Big Boost in Overtime OKd for Gang Sweeps

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved $4.5 million in additional police overtime to pay for more large-scale crackdowns on street gangs.

While the vote was unanimous, it was not without controversy. Several council members said they wanted the police to demonstrate that the anti-gang sweeps will have some lasting impact in the city’s most crime-ridden areas. Several also were concerned that gang activity would continue unless authorities achieved a high conviction rate.

The $4.5 million approved by the City Council was $2 million more than the council’s Finance Committee had approved just last week for police overtime. The original amount would have provided overtime pay for about six weeks; the new figure until June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the funding boost to $4.45 million, said police need the additional money now while they have various task forces operating.

‘Too Early to Tell’

“I think it’s way too early to tell what the impact of the police sweeps is going to be, but I think it is by far the most aggressive program that has been tried,” Yaroslavsky said. “And they ought to be given the opportunity to clean up gang problems.”

The overtime program is a continuation of one begun last year to help fight gang-related drug activity. On Feb. 9, the council approved a $2.2-million outlay for two months of overtime. Police officials said then that more funds would be needed by the end of the fiscal year to keep the program going.

Maureen Siegel, an assistant city attorney overseeing criminal cases, said that as of Tuesday afternoon, 67 cases involving misdemeanor arrests arising from the sweeps had been referred to prosecutors. Twenty were rejected.

She explained that cases are rejected because of insufficient evidence, or other defects in the case, such as lack of “probable cause” for the arrest.

Processing of misdemeanor cases, which involved most of last weekend’s arrests, will continue as police refer them to the city attorney’s office, she said.

In addition to the misdemeanor cases, police made 204 adult felony and 41 juvenile felony arrests. A total of 794 suspected gang members were among the 1,453 people arrested last weekend, police reported.

Impact of Publicity

Councilman Richard Alatorre indicated that he wondered whether publicity had diminished the impact of sweeps Thursday and Friday that put a thousand officers on the streets, resulting in the 1,453 arrests.

Alatorre said “it was disturbing” that one newspaper had pinpointed precise areas where officers would focus their attention in the crackdown. If he were a gang member reading about the upcoming sweeps, Alatorre said, he would “just sit it out and as soon as the heat’s off, I’d go back to business as usual.”

Assistant Chief Robert Vernon did not respond directly to Alatorre. But after the vote, Vernon acknowledged to reporters that the sweeps might have been more effective if the target areas had not been leaked to the news media. Vernon said that at least one officer was disciplined for disclosing the targeted areas.

“I was, frankly, very angry,” Vernon said. “And I took appropriate disciplinary action. I suspect a lot of (officers) didn’t realize the significance (of leaking the precise locations).” He would not say if any other officers had been disciplined.

On the county level, meanwhile, Sheriff Sherman Block told the Board of Supervisors that his department not only lacks the funds to deploy 1,000 officers for an all-out blitz against gangs but that he also favors a low-profile approach.

Asked by the supervisors to evaluate the effectiveness of the weekend police sweeps, Block refrained from criticizing the Los Angeles Police Department and said high- and low-profile approaches may be needed to curb the gang problem.

“I don’t think that comparing the two approaches is appropriate,” Block said, “but I think a high visibility does have a suppressant effect. . . . The question is how long can you maintain that effort, which I think is a question that has to be asked. And how long can we afford to maintain such an effort?”

Noticeable Decline

Block said the county’s recent decision to add 75 deputies to the sheriff’s anti-gang campaign has resulted in a noticeable decline in gang-related felonies and more arrests of suspected gang members.

With the additional officers, the number of violent felonies reported by the four South-Central Los Angeles sheriff’s stations handling the most gang problems declined. Block said deputies reported 17% fewer violent incidents between March 1 and April 10, compared to the same period in 1987.

Since the start of the year, sheriff’s deputies have arrested 727 people linked to gangs from Jan. 1 to April 10, compared to 437 during the same period a year earlier, he added. So far this year, however, gang-related murders in the county’s unincorporated areas have climbed from 22 to 33, with 26 of those in the four South-Central areas, Block added.

Block said that despite the increased numbers of killings, the county’s decision two months ago to spend $1.5 million for more sheriff’s deputies has begun to have a “significant impact” on gang violence in the county.