Police Anti-Gang Unit to Be Broken Up and Redeployed

The Los Angeles Police Department, in the first of a series of steps intended to crack down on street gangs in 1988, plans next month to “decentralize” a major anti-gang unit and base the gang specialists in station houses throughout Central Los Angeles and the Eastside.

Police administrators hope that by redeploying 46 members of the LAPD’s Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) unit, other officers will be revitalized in the department’s fight to control the estimated 200 gangs and more than 20,000 gang members based in Los Angeles.

Assistant Chief Robert L. Vernon said Wednesday that some street officers and administrators have grown blase about gang activity, believing it to be the sole responsibility of those assigned to CRASH. The unit was formed in 1977.

“I guess the word here is accountability ,” Vernon said. “What we’re saying is, ‘You captains, you watch commanders, you’re now accountable for the gang problems in your area and you no longer have an excuse because we’ve now given you the resources to handle the problem.’ ”

The redeployment, effective Jan. 1, involves all officers in CRASH’s Central Bureau, one of three CRASH units in the department. Central Bureau CRASH officers, currently based in one office in downtown Los Angeles, will be assigned to five area stations--Central, Hollenbeck, Newton, Northeast and Rampart.

If decentralization proves successful, other CRASH officers assigned to the LAPD’s South and West bureaus will likely be split up as well, Vernon said. If the decentralization plan doesn’t work, the Central Bureau CRASH unit probably would be reformed, he noted.

Not all members of the department are as enthused as Vernon about the idea of decentralization. Several CRASH officers interviewed Wednesday said they fear that basing anti-gang officers in individual stations rather than in one building will hinder the ability to concentrate a bureau-size officer task force on specific gangs.

What is more, by reducing the area he is assigned to cover, a CRASH member’s ability to gather the kind of intelligence needed to prevent gang violence could also be hurt, they said.

“Gang (members) don’t recognize the lines between Newton or Northeast or Hollenbeck; a lot of them cover a big area,” one detective said. “So, you put an officer in Newton and tell him to concentrate only on Newton. How, then, is he going to be familiar with the gangs that come out of Northeast?”

Coordinator to Be Named

To counter that criticism, the department plans to assign a lieutenant to coordinate CRASH activities and circulate pertinent information among the five Central Bureau stations, Vernon said.

He added that an as-yet undetermined number of next year’s 250 Police Academy graduates will be assigned to CRASH squads should the need arise.

Plans to revise CRASH drew tentative praise Wednesday from City Council members Gloria Molina and Richard Alatorre, whose districts would be most affected by the redeployment of police gang specialists.

“There are pros and cons,” Alatorre said, “but from my vantage point . . . so long as they’re still going to stay within the unit, I’ll be generally happy. If they start to lose expertise, that’s another question.”