Teen-Agers Get a Curfew Lesson in Police Sweep

The first two suspects weren’t hard to miss. They were hurling bottles at four police cars trolling 67th Street near Kansas Avenue.

As the bottles fell, missing their targets, beams from police flashlights caught two youths jumping over a fence. This time youthful agility was no match for a hard-cornering car. The chase ended in a yard on 66th Street.

‘Freeze!’ yelled officer Rosemary Sanchez, her gun drawn. The two teen-agers stopped, not even daring to look back.

It was a little past 10 p.m. on a Friday.

Asks Abouot Curfew

“Didn’t you know there was a curfew?” Sanchez demanded.

‘No,” one of the youths replied, surprised by the question.

Two other teens sauntered up to see what was going on. Minutes later, they too, were in handcuffs--an easy catch in a police sweep of a neighborhood where gangs, drug deals and drive-by shootings are not uncommon. All were driven to 77th Street Division Station, where more than a dozen youths already were in custody.

“I just came to see what happened to the other guys,” a 15-year-old insisted as he waited apprehensively for his father to pick him up.

“And he saw what happened,” retorted a 16-year-old friend who had been picked up with him.

What is happening in South Los Angeles is a crackdown on youthful loiterers under an obscure curfew law. The law, which prohibits anyone under 18 from being on city streets after 10 p.m. unless accompanied by an adult, has been on the books since 1902, but over the years has gone mostly unheeded and unenforced.

There have been a few instances of the law being enforced in such areas as Westwood and the San Fernando Valley to discourage teen revelry and unruliness. But here in neighborhoods plagued by youthful street gangs, the stakes are higher, police said.

130 Killed in 7 Months

More Los Angeles youths die of murder and manslaughter than anywhere else in the country except Detroit, according to FBI statistics. In the first seven months of this year, more than 130 were killed in gang violence here, compared to 119 last year, police said.

Police hope that toughened enforcement will not only keep youths from being targets of drive-by shootings, but also lead to more arrests of teen-age criminals, and shake up parents who do not keep track of their children.

With $900,000 from a special gang-suppression fund to spend on overtime pay, police intend to continue the crackdown in South Los Angeles and eventually extend it throughout the city, according to Assistant Police Chief Robert L. Vernon.

Since the law was dusted off two weeks ago in the Police Department’s South Bureau (which includes the 77th Street, Southeast, Southwest and Harbor divisions,) 140 youths have been arrested, and another 300 have been given warnings. More than two-thirds of the curfew violators turned out to be gang members, police estimated.

Once arrested, the youths are taken to the station, where they are later released to custody of their parents. Police can file petitions on curfew violators who have criminal records, which could ultimately lead to placement in juvenile detention. Probation violators among the youths face possible lengthening of their time on probation or time in Juvenile Hall.

In Housing Projects

On the same weekend that officers in the 77th Street Division were chasing the bottle throwers, officers at Southeast were having similar encounters on the streets. Sgt. Frank McManus was supervising five officers and two detectives who were picking up curfew violators in the Jordan Downs and Nickerson Gardens housing projects.

Shortly before 10 p.m., McManus left the station on 108th Street and drove north on Broadway past small frame houses, mom-and-pop grocery stores and auto repair shops. Seeing four children--the oldest no more than 6--playing on the grass on the median strip, he stopped. “Where do you live?” McManus asked. “Right there,” answered one of the boys, pointing down the street. “Don’t play in the street, OK?” McManus said. “And you’ll be home by 10, right?”

He explained later: “I do think seriously about bringing some of the little kids in. Not because they’re going to commit crimes but because they’re going to be victims.” Officers stopped two clean-cut, nicely dressed youths riding bikes at the corner of Main Street and Imperial Highway. “We’re going to the store for our parents,” the 16-year-old said.

Neighbors gathered, and the boys’ father rode up on a bicycle.

‘Ain’t in No Gang’

“What law? I ain’t heard about nothing,” the father said when he was told the police were enforcing the curfew to curtail gang activity. “My son ain’t in no gang.” But the father watched as his sons were taken away, having agreed to meet them at the station where they would be released.

The father was not alone in his anger. “That’s a waste of the taxpayers’ money,” one bystander yelled. “Go get the gang bangers and dope dealers and leave these kids alone.” But another bystander, Calvin Franklin, defended the officers. “Police have to do something. There’s nothing good on the street for them kids. They should be in the house, doing homework or watching TV.”

Back at the Southeast Station, officers checked records and found that one curfew violator they had arrested, a 17-year-old youth named Jerome, had not given them his real name. Detective Loren Mauerhan unfolded a computer printout and read aloud: “Burglary, battery, vandalism, robbery, burglary, receiving stolen property. Jeez, just an all-around good kid.”

The youth next to Jerome wore a lavender bandanna tied around his neck, signifying that he is in the Grape Street gang. “I was just walking down the street with my woman,” he said. “I ain’t gonna come out after 10 o’clock, or I ain’t gonna let them catch me. You can see them in the projects riding around, and after they get four people they get outta there.”

‘Ruthless Little Punks’

McManus said that the youths were picked up at a place in Jordan Downs known for drug dealing. “They’re some of the most ruthless little punk criminals in our area,” he said. “These are very good curfew pickups from our point of view. “

But the youth with the bandanna kept insisting that he had just been “walking with his woman. . . . I didn’t even know nothing about the curfew. I just moved to California. I’d just left a party. I didn’t even know what time it was. I don’t like this curfew. It ain’t cool. Coming in at 10 o’clock is just like being in jail.”

Throughout the evening, the officers ridiculed the teens’ gang memberships: “You’re not in a gang, are you? That stuff’s for girls.” Later McManus explains the tactic: “I try not to even acknowledge the gang thing because it gives them stature. You want to try to make it seem oddball or weird.”

The curfew violators were allowed to call their homes. Jerome, who had been in the station for two hours, took his turn. “Can my sister come get me?” he asked.

“Where’s your parent?” McManus asked.

“She’s asleep,” Jerome said.

‘Kids Are in Jail’

Mauerhan jumps out of his chair. “Give me that phone,” he said, grabbing it out of Jerome’s hand. “The concern of these parents overwhelms me,” Mauerhan says to no one in particular. “Their kids are in jail and they don’t want to get out of bed.”

After hanging up he turns to Detective Joe O’Donnell. “His mother says, ‘Do I have to come get him? I’m asleep.’ I remember when I was a kid I got arrested once and my parents couldn’t wait to come get me and beat my butt. I mean my butt was black and blue.”

Jerome’s sister showed up to take him home. “That’s good they’re picking these kids up,” she said. “They’re getting killed out there. Don’t none of them need to be out there running the streets after dark.” Her mother did not come because she is sick, the young woman explained.

O’Donnell refused to relent, telling Jerome: “I’m not releasing you. I want your mother down here.”

Must Go to Court

Jerome’s mother finally came to get him at 2:25 a.m. She seemed still half asleep. O’Donnell explained the law to her, told her that since her son had a record he would have to appear in court.

“OK, thank you,” she said, heading for the door.

During the evening, two dozen youths were arrested and later released at Southeast Division. Of those, 10 were on probation and all but four had gang affiliations, police said.

One of the parents who arrived at Southeast to pick up her 17-year-old son said: “He was supposed to be home. I don’t know where he was. I was down here last Friday night picking him up for the same thing. Looks like I’ll be down here next Friday too.”

Mauerhan looked at fellow officer O’Donnell and said with tired irony: “He’s obviously learned. We rehabilitated him.”