Pubdate: Thu, 08 Feb 2007
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Constance L. Rice
Note: Rice is a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

A 'SURGE' ON GANGS ALONE WON'T HELP

Violence-Plagued Neighborhoods Need Real Reform, Not Just More Cops 
Walking The Streets

CHERYL GREEN died Dec. 15 because she was black in the wrong 
gang-dominated neighborhood. Like innocent Latino children who are 
terrorized by black gangs in Watts, the 14-year-old was allegedly 
gunned down by members of the Latino 204th Street gang because she 
rode her scooter too close to the no-blacks Mason-Dixon line that 
gang members had drawn in her Harbor Gateway neighborhood.

L.A. politicians and law enforcement leaders have reacted forcefully 
to her death. Amid enough satellite dishes to remind one LAPD officer 
of the O.J. Simpson trial, officials at a January news conference 
declared war on 204th Street.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proclaimed that no one should fear losing 
his or her life for being the wrong color. He vowed to put the gang 
out of business. Police Chief William Bratton, Sheriff Lee Baca and 
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III announced weapons of mass 
crackdown: combined LAPD-Sheriff's Department patrols; cooperation 
with neighboring Torrance police; targeting of the gang's guns and 
drugs by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau 
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; dragnet operations; 
electronic surveillance; observation posts; intelligence sharing; 
early-release exclusions and a "most-wanted list" of the 10 worst gangs.

The U.S. attorney brandished stepped-up use of federal hate crime 
laws, death penalty enhancements, civil rights laws and RICO 
prosecutions. The city attorney added the use of "stay-away orders," 
which ban gangs from the neighborhood, on top of existing injunctions 
that forbid gang members from congregating.

Two days after this display, 204th Street shot another innocent black 
resident waiting in his car for his daughters.

"We've done this before," the LAPD officer at the news conference 
recalled. He was referring to a similar crackdown on the 204th Street 
gang in 1997, when members killed another African American youth. 
Then, as now, politicians threatened zero-tolerance, the LAPD 
increased patrols and arrested everyone in the gang they could. 
Officers galvanized the community against the gang. Politicians held 
community planning meetings. "And then, the focus shifted," the 
officer said, "we went back to normal deployment levels, and while we 
probably abated it for a while, new gang members refilled the ranks. 
Nothing on the ground changed. All of the conditions in that 
neighborhood continued."

Bingo. The "surge" in 1997 was temporary and, more important, the 
city never reversed the neighborhood conditions that fuel 204th 
Street. For the last nine years, the gang has continued its ethnic 
terrorism, with the murder of Cheryl Green as one of its latest acts 
of violence.

Let's be clear here: Strategic suppression is essential, a strong 
response to violent gangs such as 204th Street is necessary, and the 
effort will need more resources. But it is unclear whether the city 
has learned that suppression must be coordinated with comprehensive 
prevention and intervention strategies. And, right now, the 
prevention and intervention side of the equation is mostly missing. 
Law enforcement is doing its part; it's the rest of us who are AWOL.

What needs to happen in Harbor Gateway? Concerned politicians must 
connect with the right experts, who can diagnose the unique 
neighborhood factors that fuel the gang's dominance. They must 
authorize county, state and school district staff to jointly close 
the entrance ramps into the gang and open the exit ramps out of it. 
Effective violence reduction requires a sustained community 
organization that forms a 24/7 shield against gang violence.

In Harbor Gateway, that planning has to begin with the area's 
isolated, "Galapagos Island" configuration, the diaspora of gang 
members who return on weekends to enforce 204th Street's sovereignty, 
and Harbor Gateway's unconnected and intimidated residents.

In addition to tough-on-crime tactics, the region's leaders will have 
to use political capital to reset priorities and redeploy the 
millions in tax dollars spent every year on anti-gang programs but 
with no sustained violence reduction to show for it.

And after determining that gangs do not get to take our children, 
Angelenos must launch a "cultures and values" campaign to end the 
violence and killing of la vida loca.

Without the political will to change business as usual, politicians 
will be back again before the cameras, declaring yet another 
suppression surge with no long-term effect. In the meantime, Cheryl 
Green's mother, Charlene Lovett, and her black neighbors say they 
have been told by police that the only way to be safe is to stay 
inside their homes -- or move.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman