Anti-Gang Funds for Police Backed by Council Panel

Responding to Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’ call to flood South-Central Los Angeles with 1,000 officers to combat street gangs, a City Council committee on Tuesday approved spending $2.45 million to bankroll the show of force.

Under the council’s Revenue and Finance Committee plan, the money would be allocated to the police overtime budget. Committee members predicted that the funding will receive approval by the full council next Tuesday. Mayor Tom Bradley has voiced support for the plan.

The committee’s 3-0 vote came after a City Hall press conference where officials likened Los Angeles to Beirut, Northern Ireland and South Africa. But Gates predicted ultimate success in suppressing a surge of violence.

“We’re going to stop gang violence,” Gates declared. “Whatever it takes, we’re going to do it.” The chief has vowed to deploy the officers whether or not the council provides the money.

The new task force could be on the streets this weekend, police said, but no details were given on exactly when and where the officers would be deployed.

“We don’t intend to telegraph our punch,” Assistant Chief Jesse T. Brewer told the council committee. “That is being kept under wraps right now.”

Gates called for the 1,000-officer detail Saturday after a Friday night drive-by shooting incident in South-Central Los Angeles. Two suspected gang members fired more than 20 shots into a crowd of people, killing 19-year-old Stacy Childress and wounding eight others, police said. Moments earlier, they had wounded two other people nearby, police said.

The shootings came hours after Gates had announced that gang violence was decreasing because of a series of anti-gang sweeps involving 200 to 300 officers. When the shootings occurred, one of those special task forces was attending roll call at the Memorial Coliseum a few blocks north.

1,203 Recent Arrests

Since Feb. 26, the smaller gang task forces, deployed sporadically, have made 1,203 arrests, including 996 arrests of gang members, according to police statistics.

Gates said he is confident police efforts will succeed because “this is somewhat a war of attrition.”

The sweeps target neighborhoods known to have heavy concentrations of gang members. Some officers are sent to specific addresses, where police suspect drug-dealing is taking place, to serve search warrants. Officers stop and interrogate anyone who they suspect is a gang member, basing their assumptions on their dress or their use of gang hand signs.

When 1,000 officers hit the streets, it will be a formidable show of strength, Gates said. Gangsters will think: “This place is hot . . . let’s get out of town,” the chief predicted.

The $2.45-million overtime funding plan includes $1.3 million to intensify gang enforcement for six weeks and $1.15 million to continue current overtime funding to address citywide crime problems.

“We want to give them the tools,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Finance Committee. “If it works, we’re going to give them more. If it doesn’t work, at least we tried.”

Police say the 1,000-officer sweep will be accomplished without a reduction in regular patrols elsewhere in the city. Officers will be working 12-hour shifts instead of the usual 8 hours, police say.

In announcing the funding plan, Yaroslavsky said Los Angeles police are “fighting a war on gang violence, on homicide that’s worse than Beirut, Lebanon.” Gates, responding to reporters’ questions, compared the violence of Los Angeles gangs involved in the drug trade to the political violence in Beirut, Northern Ireland and South Africa.

In 1987, police reported 817 homicides in Los Angeles--a 3.7% reduction from the previous year. But gang-related slayings numbered a record 205.

“I assure you there were not 800 homicides in Beirut,” Yaroslavsky said at the press conference. “How many of you want to take a round trip to Beirut today? I don’t want our city to gain . . . that kind of reputation. And yet, statistically, we’re there.”