2 Tread Gangs’ Turf to Prevent Violence

Late on a recent Saturday night, Manuel Velasquez and Jaime Leyva drove their gold Dodge Colt along the periphery of the San Fernando Gardens project looking for gang members, while the voice of a Spanish-speaking evangelist blared out of a megaphone set up in a supermarket parking lot.

Leyva said that, besides Velasquez and himself, both members of Community Youth Gang Services, the only other social workers who venture into the streets of the San Fernando Valley to talk one-on-one with gang members are evangelical Christians.

“We do the same thing, except we don’t preach,” Leyva said. “We open their eyes in different ways.”

Community Youth Gang Services is a county- and city-financed agency that sends teams of counselors into neighborhoods to stop gang violence at its source and to steer young men and women out of gangs.

“The goal in a nutshell is to reduce homicides,” said Steve Valdivia, director of the agency. “We’re trying to make gang members productive citizens instead of an antisocial, disenfranchised group.”

Tracking Graffiti

Gang workers monitor conflicts between gangs by tracking the spread of graffiti and by tapping into the rumors on the street: Who attacked whom? Why? Will retaliation follow? At the same time, the counselors help gang members find jobs, give them counseling and advice, and show parents, teachers and community groups how to spot youngsters who are becoming involved with a gang.

Leyva and Velasquez are responsible for monitoring the nearly 100 gangs and thousands of gang members spread across their 18-mile-long beat in the Valley, a task at times they find overwhelming.

They spend most of their hours crisscrossing from Canoga Park to the northeast Valley, including San Fernando, Pacoima and Sylmar, where regional gang violence is at its worst and drugs are readily available on the streets. They stop to talk to gang members and get the latest news. They encourage gang members to find alternatives to gang warfare.

Saying their mere presence can be a deterrent to violence, they expressed frustration at being spread so thin. Leyva recalled the 1986 murder of a 20-year-old that occurred less than an hour after he had talked with the victim.

“Usually, if another gang sees us, they don’t do nothing,” Leyva said. “It gets real discouraging, because you know you could have been there to prevent it. That guy could still be alive. It really hits you. But you got to go cover some other area.”

Sometimes building the trust necessary for the job means turning a blind eye to illegal activity. When a gang member is visibly selling drugs on the street, the team drives by. “They’re taking care of business, so we just pass by,” Velasquez said. “It’s a lot of give and take.”

Not Without Critics

The program’s approach has its detractors. Juvenile Court Commissioner Jack Gold said it legitimizes gang members, adding that he believes that law enforcement is the answer to the gang problem.

Bob Horvatich, school district peace officer assigned to San Fernando High School, has “nothing positive to say about them,” he said. “I’ve seen them on campus; I’m just not impressed.”

But Robert Medina, supervisor of the Probation Department’s gang unit in Van Nuys, said counselors on the street are essential, even if it is hard to measure the effect of their work.

“Working for the Probation Department for 24 years, I know the value of a gang street worker working one-on-one with the gang members, providing the counsel that’s necessary to prevent any future crime,” he said.

Dr. Lewis Yablonsky of Cal State Northridge, a widely recognized specialist in juvenile delinquency and gangs, goes one step further. “The problem is there’s two guys, and they should have hundreds. They should saturate the community. That’s when we’re really going to have an effect on the gang problem.”

Valdivia believes part of his organization’s special flavor is because many of the social workers are ex-gang members themselves, including Velasquez. “The majority of service providers don’t want or don’t know how to deal with a gang member. Manuel and his co-workers differ in that they know that life style, and they know the socially acceptable, desired behavior.”

He said the counselors can relate to the youths but “with the knowledge that there is an underlying, self-destructive thread that runs through gang members.”

Velasquez’s and Leyva’s rapport with gang members gives them unusual access to the rumor mill, which can help them anticipate violence. Rumors help identify who might have been involved in a shooting or other incident so they can keep an eye on the gang member.

After the shooting of a 25-year-old Pacoima man outside a taco stand Feb. 21, a high school student called Velasquez to warn him of possible retaliation. The pair staked out San Fernando High School in hopes of deterring any violence.

“I’m dealing with people who give me information so that we can try to prevent incidents in the future,” Velasquez said. “I get phone calls at home all the time, and half the time I don’t know who is on the other end of the line.”

Velasquez said most of the tips he gets are rumors passed on by reluctant members of a gang that is planning to attack or retaliate against a rival gang.

Creating a Distance

The pair look for openings to help young men distance themselves from gang activity.

“We could say, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you wasting your life?’ But that’s like talking to a brick wall,” Leyva said. Eventually, he said, as gang members grow into their late teens, they get tired of the gang routine.

“Then we give them advice, take them to a drug-counseling program, get them a job, encourage them in a positive way, where it doesn’t feel like we’re telling them what to do, like a preacher,” Leyva said. “But we let him figure it out for himself, let him show some initiative.”

In recent weeks, Velasquez has handed out dozens of job applications for a production company looking for extras to appear in a movie about gangs.

Driving through the housing project, Velasquez and Leyva spotted Cuate, a 19-year-old straddling a blue bicycle. Cuate, a member of Pacoima Flats, had been in County Jail for the last three months. The three men talked for more than an hour about old times and Cuate’s first stay in the jail.

When the dark-skinned gang member explained that his mother was kicking him out of her apartment, Velasquez offered to let Cuate stay in his home for a few days and passed along his phone number.

Two days later, Cuate called the gang-service dispatcher and asked for Velasquez. The youth said he was high on PCP and had fought with a disapproving older brother. The gang workers picked him up, let him ride with them and took the wiry youth something to eat.

Cuate said the gang workers have helped him, despite his continuing drug problem and reluctance to disassociate himself from his gang friends. “They took me out places I never been to. . . . They made me realize what’s going on--not just women and drugs, but to do something that’s going to benefit you in the future,” the young man said. “I’ve got to do a lot of things. I’ve got to grow out of this,” he concluded.

Six days later, Cuate was making a move to do just that.

As Cuate was preparing to leave for San Jose, where an uncle had lined up a job for him, Velasquez and Leyva were there to say goodby and wish him luck.