Anti-Gang Bill Moves in Senate; Another Is Stalled in Assembly

Anti-gang legislation supported by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn swept through a Senate committee with ease on Monday, but a similar measure ran into trouble in an Assembly committee.

By a 7-0 vote after no debate, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent an anti-gang bill, authored by Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), to the upper house floor.

But a vote on similar legislation by Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) was postponed in the Assembly Public Safety Committee to allow Moore time to consider amendments.

In brief, the Robbins bill would make it a crime to actively participate in a street gang with knowledge that its members intend to engage in criminal activity or to willfully promote such conduct.

It also calls for the forfeiture of property acquired by gang-related activities, with some of the proceeds earmarked for a special gang violence prevention and education fund.

At the Assembly committee hearing, Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) raised a series of questions regarding the language of Moore’s bill.

“My worst fear is this is a guilt-by-association bill,” Roos said. “We are opening the door to convicting a person by virtue of just being a member of a gang. I want things tied down to say we are going after organized street gangs.”

Moore agreed to the postponement and said she would try to rework the bill to meet Roos’ objections. “We only want to go after the street gangs,” she said. “It is a nightmare in my community and others. Something must be done and done now.”

Child of 9 Slain

As an example, she cited the case of a teen-aged member of a South-Central Los Angeles gang arrested last week in the shooting death of 9-year-old DeAndre Brown, who was caught in the middle of a gunfight between rival gang factions while playing in a sandbox at a playground crowded with children.

At the Assembly hearing, committee chairman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) distributed copies of a memo that reported there are an estimated 450 gangs in Los Angeles County with an estimated 50,000 members. The memo also said that Los Angeles gang membership has increased by more than 10,000 since 1980, and overall gang crime increased 22% from 1985 to 1986.

At a Senate committee hearing three weeks ago, Reiner testified that heavily armed gang members are killing an average of two people a day on the streets of Los Angeles and are becoming big-time narcotics peddlers who are “ready to kill at the drop of a hat.”