, a gang hotline and an Internet mapping service to streamline law enforcement data.
Police hope to use billboards to advertise a gang hotline to be used where families with kids in jeopardy of joining gangs can get help.
Officials at California State University, Northridge, hope to begin mapping crime data and other statistics on an Internet mapping service within three months. Officials hope the maps will help law enforcement communicate better to fight crime and allow the public to access crime trends on the net.
"Agencies have difficulty communicating with each other," said Amalie Jo Orme, a geology professor at CSUN. "We hope to bridge that gap."
On the streets Rodriguez continues to develop relationships with gang members, going to homes and suggesting that each gang interested in attending the meetings send three gang representatives.
The meetings have drawn members from as many as 30 street gangs who have agreed to face off with their counterparts in handball, football and softball games.
In addition to setting up games and breathing peace, Rodriguez, whose 36-year-old son is serving a 15-year-to-life sentence at Pelican Bay State Prison, tries to rattle their souls with the realities of death, life behind bars and police heat.
"The crazier it gets on the streets, the crazier sometimes people come knocking your door down," he said.
Even veteranos - who've done hard time and have seen friends killed in senseless shootings - are promoting peace.
Mustering courage, Gilbert Carlin, a veteran of the Canoga Park Alabama gang at 40 years old, stood up at a recent meeting.
"We're all brown," he said. "We're all ... we're like brothers. And we're killing each other for no reason."
He read from the Bible, Ephesians 6:11-13.
"For we are not fighting against people with flesh and blood but against the evil rulers ... against the mighty powers of darkness," he read in slow, punctuated speech.
Then he said, "It's not against barrio and barrio. It's against spiritual wickedness in high places."
"I'm only alive by the grace of God," said Carlin, who said he started carrying a gun when he was 14. A former heroin addict, he kicked the habit in 1990 after serving a four-year prison sentence for armed robbery, and now holds a job cutting meat at a local grocery store.
"I shoulda been dead a long time ago. I was blinded for so many years."
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Is there an objective study on which approaches have worked in the past? How successful was Congressman Danny Davis with the Vicelords/Disciples, his sole duty his 1st 10 years at the YMCA? (Then in the 70's promoting HMOs as the solution to healthcare was his #1 priority.)
In Chicago during that same period, I turned gangbangers "political" working against Mayor Daley's machine. For going political, some got shot in the back by the political police rather than another gangbanger. Fifth City/Ecumenical Institute had a liberal Christian Social Gospel and tons of money. Dick Gleason had no money; but tons of passion. Randy Baker.... ICI..... There have been literally thousands of programs just in Chicago alone.
Looking back on how those youth turned out, which programs did best? I would rank Danny Davis' efforts at the bottom. He was/is well intentioned. But he is totally clueless on unintended consequences. He was so easily conned.
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