Orange County Plans Anti-Gang Effort
Orange County supervisors have voted to crack down on county gangs with a specialized district attorney’s unit and a gang task force.
“The simple fact is that the gang activity permeates the entire area,” Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, who proposed the idea with Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks, said Tuesday.
The task force will consist of representatives from schools, community groups and law enforcement.
The supervisors also created a new district attorney’s gang unit, which will include six new deputy district attorneys, five investigators and three clerks. The cost of the gang unit will be $50,000 for the remainder of this fiscal year and $404,000 next fiscal year.
Santa Ana, one of the areas most affected, has about 4,000 gang members. Last year, there were about 400 violent gang incidents in the city, Police Chief Clyde Cronkhite said.
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